title: Peter Cushing

text: Although most well known for his roles in the "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" films, Cushing appeared in a wide variety of other Hammer productions during this time. Both he and his wife feared Cushing would become typecast into horror roles, but he continued to take them because they guaranteed regular work. He appeared in the horror film "The Abominable Snowman" (1957), a Hammer adaptation of a BBC Nigel Kneale television play "The Creature" (1955) which Cushing had also starred in. He portrayed an English botanist searching the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti. Director Val Guest said he was particularly impressed with Cushing's preparation and ability to plan which props to best use to enhance his performance, so much so that Cushing started to become known as "Props Peter". Cushing and Lee appeared together in the Hammer horror "The Mummy" (1959), with Cushing as the archaeologist John Banning and Lee as the antagonist Kharis. Cushing saw a promotional poster for "The Mummy" that showed Lee's character with a large hole in his chest, allowing a beam of light to pass through his body. There was no reference to such an injury in the film script, and when he asked the publicity department why it was on the poster, they said it was simply meant to serve as a shocking image to promote the movie. During filming he asked director Terence Fisher for permission to drive a harpoon through the mummy's body during a fight scene, to explain the poster image. Fisher agreed, and the scene was used in the film.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Around the same time, he portrayed the detective Sherlock Holmes in the Hammer production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (also 1959), an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name. He once again co-starred opposite Lee, who portrayed the aristocratic Sir Henry Baskerville. A huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, Cushing was highly anxious to play the character, and reread the novels in anticipation of the role. Hammer decided to heighten the source novel's horror elements, which upset the estate of Conan Doyle, but Cushing himself voiced no objection to the creative licence because he felt the character of Holmes himself remained intact. However, when producer Anthony Hinds proposed removing the character's deerstalker, Cushing insisted they remain because audiences associated Holmes with his headgear and pipes. Cushing prepared extensively for the role, studying the novel and taking notes in his script. He scrutinised the costumes and screenwriter Peter Bryan's script, often altering words or phrases. Lee later claimed to be awestruck by Cushing's ability to incorporate many different props and actions into his performance simultaneously, whether reading, smoking a pipe, drinking whiskey, filing through papers or other things while portraying Holmes. In later years, Cushing considered his Holmes performance one of the finest accomplishments of his career. Cushing drew generally mixed reviews: "Film Daily" called it a "tantalising performance" and "Time Out" David Pirie called it "one of his very best performances", while the "Monthly Film Bulletin" called him "tiresomely mannered and too lightweight" and BBC Television's Barry Norman said he "didn't quite capture the air of know-all arrogance that was the great detective's hallmark". "The Hound of the Baskervilles" was originally conceived as the first in a series of Sherlock Holmes films, but eventually no sequels were made.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Immediately upon completion of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", Cushing was offered the lead role in the Hammer film "The Man Who Could Cheat Death" (1959), a remake of "The Man in Half Moon Street" (1945). Cushing turned it down, in part because he did not like the script by Jimmy Sangster, and the lead role was taken instead by Anton Diffring. Cushing next appeared for Hammer when he played the Sheriff of Nottingham in the adventure film "Sword of Sherwood Forest" (1960), which starred Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood. It was filmed on location in County Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland. The next year, Cushing starred as an Ebenezer Scrooge-like manager of a bank being robbed in the Hammer thriller film "Cash on Demand" (1961). Cushing considered this among the favourites of his films, and some critics believed it to be among his best performances, although it was one of the least seen films from his career. He appeared in the Hammer film "Captain Clegg" (1962), known in the United States as "Night Creatures". Cushing starred as Parson Blyss, the local reverend of an 18th-century English coastal town believed to be hiding his smuggling activities with reports of ghosts. The film was roughly based on the Doctor Syn novels by Russell Thorndike. Cushing read Thorndike to prepare for the role, and made suggestions to make-up artist Roy Ashton about Blyss' costume and hairstyle. Cushing and director Peter Graham Scott did not get along well during filming and at one point, when the two were having a disagreement on set, Cushing turned to cameraman Len Harris and said, "Take no notice Len. We've done enough of these now to know what we're doing."


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing and Lee appeared together in the horror film "The Gorgon" (1964), about the female snake-haired Gorgon character from Greek mythology and in "She" (1965), about a lost realm ruled by the immortal queen Ayesha, played by Ursula Andress. Cushing later appeared in "The Vampire Lovers" (1970), an erotic Hammer horror film about a lesbian vampire, adapted in part from the Sheridan Le Fanu novella "Carmilla". The next year he was set to star in a sequel, "Lust for a Vampire" (1971), but had to drop out because his wife was ill and Ralph Bates substituted. However, Cushing was able to star in "Twins of Evil" (also 1971), a prequel of sorts to "The Vampire Lovers", as Gustav Weil, the leader of a group of religious puritans trying to stamp out witchcraft and satanism. Among his final Hammer roles was "Fear in the Night" (1972), where he played a one-armed school headmaster apparently terrorising the protagonist, played by Judy Geeson.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Although best known for his Hammer performances from the 1950s to the 1970s, Cushing worked in a variety of other roles during this time, and actively sought roles outside the horror genre to diversify his work. In an interview published in "ABC Film Review" in November 1964, Cushing stated, "People look at me as if I were some sort of monster, but I can't think why. In my macabre pictures, I have either been a monster-maker or a monster-destroyer, but never a monster. Actually, I'm a gentle fellow. Never harmed a fly. I love animals, and when I'm in the country I'm a keen bird-watcher." In an interview published in 1966, he added, "I do get terribly tired with the neighbourhood kids telling me 'My mum says she wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley'." He continued to perform in occasional stage productions, such as Robert E. MacEnroe's "The Silver Whistle" at Westminster's Duchess Theatre in 1956. Around the same time, he appeared in the film "Alexander the Great" (1956) as the Athenian General Memnon of Rhodes. In 1959, Cushing originally planned to appear in the lead role of William Fairchild's play "The Sound of Murder", while shooting a film at the same time. The hectic schedule became overbearing for Cushing, who had to drop out of the play and resolved to never again attempt a film and play simultaneously.


title: Peter Cushing

text: He appeared in the biographical epic film "John Paul Jones" (1959), in which Robert Stack played the title role of the American naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Cushing became very ill with dysentery during filming and lost a considerable amount of weight as a result. Cushing played Robert Knox in "The Flesh and the Fiends" (1960), based on the true story of the doctor who purchased human corpses for research from the serial killer duo Burke and Hare. Cushing had previously stated Knox was one of his role models in developing his portrayal of Baron Frankenstein. The film was called "Mania" in its American release. Cushing appeared in several films released in 1961, including "Fury at Smugglers' Bay", an adventure film about pirates scavenging ships off the English coastline; "The Hellfire Club", where he played a lawyer helping a young man expose a cult; and "The Naked Edge", a British-American thriller about a woman who suspects her husband framed another man for murder. The latter film starred Deborah Kerr, Cushing's co-star from "The End of the Affair", and Gary Cooper, one of Cushing's favourite actors. In 1965, Cushing appeared in the Ben Travers farce play "Thark" at Westminster's Garrick Theatre. It was his final stage performance for a decade, but he continued to stay active in film and television during this period.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing took the lead role in two science fiction films by AARU Productions based on the British television series, "Doctor Who". Although Cushing's protagonist was derived from television scripts used for First Doctor serials, his portrayal of the character differed in the fact that Cushing's Dr. Who was a human being, whereas the original Doctor as portrayed on TV by William Hartnell was extraterrestrial. Cushing played the role in "Dr. Who and the Daleks" (1965) and "Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D." (1966).


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing later starred in the fifteen-episode BBC television series "Sherlock Holmes", once again reprising his role as the title character with Nigel Stock as Watson, though only six episodes now survive. The episodes aired in 1968. Douglas Wilmer had previously played Holmes for the BBC, but he turned down the part in this series due to the extremely demanding filming schedule. Fourteen days of rehearsal was originally scheduled for each episode, but they were cut down to ten days for economic reasons. Many actors turned down the role as a result, but Cushing accepted, and the BBC believed his Hammer Studios persona would bring what they called a sense of "lurking horror and callous savagery" to the series. Production lasted from May to December, and Cushing adopted a strict regimen of training, preparation and exercise. He tried to keep his performance identical to his portrayal of Holmes from "The Hound of the Baskervilles". Although the series proved popular, Cushing felt he could not give his best performance under the hectic schedule, and he was not pleased with the final result.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing appeared in a handful of horror films by the independent Amicus Productions, including "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (1965), as a man who could see into the future using Tarot cards; "The Skull" (1965), as a professor who became possessed by a spiritual force embodied within a skull; and "Torture Garden" (1967), as a collector of Edgar Allan Poe relics who is robbed and murdered by a rival. Cushing also appeared in non-Amicus horror films like "Island of Terror" (1966) and "The Blood Beast Terror" (1968), in both of which he investigates a series of mysterious deaths. He appeared in "Corruption" (1968), a film that was billed as so horrific that "no woman will be admitted alone" into theatres to see it. Cushing played a surgeon who attempts to restore the beauty of his wife (played by Sue Lloyd), whose face is horribly scarred in an accident.


title: Peter Cushing

text: In July 1969, Cushing appeared as the straight man in "The Morecambe & Wise Show", the British comedy series. In the skit, Cushing portrayed King Arthur, while the other two gave comedic portrayals of characters like Merlin and the knights of the Round Table. Cushing continued to make occasional cameos in the series over the next decade, portraying himself desperately attempting to collect a payment for his previous acting appearance on the show. Cushing and Lee made cameos as their old roles of Frankenstein and Dracula in the comedy "One More Time" (1970), which starred Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. The single scene took only one morning of filming, which Cushing agreed to after Davis asked him to do it as a favour. The next year, Cushing appeared in "I, Monster" (1971), which was adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", alongside Lee as the Jekyll/Hyde figure. Later that year he was set to appear in "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971), an adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel "The Jewel of Seven Stars". He was forced to withdraw from the film to care for his wife, and was ultimately replaced by Andrew Keir.


title: Peter Cushing

text: In 1971, Cushing contacted the Royal National Institute for the Blind and offered to provide voice acting for some of their audiobooks. They immediately accepted, and among the works Cushing recorded was "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", a collection of thirteen one-hour stories. He appeared alongside Vincent Price in "Dr. Phibes Rises Again!" (1972), a sequel to "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", and then co-starred with Price again in the film "Madhouse" (1974). Cushing continued to appear in several Amicus Productions films during this period, including "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), "From Beyond the Grave" (1973), "And Now the Screaming Starts!" (1973), and "The Beast Must Die" (1974).


title: Peter Cushing

text: For "Tales from the Crypt", an anthology film made up of several horror segments, Cushing was offered the part of a ruthless businessman but did not like the part and turned down the role. Instead, Cushing asked to play Arthur Grymsdyke, a kind, working-class widower who gets along well with the local children, but falls subject to a smear campaign by his snobbish neighbours. Eventually, the character is driven to commit suicide, but returns from the grave to seek revenge against his tormentors. After Cushing was cast in the role, several changes were made to the script at his suggestion. Originally, all of the character's lines were spoken aloud to himself, but Cushing suggested he speak to a framed photo of his deceased wife instead, and director Freddie Francis agreed. Cushing used the emotions from the recent loss of his wife to add authenticity to the widower character's grieving. Make-up artist Roy Ashton designed the costume and make-up Cushing wore when he rose from the dead, but the actor helped Ashton develop the costume, and donned a pair of false teeth that he previously used in a disguise during the "Sherlock Holmes" television series. His performance in "Tales from the Crypt" won him the Best Male Actor award at the 1971 French Convention of Fantasy Cinema in France.


title: Peter Cushing

text: In 1975, Cushing was anxious to return to the stage, where he had not performed in ten years. Around this time he learned that Helen Ryan, an actress who impressed him in a televised play about King Edward VII, was planning to run the Horseshoe Theatre in Basingstoke with her husband, Guy Slater. Cushing wrote to the couple and suggested they stage "The Heiress", a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, with Cushing himself in the lead role. Ryan and Slater agreed, and Cushing later said performing the part was his most pleasant experience since his wife had died four years earlier. Cushing also starred in several horror films released in 1975. Among them were "Land of the Minotaur", where he played Baron Corofax, the evil leader of a Satanic cult opposed by a priest played by Donald Pleasence. Another was "The Ghoul", where he played a former priest hiding his cannibalistic son in an attic. That film marked the first Cushing worked for producer Kevin Francis, who worked in minor jobs at Hammer and had long aspired to work with Cushing, whom he admired deeply. They went on to make two other films together, "Legend of the Werewolf" (1975) and "The Masks of Death" (1984) with the actor playing Sherlock Holmes once more. Cushing appeared in the television film "The Great Houdini" (1976) as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Cushing wrote the forewords to two books about the detective: Peter Haining's "Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook" (1974) and "Holmes of the Movies: The Screen Career of Sherlock Holmes" (1976), by David Stuart Davies. Cushing also appeared in the horror film "The Uncanny" (1977).


title: Peter Cushing

text: Film director George Lucas approached Cushing with the hopes of casting the actor in his upcoming space fantasy film, "Star Wars". Since the film's primary antagonist Darth Vader wore a mask throughout the entire film and his face was never visible, Lucas felt a strong human villain character was necessary. This led Lucas to write the character of Grand Moff Tarkin: a high-ranking Imperial governor and commander of the planet-destroying battlestation, the Death Star. Lucas felt a talented actor was needed to play the role and said Cushing was his first choice for the part. However, Cushing has claimed that Lucas originally approached him to play the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, and only decided to cast him as Tarkin instead after the two met each other. Cushing said he would have preferred to play Kenobi rather than Tarkin, but could not have done so because he was to be filming other movie roles when "Star Wars" was shooting, and Tarkin's scenes took less time to film than those of the larger Kenobi role. Although not a particular fan of science fiction, Cushing accepted the part because he believed his audience would love "Star Wars" and enjoy seeing him in the film.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing joined the cast in May 1976, and his scenes were filmed at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. Along with Alec Guinness, who was ultimately cast as Kenobi, Cushing was among the best known actors at the time to appear in "Star Wars", as the rest of the cast were then relatively unknown. As a result, Cushing was paid a larger daily salary than most of his fellow cast, earning £2,000 per day compared to weekly salaries of $1,000 for Mark Hamill, $850 for Carrie Fisher and $750 for Harrison Ford, who played protagonists Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo, respectively. When Cushing smoked between shots, he wore a white glove so the make-up artists would not have to deal with nicotine stains on his fingers. Like Guinness, Cushing had difficulty with some of the technical jargon in his dialogue, and claimed he did not understand all of the words he was speaking. Nevertheless, he worked hard to master the lines so they sounded natural and that his character appeared intelligent and confident.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing got along well with the entire cast, especially his old co-star David Prowse who played Darth Vader and Carrie Fisher, who was appearing in her first major role as Princess Leia Organa. The scene in which Tarkin and Organa appear together on the Death Star, just before the destruction of the planet Alderaan, was the first scene with major dialogue that Fisher filmed for "Star Wars". Cushing consciously attempted to define their characters as opposite representations of good and evil, and the actor purposely stood in the shadows so the light shone on Fisher's face. Fisher said she liked Cushing so much that it was difficult to act as though she hated Tarkin, and she had to substitute somebody else in her mind to muster the feelings. Although one of her lines referred to Tarkin's "foul stench," she said the actual actor smelled like "linen and lavender," something Cushing attributed to his tendency to wash and brush his teeth thoroughly before filming because of his self-consciousness about bad breath.


title: Peter Cushing

text: During the filming of "Star Wars", Cushing was provided with a pair of boots far too small to accommodate the actor's size twelve feet. This caused a great deal of pain for him during shooting, but the costume designers did not have enough time to get him another pair. As a result, he asked Lucas to film more close-up shots of him from the waist up and, after the director agreed, Cushing wore slippers during the scenes where his feet were not visible. During rehearsals, Lucas originally planned for Tarkin and Vader to use a giant screen filled with computerised architectural representations of hallways to monitor the whereabouts of Skywalker, Solo and Organa. Although the idea was ultimately abandoned before filming began, Cushing and Prowse rehearsed those scenes in a set built by computer animation artist Larry Cuba. The close-up shots of Cushing aboard the Death Star, shown right before the battlestation is destroyed, were actually extra footage taken from previously-shot scenes with Cushing that did not make the final film. During production, Lucas decided to add those shots, along with second unit footage of the Death Star gunners preparing to fire, to add more suspense to the film's space battle scenes.


title: Peter Cushing

text: When "Star Wars" was first released in 1977, most preliminary advertisements touted Cushing's Tarkin as the primary antagonist of the film, not Vader; Cushing was extremely pleased with the final film, and he claimed his only disappointment was that Tarkin was killed and could not appear in the subsequent sequels. The film gave Cushing the highest amount of visibility of his entire career, and helped inspire younger audiences to watch his older films.


title: Peter Cushing

text: For the film "Rogue One" (2016), CGI and digitally-repurposed-archive footage were used to insert Cushing's likeness from the original movie over the face of actor Guy Henry. Henry provided the on-set capture and voice work with the reference material augmented and mapped over his performance like a digital body-mask. Cushing's estate owners were heavily involved with the creation which took place more than twenty years after Cushing died. This extensive use of CGI to "resurrect" an actor who had died many years earlier created a great deal of controversy about the ethics of using a deceased actor's likeness. Joyce Broughton, Cushing's former secretary, had approved recreating Cushing in the film. After attending the London premiere, she was reportedly "taken aback" and "dazzled" with the effect of seeing Cushing on screen again.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Toward the end of his career, Cushing performed in films and roles critics widely considered below his talent. Director John Carpenter approached him to appear in the horror film "Halloween" (1978) as Samuel Loomis, the psychiatrist of murderer Michael Myers, but Cushing turned down the role. It was also turned down by Christopher Lee, and eventually went to Donald Pleasence, another of Cushing's former co-stars. Cushing appeared alongside his old co-stars Christopher Lee and Vincent Price in "House of the Long Shadows" (1983), a horror-parody film featuring Desi Arnaz, Jr. as an author trying to write a gothic novel in a deserted Welsh mansion.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing appeared in the television film "The Masks of Death" (1984), marking both the last time he played detective Sherlock Holmes and the final performance for which he received top billing. He appeared alongside actor John Mills as Watson, and the two were noted by critics for their strong chemistry and camaraderie. As both actors were in their seventies, screenwriter N.J. Crisp and executive producer Kevin Francis both in turn sought to portray them as two old-fashioned men in a rapidly changing world. Cushing's biographer Tony Earnshaw said Cushing's performance in "The Masks of Death" was arguably the actor's best interpretation of the role, calling it "the culmination of a life-time as a Holmes fan, and more than a quarter of a century of preparation to play the most complex of characters". The final notable roles of Cushing's career were in the comedy "Top Secret!" (1984), the fantasy film "Sword of the Valiant" (also 1984) and the adventure film "" (1986). In 1986, he appeared on the British television show "Jim'll Fix It", hosted by Jimmy Savile, in which it was arranged for the wishes of guests to be granted. Cushing wished for a strain of rose to be named after his wife, and it was arranged for the Helen Cushing Rose to be grown at the Wheatcroft Rose Garden in Edwalton, Nottinghamshire.


title: Peter Cushing

text: During this period, Cushing was honoured by the British Film Institute, which invited him in 1986 to give a lecture at the National Film Theatre. He also staged "An Evening with Peter Cushing" at St. Edmund's Public School in Canterbury to raise money for the local Cancer Care Unit. In 1987, a watercolour painting Cushing painted was accepted by Prince Edward and auctioned at a charity event he organised to raise funds for The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. Also that year, a sketch Cushing drew of Sherlock Holmes was accepted as the official logo of the Northern Musgraves Sherlock Holmes Society.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing wrote two autobiographies, "Peter Cushing: An Autobiography" (1986) and "Past Forgetting: Memoirs of the Hammer Years" (1988). Cushing wrote the books as what he called "a form of therapy to stop me going stark, raving mad" following the loss of his wife. His old friend and co-star John Mills encouraged him to publish his memoirs as a way of overcoming the reclusive state Cushing had placed himself into following her death. In 1989 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the British film industry. Cushing also wrote a children's book called "The Bois Saga", a story based on the history of England. Published in 1994, it was originally written specifically for the daughter of Cushing's long-time secretary and friend Joyce Broughton, to help her overcome reading problems resulting from her dyslexia. It was Broughton who encouraged Cushing to have the book published. His final acting job was narrating, along with Christopher Lee, the Hammer Films documentary "Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror" (1994), which was recorded only a few weeks before his death. Produced by American writer and director Ted Newsom, his contribution was recorded in Canterbury, near his home. Lee recognised Cushing's health was fading and did his best to keep his friend's spirits up, but Lee later claimed he had a premonition that it would be the last time he saw Cushing alive, which proved to be true.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing had a variety of interests outside acting, including collecting and battling model soldiers, of which he owned over five thousand. He hand-painted many and used the "Little Wars" rule set by H. G. Wells for miniature wargaming. He also loved games and practical jokes, and enjoyed drawing and painting watercolours, the latter of which he did especially often in his later years.


title: Peter Cushing

text: After his wife's death, Cushing visited several churches and spoke to religious ministers, but was dissatisfied by their reluctance to discuss death and the afterlife, and never joined an organized religion. He nevertheless maintained a belief in both God and an afterlife. He was an ardent vegetarian for most of his life who served as a patron with the Vegetarian Society from 1987 until his death. He also had a great interest in ornithology and wildlife in general. He suffered from nyctophobia from early in his life, but in his later years overcame this by forcing himself to take walks outside after midnight.


title: Peter Cushing

text: Cushing was known among his colleagues for his gentle and gentlemanly demeanour, as well as his professionalism and rigorous preparation as an actor. He once said that he learned his parts "from cover to cover" before filming began. His co-stars and colleagues often spoke of his politeness, charm, old-fashioned manners and sense of humour. While working, he actively provided feedback and suggestions on other elements beyond his performance, such as dialogue and wardrobe. At times, this put him at odds with writers and producers; Hammer Studios producer Anthony Hinds once declared him a "fusspot [and] terrible fusser about his wardrobe and everything, but never a difficult man."


title: Peter Cushing

text: Although he appeared in both television and stage productions, Cushing preferred the medium of film, which allowed his perfectionist nature to work out the best performance possible. He did not enjoy the repetitive nature of stage performances, and once compared it to a painter being forced to paint the same picture every day. Cushing himself was not a particular fan of horror or science fiction films, but he tended to choose roles not based on whether he enjoyed them, but whether he felt his audience would enjoy him in them. However, Cushing was very proud of his experiences with the Hammer films, and never resented becoming known as a horror actor. He always took the roles seriously and never portrayed them in a campy or tongue-in-cheek style because he felt it would be insulting to his audience.


title: Peter Cushing

text: On 10 April 1943, Cushing married Violet Hélène Beck, sister of Reginald Beck.<ref name="petercushing/helen"></ref>


title: Peter Cushing

text: In 1971 Cushing's wife died of emphysema. Cushing often said he felt his life had ended when hers did, and he was so crushed that when his first autobiography was published in 1986, it made no mention of his life after her death. In 1972, he was quoted in the "Radio Times" as having said, "Since Helen passed on I can't find anything; the heart, quite simply, has gone out of everything. Time is interminable, the loneliness is almost unbearable and the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that my dear Helen and I will be reunited again some day. To join Helen is my only ambition. You have my permission to publish that ... really, you know, dear boy, it's all just killing time. Please say that."


title: Peter Cushing

text: In his autobiography, Cushing implies that he attempted suicide on the night of his wife's death by running up and down stairs in the vain hope that it would induce a heart attack. He later stated that this had simply been a hysterical response borne out of grief, and that he had not purposely attempted to end his life; a poem left by Helen had implored him not to die until he had lived his life to the full.


title: Peter Cushing

text: The effects of his wife's death proved to be as much physical as mental. For his role in "Dracula A.D. 1972", Cushing (who was 58) had originally been cast as the father of Stephanie Beacham's character, but had aged so visibly and lost so much weight that the script was hastily rewritten to make him her grandfather: it was done again in the last Dracula film from Hammer, "The Satanic Rites of Dracula". In a silent tribute to Helen, a shot of Van Helsing's desk includes a photograph of her. He repeated the role of the man who lost family in other horror films, including "Asylum" (1972), "The Creeping Flesh" (1973), and "The Ghoul" (1975).


title: Peter Cushing

text: In May 1982, Cushing was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was rushed to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital when his left eye had swollen to nearly three times its normal size, a side effect of the cancer. Doctors determined he had twelve to eighteen months to live, and that his left eye might be lost. To their surprise, however, Cushing recovered well enough to be released from the hospital, and although his health continued to gradually decline, Cushing lived another twelve years without any operative treatment or chemotherapy. During this period, he lived with Joyce Broughton and her family at their homes in Hartley, Kent. In August 1994, Cushing entered himself into Pilgrims Hospice in Canterbury, where he died on 11 August at 81 years old. In accordance with his wishes, Cushing had a low-profile funeral with family and friends, although hundreds of fans and well-wishers came to Canterbury to pay their respects. In January 1995, a memorial service was held in The Actor's Church in Covent Garden, with addresses given by Christopher Lee, Kevin Francis, Ron Moody and James Bree. In total, Cushing appeared in more than 100 films throughout his career.


title: Peter Cushing

text: In an interview included on the DVD release of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), Lee said of his friend's death: Several filmmakers and actors have claimed to be influenced by Peter Cushing, including actor Doug Bradley, who played Pinhead in the "Hellraiser" horror films, and John Carpenter, who directed such films as "Halloween" (1978), "Escape from New York" (1981) and "The Thing" (1982). Director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp both said the portrayal of Ichabod Crane in "Sleepy Hollow" was intended to resemble that of Cushing's old horror film performances.


title: Peter Cushing

text: In 2008, fourteen years after his death, Cushing's image was used in a set of stamps issued by the Royal Mail honouring Hammer Studios films on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of "Dracula". In 2013, Cushing was honoured by the Royal Mail as one of ten people selected for their "Great Britons" commemorative postage stamp issue.


title: Charlie Murphy (actress)

text: Murphy was born in Enniscorthy, the daughter of hair salon owners Brenda and Pat Murphy. She has five siblings. The family moved to Wexford when she was 12 years old.


title: Charlie Murphy (actress)

text: She performed the role of Siobhán Delaney in the RTÉ drama series "Love/Hate", for which she won Best TV Actress at the 2013 Irish Film and Television Award, and Best Actress in a Lead Role at the 2015 Irish Film and Television Awards. She won a further two IFTA Awards in 2017, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Ann Gallagher in the BBC One drama series "Happy Valley", and in 2018 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Jessie Eden in the BBC One historical crime drama series "Peaky Blinders".


title: Mazda

text: , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan.


title: Mazda

text: In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one million) were produced in the company's Japanese plants, with the remainder coming from a variety of other plants worldwide. During this time, Mazda was the 15th-largest automaker in terms of production globally.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda began as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd, as a cork-making factory founded in Hiroshima, Japan, 30 January 1920. Toyo Cork Kogyo renamed itself to Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd. in 1927. In the late 1920s the company had to be saved from bankruptcy by Hiroshima Saving Bank and other business leaders in Hiroshima.


title: Mazda

text: In 1931, Toyo Kogyo moved from manufacturing machine tools to vehicles with the introduction of the Mazda-Go auto rickshaw. The name "Mazda" came into existence with the production of the company's first three-wheeled trucks. Other candidates for a model name included "Sumera-Go", "Tenshi-Go", and more.


title: Mazda

text: The company's website further notes that the name also derives from the name of the company's founder, Jujiro Matsuda. The alternative proposed names mean "god" ("Sumera") and "angel" ("Tenshi"); both indicate Matsuda's strong interest in human faith.


title: Mazda

text: The Mazda lettering was used in combination with the corporate emblem of Mitsubishi Motors, which was responsible for sales, to produce the Toyo Kogyo three-wheeled truck registered trademark.


title: Mazda

text: Toyo Kogyo produced weapons for the Japanese military throughout the Second World War, most notably the series 30 through 35 Type 99 rifle. The company formally adopted the Mazda name in 1984, though every automobile sold from the beginning bore that name. The Mazda R360 was introduced in 1960, followed by the Mazda Carol in 1962 and were sold at a specific retail dealership that sold passenger cars called "Mazda Auto Store" whereas commercial products were sold at "Mazda Store". As Mazda continued to offer passenger cars like the Savanna, Familia, Luce, Cosmo and Capella, they were added to the "Mazda Auto Store" network only.


title: Mazda

text: Beginning in the 1960s, Mazda was inspired by the NSU Ro 80 and decided to put a major engineering effort into development of the Wankel rotary engine as a way of differentiating itself from other Japanese auto companies. The company formed a business relationship with German company NSU and began with the limited-production Cosmo Sport of 1967, and continuing to the present day with the Pro Mazda Championship, Mazda has become the sole manufacturer of Wankel-type engines for the automotive market, mainly by way of attrition. (NSU and Citroën both gave up on the design during the 1970s, and prototype Corvette efforts by General Motors never made it to production.)


title: Mazda

text: This effort to bring attention to itself apparently helped, as Mazda rapidly began to export its vehicles. Both piston-powered and rotary-powered models made their way around the world. The rotary models quickly became popular for their combination of good power and light weight when compared to piston-engined competitors that required heavier V6 or V8 engines to produce the same power. The R100 and the RX series (RX-2, RX-3, and RX-4) led the company's export efforts.


title: Mazda

text: During 1968, Mazda started formal operations in Canada (MazdaCanada) although Mazdas were seen in Canada as early as 1959. In 1970, Mazda formally entered the American market (Mazda North American Operations) and was very successful there, going so far as to create the Mazda Rotary Pickup (based on the conventional piston-powered B-Series model) solely for North American buyers. To this day, Mazda remains the only automaker to have produced a Wankel-powered pickup truck. Additionally, it is also the only marque to have ever offered a rotary-powered bus (the Mazda Parkway, offered only in Japan) or station wagon (within the RX-3 and RX-4 lines for certain markets). After nine years of development, Mazda finally launched its new model in the U.S. in 1970.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda's rotary success continued until the onset of the 1973 oil crisis. As American buyers (as well as those in other nations) quickly turned to vehicles with better fuel efficiency, the relatively thirsty rotary-powered models began to fall out of favor. Combined with being the least-efficient automaker in Japan (in terms of productivity), inability to adjust to excess inventory and over-reliance on the U.S. market, the company suffered a huge loss in 1975. An already heavily indebted Toyo Kogyo was on the verge of bankruptcy and was only saved through the intervention of Sumitomo keiretsu group, namely Sumitomo Bank, and the company's subcontractors and distributors. However, the company had not totally turned its back on piston engines, as it continued to produce a variety of four-cylinder models throughout the 1970s. The smaller Familia line in particular became very important to Mazda's worldwide sales after 1973, as did the somewhat larger Capella series.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda refocused its efforts and made the rotary engine a choice for the sporting motorist rather than a mainstream powerplant. Starting with the lightweight RX-7 in 1978 and continuing with the modern RX-8, Mazda has continued its dedication to this unique powerplant. This switch in focus also resulted in the development of another lightweight sports car, the piston-powered Mazda MX-5 Miata (sold as the Eunos and later Mazda Roadster in Japan), inspired by the concept 'jinba ittai'. Introduced in 1989 to worldwide acclaim, the Roadster has been widely credited with reviving the concept of the small sports car after its decline in the late 1970s.


title: Mazda

text: From 1974 to 2015, Mazda had a partnership with the Ford Motor Company, which acquired a 24.5% stake in 1979, upped to a 33.4% ownership of Mazda in May 1995. Under the administration of Alan Mulally, Ford gradually divested its stake in Mazda from 2008 to 2015, with Ford holding 2.1% of Mazda stock as of 2014 and severing most production as well as development ties.


title: Mazda

text: This partnership with Ford began owing to Mazda's financial difficulties during the 1960s. Starting in 1979 by expanding their 7 percent financial stake to 24.5%, Ford expanded an existing partnership with Mazda, resulting in various joint projects. The cooperation had begun in 1971 when the Mazda B-Series spawned a Ford Courier variant for North America, a version which was later offered in other markets as well. Mazda's Bongo and Titan cab-over trucks were sold with Ford badging in mainly Asia and the Pacific region beginning in 1976. These included large and small efforts in all areas of the automotive landscape, most notably in the realm of pickup trucks and smaller cars. Mazda began supplying manual transaxles to Ford in the spring of 1980. Mazda's Familia platform was used for Ford models like the Laser and Escort beginning in 1980, while the Capella architecture found its way into Ford's Telstar sedan and Probe sports models.


title: Mazda

text: During the 1980s, Ford-badged Mazda products replaced much of their own European-sourced lineup, especially in the Asia-Pacific markets, with the Laser replacing the Escort and the Telstar replacing the Cortina. In some cases, such as New Zealand and South Africa, these were assembled alongside their Mazda-badged equivalents, the Mazda 323 (Familia) and 626 (Capella).


title: Mazda

text: Following the closure of its own assembly plant in New Zealand, Mazda established a joint venture with Ford New Zealand known as Vehicle Assemblers of New Zealand (VANZ), while in South Africa, Ford's local subsidiary merged with Sigma Motor Corporation, which already assembled Mazdas in the country, to form Samcor, although the sharing of models proved unpopular with both Ford and Mazda customers. In other markets such as Australia, however, the 323 and 626 were always fully imported, with only the Laser and Telstar assembled locally. In Japan, the Laser and Telstar were also sold alongside their Mazda-badged brethren, but the Festiva was not sold as a Mazda 121 on the Japanese market.


title: Mazda

text: In North America, the Probe was built in a new Mazda company plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, along with the mainstream 626 sedan and a companion Mazda MX-6 sports coupe. Ford also lent Mazda some of its capacity when needed: the Mazda 121 sold in Europe and South Africa was, for a time, a variant of the Ford Fiesta built in plants in Europe and South Africa. Mazda also made an effort in the past to sell some of Ford's cars in Japan, mainly through its Autorama dealer group.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda also helped Ford develop the 1991 Explorer, which Mazda sold as the 2-door only Mazda Navajo from 1991 through 1994. However, Mazda's version was unsuccessful, while the Ford (available from the start as a 4-door or 2-door model) instantly became the best-selling sport-utility vehicle in the United States and kept that title for over a decade. Mazda has used Ford's Ranger pickup as the basis for its North American–market B-Series trucks, starting in 1994 and continuing through 2010, when Mazda discontinued importing its B-Series trucks to North America, due to costs associated with the chicken tax.


title: Mazda

text: Following its long-held fascination with alternative engine technology, Mazda introduced the first Miller cycle engine for automotive use in the Millenia luxury sedan of 1995. Though the Millenia (and its Miller-type V6 engine) were discontinued in 2002, the company has recently introduced a much smaller Miller-cycle four-cylinder engine for use in its Demio starting in 2008. As with its leadership in Wankel technology, Mazda remains (so far) the only automaker to have used a Miller-cycle engine in the automotive realm.


title: Mazda

text: Further financial difficulties at Mazda during the 1990s () caused Ford to increase its stake to a 33.4-percent controlling interest in May 1996. In June 1996, Henry Wallace was appointed president, and he set about restructuring Mazda and setting it on a new strategic direction. He laid out a new direction for the brand including the design of the present Mazda marque; he laid out a new product plan to achieve synergies with Ford, and he launched Mazda's digital innovation program to speed up the development of new products. At the same time, he started taking control of overseas distributors, rationalized dealerships and manufacturing facilities, and driving much-needed efficiencies and cost reductions in Mazda's operations. Much of his early work put Mazda back into profitability and laid the foundations for future success. Wallace was succeeded by James Miller in November 1997, followed in December 1999 by Ford executive Mark Fields, who has been credited with expanding Mazda's new product lineup and leading the turnaround during the early 2000s. Ford's increased influence during the 1990s allowed Mazda to claim another distinction in history, having maintained the first foreign-born head of a Japanese car company, Henry Wallace.


title: Mazda

text: Amid the world financial crisis in the fall of 2008, reports emerged that Ford was contemplating a sale of its stake in Mazda as a way of streamlining its asset base. "BusinessWeek" explained the alliance between Ford and Mazda has been a very successful one, with Mazda saving perhaps $90 million a year in development costs and Ford "several times" that, and that a sale of its stake in Mazda would be a desperate measure. On November 18, 2008, Ford announced that it would sell a 20% stake in Mazda, reducing its stake to 13.4%, thus surrendering control of the company, which it held since 1996. The following day, Mazda announced that, as part of the deal, it was buying back 6.8% of its shares from Ford for about US$185 million while the rest would be acquired by business partners of the company. It was also reported that Hisakazu Imaki would be stepping down as chief executive, to be replaced by Takashi Yamanouchi. On November 18, 2010, Ford reduced its stake further to 3%, citing the reduction of ownership would allow greater flexibility to pursue growth in emerging markets, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group was believed to become its largest shareholder. Ford and Mazda remained strategic partners through joint ventures and exchanges of technological information.


title: Mazda

text: On September 30, 2015, when Ford's shares had sunk to a little over 2% due to stock dilution, Ford sold its remaining shares in Mazda.


title: Mazda

text: In 2011, Mazda raised more than 150 billion yen (US$1.9 billion) in a record share sale to replenish capital, as it suffered its biggest annual loss in 11 years. Part of the proceeds were used to build an auto plant in Salamanca, Mexico. The Mexican plant was built jointly by the company and Sumitomo Corporation.


title: Mazda

text: In May 2015, the company signed an agreement with Toyota to form a "long-term partnership", that would, among others, see Mazda supply Toyota with fuel-efficient SkyActiv gasoline and diesel engine technology in exchange for hydrogen fuel cell systems.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda tried using a number of different marques in the Japanese (and occasionally Australian) markets in the 1990s, including Autozam, Eunos, and ɛ̃fini. The motivation was brought on by market competition from other Japanese automakers efforts in offering vehicles at multiple Japanese dealership networks offered by Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. Mazda's implementation of brand diversification reflected a Japanese engineering philosophy, called Kansei engineering, which was used as an advertising slogan in North America.


title: Mazda

text: One of the oddest sub-marques was M2, used on three rare variants of the Eunos Roadster (the M2-1001, M2-1002 and M2-1028) and one of the Autozam AZ-1 (M2-1015). M2 even had its own avant-garde company headquarters, but was shut down after a very short period of operation.


title: Mazda

text: In early 1992, Mazda planned to release a luxury marque, Amati, to challenge Acura, Infiniti, and Lexus in North America, which was to begin selling in late 1993. The initial Amati range would have included the Amati 500 (which became the Eunos 800 in Japan and Australia, Mazda Millenia in the U.S., and Mazda Xedos 9 in Europe), a rebadged version of the Mazda Cosmo and the Amati 1000 (a rear-wheel drive V12 competitor to the Lexus LS400). The Amati marque was eventually scrapped before any cars hit the market. It is perhaps just a curiosity, but "Amati" happens to be an anagram of "Miata".


title: Mazda

text: In Europe, the Xedos name was also associated with the Mazda Xedos 6, the two models were in production from 1992 until 1997. The Xedos line was marketed under the Mazda marque, and used the Mazda badge from the corresponding years.


title: Mazda

text: This diversification stressed the product development groups at Mazda past its limits. Instead of having a half-dozen variations on any given platform, developers were asked to work on dozens of different models at the same time. Consumers were confused as well by the explosion of similar new models. This selective marketing experiment was ended in the mid-1990s due to economic conditions, largely attributed to the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in 1991.


title: Mazda

text: North America is Mazda's biggest market. Mazda's market share in the U.S. fell to a 10-year low of 1.7 percent in 2016. Mazda's brand loyalty was 39 percent in 2016, below the industry average of 53 percent. On October 24, 2022, Mazda decided to get rid of assets in Russia, with the company transferring a stake in a joint venture in Vladivostok to Sollers JSC for 1 euro.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda has conducted research in hydrogen-powered vehicles for several decades.Mazda has developed a hybrid version of its Premacy compact minivan using a version of its signature rotary engine that can run on hydrogen or gasoline named the Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid. Despite plans to release it in 2008, as of 2010 the vehicle is in limited trials.


title: Mazda

text: In 2010, Toyota and Mazda announced a supply agreement for the hybrid technology used in Toyota's Prius model.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda is finding a host of alternative uses for a variety of materials and substances, ranging from plastic to milk, in its vehicles, as it aims to become more environmentally-friendly. Mazda introduced some of these innovations (bioplastic internal consoles and bio-fabric seats) in its Mazda5 model at EcoInnovasia 2008, at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok. Up to 30% of the interior parts in the Mazda5 are made of non-biomaterial components, e.g. Poti (gobar of cows).


title: Mazda

text: SkyActiv technology is an umbrella name for a range of technologies used in certain new Mazda vehicles. These vehicles include the Mazda2/Demio, Mazda3/Axela, Mazda6/Atenza, and CX-5. Together these technologies increase fuel economy to a level similar to a hybrid drivetrain. Engine output is increased and emission levels are reduced. These technologies include high compression ratio gasoline engines (13.0 to 1), reduced compression diesel engines (14.0 to 1) with new 2-stage turbocharger design, highly efficient automatic transmissions, lighter weight manual transmissions, lightweight body designs and electric power steering. It is also possible to combine these technologies with a hybrid drivetrain for even greater fuel economy.


title: Mazda

text: In the racing world, Mazda has had substantial success with both its signature Wankel-engine cars (in two-rotor, three-rotor, and four-rotor forms) as well as its piston-engine models. Mazda vehicles and engines compete in a wide variety of disciplines and series around the world. In 1991, Mazda became the first Japanese automaker to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda's competition debut was on October 20, 1968, when two Mazda Cosmo Sport 110S coupes entered the 84-hour Marathon de la Route ultra-endurance race at the Nürburgring, one finishing in fourth place and the other breaking an axle after 81 hours. The next year, Mazda raced Mazda Familia R100 M10A coupes. After winning the Singapore Grand Prix in April 1969 and coming in fifth and sixth in the Spa 24 Hours (beaten only by Porsche 911s), on October 19, 1969, Mazda again entered the 84 hour Nürburgring race with four Familias. Only one of these finished, taking fifth place.


title: Mazda

text: The first racing victory by a Wankel-engined car in the United States was in 1973, when Pat Bedard won an IMSA RS race at Lime Rock Park in a Mazda RX-2.


title: Mazda

text: In 1976, Ray Walle, owner of Z&W Mazda, drove a Cosmo (Mazda RX-5) from the dealership in Princeton, New Jersey, to Daytona, won the Touring Class Under 2.5 Liters at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and drove the car back to New Jersey. The Cosmo placed 18th overall in a field of 72. The only modifications were racing brake pads, exhaust, and safety equipment.


title: Mazda

text: After substantial successes by the Mazda RX-2 and Mazda RX-3, the Mazda RX-7 has won more IMSA races in its class than any other model of automobile, with its hundredth victory on September 2, 1990. Following that, the RX-7 won its class in the IMSA 24 Hours of Daytona race ten years in a row, starting in 1982. The RX-7 won the IMSA Grand Touring Under Two Liter (GTU) championship each year from 1980 through 1987, inclusive.


title: Mazda

text: In 1991, a four-rotor Mazda 787B (2622 cc actual, rated by FIA formula at 4708 cc) won the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race outright. The 787B's triumph remains unparalleled, as it remains the only non-piston-engined car ever to win at Le Mans, and Mazda is the first Japanese marque to have won overall at Le Mans (though Nissan had closed down its World Sportscar Championship programme and Toyota had opted to take a sabbatical for most of 1991 in order to develop its 3.5-litre TS010). This led to a ban on rotary engines in the Le Mans race starting in 1992, which has since been rescinded. After the 1991 race, the winning engine was publicly dismantled for internal examination, which demonstrated that despite 24 hours of extremely hard use it had accumulated very little wear.


title: Mazda

text: The Le Mans win in 1991 followed a decade of class wins from other Mazda prototypes, including the 757 and 767. The Sigma MC74 powered by a Mazda 12A engine was the first engine and team from outside Western Europe or the United States to finish the entire 24 hours of the Le Mans race, in 1974. Mazda is also the most reliable finisher at Le Mans (with the exception of Honda, which has entered only three cars in only one year), with 67% of entries finishing. Mazda returned to prototype racing in 2005 with the introduction of the Courage C65 LMP2 car at the American Le Mans Series race at Road Atlanta. This prototype racer uses the Renesis Wankel from the RX-8.


title: Mazda

text: Mazdas have also enjoyed substantial success in World Land Speed competition, SCCA competition, drag racing, pro rally competition (the Familia appeared in the WRC several times during the late '80s and early '90s), the One Lap of America race (winning SUV & truck in a MazdaSpeed5), and other venues. Wankel engines have been banned for some time from international Formula One racing, as well as from United States midget racing, after Gene Angelillo won the North East Midget Racing Association championship in 1985 with a car powered by a 13B engine, and again in 1986 in a car powered by a 12A engine.


title: Mazda

text: The Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda is a North American open wheel racing series. It is the top level of the MAZDASPEED ladder, a driver development program which rewards season winners of one level with automatic rides at the next level. Since 2006, the Atlantic Championship has been run exclusively with Swift 016.a chassis powered by Mazda-Cosworth MZR 2300 cc (2.3L) DOHC inline-4 engines producing . The cars are capable of speeds in excess of .


title: Mazda

text: Formula Mazda features open wheel race cars with Mazda engines, adaptable to both oval tracks and road courses, on several levels of competition. Since 1991, the professionally organized Pro Mazda Championship has been the most popular format for sponsors, spectators, and upward bound drivers. It is the second-highest level on the aforementioned Mazdaspeed driver development ladder. Engines for the Star Mazda series are all built by one engine builder, certified to produce the prescribed power, and sealed to discourage tampering. They are in a relatively mild state of racing tune, so that they are extremely reliable and can go years between motor rebuilds.


title: Mazda

text: Spec Miata has become one of the most popular and most affordable road racing classes in North America. The Spec Miata (SM) class is intended to provide the opportunity to compete in low-cost, production-based cars with limited modifications, suitable for racing competition. The rules are intentionally designed to be more open than the Showroom Stock class but more restricted than the Improved Touring class.


title: Mazda

text: Spec RX-7 is also a popular club racing class primarily due to the availability of first-generation RX7 cars and the low startup cost.


title: Mazda

text: The company also sponsors various marathon and relay race events in Japan, such as the Hiroshima International Peace Marathon and the Hiroshima Prefectural Ekiden Race, along with numerous other sporting and charity endeavors in Hiroshima and Hofu. Mazda was also the league sponsor for the now-defunct Australian Rugby Championship.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda maintained sponsorship of the Laguna Seca racing course in California from 2001 until February 2018, going so far as to use it for its own automotive testing purposes as well as the numerous racing events (including several Mazda-specific series) that it used to host, as well as for the 2003 launch of the Mazda RX-8. Since April 2018, the venue's primary corporate sponsor is WeatherTech.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda also sponsors the Western New York Flash, a professional women's soccer team that plays in the WPA and has some of the best players in the world, including world player of the year.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda has been a sponsor of Club Deportivo Universidad Católica's basketball team of the Liga Nacional de Básquetbol de Chile.


title: Mazda

text: Mazda's past advertising slogans included: "The more you look, the more you like" (1970s to early 1980s); "Experience Mazda" (mid-1980s); "An intense commitment to your total satisfaction, that's The Mazda Way" (late 1980s); "It Just Feels Right" along with advertising describing Mazda's use of Kansei engineering (1990–1995); "Passion for the road" (1996); "Get in. Be moved." (1997–2000). Another marketing slogan was "Sakes Alive!", for its truck line.


title: Mazda

text: Since 2000, Mazda has used the phrase "Zoom-Zoom" to describe what it calls the "emotion of motion" that it claims is inherent in its cars. Extremely successful and long-lasting (when compared to other automotive marketing taglines), the Zoom-Zoom campaign has now spread around the world from its initial use in North America.


title: Mazda

text: The Zoom-Zoom campaign has been accompanied by the "Zoom-Zoom-Zoom" song in many television and radio advertisements. The original version, performed by Jibril Serapis Bey (used in commercials in Europe, Japan and South Africa), was recorded long before it became the official song for Mazda as part of a soundtrack to the movie "Only The Strong" (released in 1993). The Serapis Bey version is a cover of a traditional Capoeira song, called "Capoeira Mata Um". In 2010, its current slogan is "Zoom Zoom Forever". The longer slogan (Used in TV ads) is "Zoom Zoom, Today, Tomorrow, Forever".


title: Mazda

text: Early ads in the Zoom-Zoom campaign also featured a young boy (Micah Kanters) whispering the "Zoom-Zoom" tagline.


title: Mazda

text: Since 2011, Mazda has still used the Zoom-Zoom tagline in another campaign called "What Do You Drive?". The punchline for this is "At Mazda, we believe because if it's not worth driving, it's not worth building. We build Mazdas. What do you drive?".


title: Mazda

text: In 2015, Mazda had launched a new campaign under a new tagline, "Driving Matters", coinciding with the release of the redesigned MX-5. This campaign was meant to solidify Mazda's "Zoom Zoom" slogan. A 60-second long advertisement titled "A Driver's Life", coincided with the new tagline on the following week.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Munich is a 2005 spy drama film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, co-written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. It is based on the 1984 book "Vengeance" by George Jonas, an account of Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli government's secret retaliation against the Palestine Liberation Organization after the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: "Munich" was released by Universal Pictures in the United States and internationally by DreamWorks Pictures through United International Pictures on December 23, 2005, and received five Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Score. The film made $131 million worldwide but just $47 million in the United States, making it one of Spielberg's lowest-grossing films domestically. In 2017, the film was named the 16th "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far" by "The New York Times". It was also Spielberg's last film distributed by Universal until "The Fabelmans" in 2022.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the Palestinian terrorist group Black September kills 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Avner Kaufman, a Mossad agent of German-Jewish descent, is chosen to lead a mission to assassinate 11 Palestinians allegedly involved in the massacre. At the direction of his handler Ephraim, to give the Israeli government plausible deniability, Kaufman resigns from Mossad and operates with no official ties to Israel. His team includes four Jewish volunteers from around the world: South African driver Steve, Belgian toy-maker and explosives expert Robert, former Israeli soldier and "cleaner" Carl, and German antiques dealer and document forger Hans from Frankfurt. They are given information by a French informant, Louis.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: In Rome, the team shoots and kills Wael Zwaiter, who is living as a poet. In Paris, they detonate a bomb in the home of Mahmoud Hamshari; in Cyprus, they bomb the hotel room of Hussein Abd Al Chir. With IDF commandos, they pursue three Palestinian militants—Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, and Kamal Nasser—to Beirut, penetrate the Palestinians' guarded compound and kill all three.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Between hits, the assassins argue with each other about the morality and logistics of their mission, expressing fear about their individual lack of experience, as well as their apparent ambivalence about accidentally killing innocent bystanders. Avner makes a brief visit to his wife, who has given birth to their first baby. In Athens, when they track down Zaiad Muchasi, the team finds out that Louis arranged for them to share a safe house with their rival PLO members and the Mossad agents escape trouble by pretending to be members of foreign militant groups like ETA, IRA, ANC, and the Red Army Faction. Avner has a heartfelt conversation with PLO member Ali over their homelands and who deserves to rule over the lands; Ali is later shot by Carl while the team escapes from the hit on Muchasi.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: The squad moves on to London to track down Ali Hassan Salameh, who orchestrated the Munich massacre, but the assassination attempt is interrupted by several drunken Americans. It is implied that these are agents of the CIA, which, according to Louis, protects and funds Salameh in exchange for his promise not to attack US diplomats. Meanwhile, attempts are made to kill the assassins themselves. Carl is killed by an independent Dutch contract killer. In revenge, the team tracks her down and execute her at a houseboat in Hoorn, Netherlands. Hans is found stabbed to death on a park bench and Robert is killed by an explosion in his workshop. Avner and Steve finally locate Salameh in Spain, but again their assassination attempt is thwarted, this time by Salameh's armed guards. Avner and Steve disagree on whether Louis has sold information on the team to the PLO.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: A disillusioned Avner flies to Israel, where he is unhappy to be hailed as a hero by two young soldiers and then to his new home in Brooklyn, where he suffers post-traumatic stress and paranoia. Concerns continue to grow when he speaks to Louis's father by phone and it is revealed he knows his real name and promises no violence will come to him from his family. He is thrown out of the Israeli consulate after storming in to demand that Mossad leave his wife and child alone. Ephraim comes to ask Avner to return to Israel and Mossad, but Avner refuses. Avner then asks Ephraim to come to dinner with his family, to break bread as an allegory to make peace, but Ephraim refuses, perhaps as a sign that neither side will reconcile.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 78% approval rating based on 211 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's consensus reads, ""Munich" can't quite achieve its lofty goals, but this thrilling, politically even-handed look at the fallout from an intractable political conflict is still well worth watching." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Roger Ebert praised the film, saying, "With this film [Spielberg] has dramatically opened a wider dialogue, helping to make the inarguable into the debatable." He placed it at No. 3 on his top ten list of 2005. James Berardinelli wrote that ""Munich" is an eye-opener – a motion picture that asks difficult questions, presents well-developed characters, and keeps us white-knuckled throughout." He named it the best film of the year; it was the only film in 2005 to which Berardinelli gave four stars, and he also put it on his Top 100 Films of All Time list. "Entertainment Weekly" film critic Owen Gleiberman mentioned "Munich" amongst the best movies of the decade. Rex Reed from "The New York Observer" disagrees, writing: "With no heart, no ideology and not much intellectual debate, "Munich" is a big disappointment, and something of a bore."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: "Variety" reviewer Todd McCarthy called "Munich" a "beautifully made" film. However, he criticized the film for failing to include "compelling" characters, and for its use of laborious plotting and a "flabby script." McCarthy says that the film turns into "... a lumpy and overlong morality play on a failed thriller template." To succeed, McCarthy states that Spielberg would have needed to engage the viewer in the assassin squad leader's growing crisis of conscience and create a more "sustain(ed) intellectual interest" for the viewer. Writing in "Empire", Ian Nathan wrote ""Munich" is Steven Spielberg's most difficult film. It arrives already inflamed by controversy. ... This is Spielberg operating at his peak—an exceptionally made, provocative, and vital film for our times."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: "Chicago Tribune" reviewer Allison Benedikt calls "Munich" a "competent thriller", but laments that as an "intellectual pursuit, it is little more than a pretty prism through which superficial Jewish guilt and generalized Palestinian nationalism" are made to "... look like the product of serious soul-searching." Benedikt states that Spielberg's treatment of the film's "dense and complicated" subject matter can be summed up as "Palestinians want a homeland, Israelis have to protect theirs." She rhetorically asks: "Do we need another handsome, well-assembled, entertaining movie to prove that we all bleed red?"


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Another critique was Gabriel Schoenfeld's "Spielberg's 'Munich'" in the February 2006 issue of "Commentary", who called it "pernicious". He compared the fictional film to history, asserted that Spielberg and especially Kushner felt that the Palestinian terrorists and the Mossad agents are morally equivalent and concluded: "The movie deserves an Oscar in one category only: most hypocritical film of the year." Israeli author and journalist Aaron J. Klein wrote in "Slate" that the movie was a "distortion" of facts, concluding that "A rigorous factual accounting may not be the point of Munich, which Spielberg has characterized as a 'prayer for peace.' But as result, "Munich" has less to do with history and the grim aftermath of the Munich Massacre than some might wish."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: In defense of the climactic sex scene, critics Jim Emerson of the "Chicago Sun-Times" and Matt Zoller Seitz of "Salon" compared it to Lady Macbeth's suicide in William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", interpreting the sequence as representing the corruption of Avner's personal life as a result of his being conditioned to kill others to avenge Munich.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Some reviewers criticized "Munich" for what they call the film's equating the Israeli assassins with "terrorists". Leon Wieseltier wrote in "The New Republic": "Worse, "Munich" prefers a discussion of counter-terrorism to a discussion of terrorism; or it thinks that they are the same discussion".


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Melman and other critics of the book and the film have said that the story's premise—that Israeli agents had second thoughts about their work—is not supported by interviews or public statements. In an interview with Reuters, a retired head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service and former Internal Security Minister, Avi Dichter, likened "Munich" to a children's adventure story: "There is no comparison between what you see in the movie and how it works in reality". In a "Time" magazine cover story about the film on December 4, 2005, Spielberg said that the source of the film had second thoughts about his actions. "There is something about killing people at close range that is excruciating," Spielberg said. "It's bound to try a man's soul." Of the real Avner, Spielberg says, "I don't think he will ever find peace."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) – describing itself as "the oldest, and one of the largest, pro-Israel and Zionist organizations in the United States" – called for a boycott of the film on December 27, 2005. The ZOA criticized the factual basis of the film and leveled criticism at one of the screenwriters, Tony Kushner, whom the ZOA has described as an "Israel-hater". Criticism was also directed at the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) National Director, Abraham Foxman, for his support of the film.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: David Edelstein of the online "Slate" magazine argued that "The Israeli government and many conservative and pro-Israeli commentators have lambasted the film for naiveté, for implying that governments should never retaliate. But an expression of uncertainty and disgust is not the same as one of outright denunciation. What "Munich" does say is that this shortsighted tit-for-tat can produce a kind of insanity, both individual and collective."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Ilana Romano, wife of an Israeli weightlifter Yossef Romano killed in the Munich massacre, said that Spielberg overlooked the Lillehammer affair, although Spielberg seems to have been conscious of the omission; the film's opening title frame shows "Lillehammer" in a montage of city names, with "Munich" standing out from the rest. The "Jewish Journal" said that "the revenge squad obsess about making sure only their targets are hit -- and meticulous care is taken to avoid collateral damage. Yet in one shootout an innocent man is also slain ... The intense moral contortions the agents experience as the corpses pile up makes up the substance of the movie."


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: According to Ronen Bergman as reported in "Newsweek", it is a myth that Mossad agents hunted down and killed those responsible for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes and a German policeman at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games; in fact most of the people were never killed or caught. Most of the people that Mossad did kill had nothing to do with the Munich deaths. He says the film was based on a book whose source was an Israeli who claimed to be the lead assassin of the hit squad, but in fact was a baggage inspector at Tel Aviv airport.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Although "Munich" is a work of fiction, it describes many actual events and figures from the early 1970s. On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Golda Meir is depicted in the film, and other military and political leaders such as Attorney General Meir Shamgar, Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and Aman chief Aharon Yariv are also depicted. Spielberg tried to make the depiction of the hostage-taking and killing of the Israeli athletes historically authentic. Unlike an earlier film, "21 Hours at Munich", Spielberg's film depicts the shooting of "all" the Israeli athletes, which according to the autopsies was accurate. In addition, the film uses actual news clips shot during the hostage situation.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Israeli/American actor Guri Weinberg portrays his own father, wrestling coach Moshe. The younger Weinberg was only one month old when his father was killed.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: The named members of Black September, and their deaths, are also mostly factual. Abdel Wael Zwaiter, a translator at the Libyan Embassy in Rome, was shot 11 times, one bullet for each of the victims of the Munich Massacre, in the lobby of his apartment 41 days after Munich. On December 8 of that year Mahmoud Hamshari, a senior PLO figure, was killed in Paris by a bomb concealed in the table below his telephone. Although the film depicts the bomb being concealed in the telephone itself, other details of the assassination (such as confirmation of the target via telephone call) are accurate. Others killed during this period include Mohammed Boudia, Basil al-Kubasi, Hussein al-Bashir, and Zaiad Muchasi, some of whose deaths are depicted in the film. Ali Hassan Salameh was also a real person, and a prominent member of Black September. In 1979 he was killed in Beirut by a car bomb that also killed four innocent bystanders and injured 18 others.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: The commando raid in Beirut, known as Operation Spring of Youth, also occurred. This attack included future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yom Kippur War and Operation Entebbe hero Yonatan Netanyahu, who are both portrayed by name in the film. The methods used to track down and assassinate the Black September members were much more complicated than the methods portrayed in the film; for example, the tracking of the Black September cell members was achieved by a network of Mossad agents, not an informant as depicted in the film.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: Atlantic Productions, producers of BAFTA-nominated documentary "", listed several discrepancies between Spielberg's film and the information it obtained from interviews with Mossad agents involved in the operation. It noted that the film suggests one group carried out almost all the assassinations, whereas in reality it was a much larger team. Mossad did not work with a mysterious French underworld figure as portrayed in the book and the film. The assassination campaign did not end because agents lost their nerve but because of the Lillehammer affair in which an innocent Moroccan waiter was killed. This is not mentioned in the film. As acknowledged by Spielberg, the targets were not all directly involved in Munich.


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: The soundtrack album was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score but lost to the score of the film "Brokeback Mountain". It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media but lost to the score of "Memoirs of a Geisha" (also scored by Williams).


title: Munich (2005 film)

text: "AllMusic" rated the soundtrack three and a half stars out of five. Filmtracks.com rated it four out of five. SoundtrackNet rated it four and a half out of five. ScoreNotes graded it "A−".


title: Conversion therapy

text: Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. In contrast to evidence-based medicine and clinical guidance, such practices typically view homosexuality and gender variance as unnatural or unhealthy. There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity and that it frequently causes significant, long-term psychological harm in individuals who undergo it.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Common methods of conversion therapy are counseling, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions. Other methods that have been used include ice-pick lobotomies; chemical castration with hormonal treatment; aversive treatments, such as "the application of electric shock to the hands and/or genitals" and "nausea-inducing drugs[...] administered[...] with the presentation of homoerotic stimuli", and masturbatory reconditioning or hypnosis.


title: Conversion therapy

text: An increasing number of jurisdictions around the world have passed laws against conversion therapy. Conversion therapy may constitute fraud and has been described by experts as torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and contrary to human rights norms.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Medical professionals and activists consider "conversion therapy" a misnomer, as it does not constitute a legitimate form of therapy. Alternative terms include sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE), gender identity change efforts (GICE)—together, sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts (SOGICE)—and LGBTQA+ conversion practices. "Reparative therapy" may refer to conversion therapy in general, or to a subset thereof.


title: Conversion therapy

text: The term "homosexual" was coined by German-speaking Hungarian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny and was in circulation by the 1880s. Into the middle of the twentieth century, competing views of homosexuality were advanced by psychoanalysis versus academic sexology. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, viewed homosexuality as a form of arrested development. Later psychoanalysts followed Sandor Rado, who argued that homosexuality was a "phobic avoidance of heterosexuality caused by inadequate early parenting". This line of thinking was popular in psychiatric models of homosexuality based on the prison population or homosexuals seeking treatment. In contrast, sexology researchers such as Alfred Kinsey argued that homosexuality was a normal variation in human development. In 1970, gay activists confronted the American Psychiatric Association, persuading the association to reconsider whether homosexuality should be listed as a disorder. The APA delisted homosexuality in 1973, which contributed to shifts in public opinion on homosexuality.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Despite their lack of scientific backing, some socially or religiously conservative activists continued to argue that if one person's sexuality could be changed, homosexuality was not a fixed class such as race. Borrowing from discredited psychoanalytic ideas about the cause of homosexuality, some of these individuals offered conversion therapy. In 2001, conversion therapy attracted attention when Robert L. Spitzer published a non-peer-reviewed study asserting that some homosexuals could change their sexual orientation. Many researchers made methodological criticisms of the study, which Spitzer later repudiated.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Many cultures throughout history have had validating attitudes towards transgender and nonbinary people. Systemic institutionalized transphobia present in Western and U.S.-based medical-model narratives historically favored binary gender and pathologized gender diversity. This aided the development and proliferation of GICE, which is based on considering gender identity discordant with assigned sex at birth disordered.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Early interventions were rooted in psychoanalytic hypotheses. Robert Stoller advanced the theory that cross-gender presentation and behavior in children assigned male at birth was due to an overly close relationship with their mother. Richard Green continued his research into social engineering. His methods include augmenting contact with fathers, including stereotypical masculine activities, requesting the mother take a step back, and having both parents praise traditional "masculine" behaviors and shame effeminate or cross-gender behavior. These methods did more harm than good, resulting in depression and feelings of betrayal (from parents) that the goals of the "treatment" were impossible.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Green's methods were adopted by Kenneth Zucker, but modified so the focus was primarily preventing the child from developing an eventual transgender identity. His methods include behavioral modifications of cross-gender play interests, encouraging the same-sex parent to engage more and the other to engage less, and treating the child with psychodynamic therapy. The province of Ontario subsequently banned therapeutic programs based on this approach.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Aversion therapy used on homosexuals included electric shock and nausea-inducing drugs during presentation of same-sex erotic images. Cessation of the aversive stimuli was typically accompanied by the presentation of opposite-sex erotic images, with the objective of strengthening heterosexual feelings. Another method used was the covert sensitization method, which involves instructing patients to imagine vomiting or receiving electric shocks, writing that only single case studies have been conducted, and that their results cannot be generalized. Haldeman writes that behavioral conditioning studies tend to decrease homosexual feelings, but do not increase heterosexual feelings, citing Rangaswami's "Difficulties in arousing and increasing heterosexual responsiveness in a homosexual: A case report", published in 1982, as typical in this respect.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Aversion therapy was developed in Czechoslovakia between 1950 and 1962 and in the Commonwealth from 1961 into the mid-1970s. In the context of the Cold War, Western psychologists ignored the poor results of their Czechoslovak counterparts, who had concluded that aversion therapy was not effective by 1961 and recommended decriminalization of homosexuality instead. Some men in the United Kingdom were offered the choice between prison and undergoing aversion therapy. It was also offered to a few British women, but was never the standard treatment for either homosexual men or women.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Bioenergetics is a therapeutic technique developed by Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, who were students of Wilhelm Reich. It has been used to attempt to convert gay people to heterosexuality by Richard Cohen, who has been called one of America's leading practitioners of conversion therapy. Cohen holds male patients in his lap with the patient curled into the fetal position, and also advocates methods involving shouting or slamming a pillow with a tennis racket.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Some sources describe ex-gay and ex-trans ministries as a form of conversion therapy, while others state that ex-gay organizations and conversion therapy are distinct methods of attempting to convert gay people to heterosexuality. The umbrella organization Exodus International in the United States ceased activities in June 2013, and the three member board issued a statement which repudiated its aims and apologized for the harm their pursuit has caused to LGBT people. Ex-gay/ex-trans organizations often overlap and portray being trans as inherently sinful or against God's design, or pathologize gender variance as due to trauma, social contagion, or "gender ideology."


title: Conversion therapy

text: Hypnosis was used in conversion therapy since the 19th century by Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. In 1967, Canadian psychiatrist Peter Roper published a case study of treating 15 homosexuals (some of which would probably be considered bisexuals by modern standards) with hypnosis. Allegedly, 8 showed "marked improvement" (they reportedly lost sexual attraction towards the same sex altogether), 4 mild improvements (decrease of "homosexual tendencies"), and 3 no improvement after hypnotic treatment; he concluded that "hypnosis may well produce more satisfactory results than those obtainable by other means", depending on the hypnotic susceptibility of the subjects.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Haldeman writes that psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality is exemplified by the work of Irving Bieber "et al." in "Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals". They advocated long-term therapy aimed at resolving the unconscious childhood conflicts that they considered responsible for homosexuality. Haldeman notes that Bieber's methodology has been criticized because it relied upon a clinical sample, the description of the outcomes was based upon subjective therapist impression, and follow-up data were poorly presented. Bieber reported a 27% success rate from long-term therapy, but only 18% of the patients in whom Bieber considered the treatment successful had been exclusively homosexual to begin with, while 50% had been bisexual. In Haldeman's view, this makes even Bieber's unimpressive claims of success misleading.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Haldeman discusses other psychoanalytic studies of attempts to change homosexuality. Curran and Parr's "Homosexuality: An analysis of 100 male cases", published in 1957, reported no significant increase in heterosexual behavior. Mayerson and Lief's "Psychotherapy of homosexuals: A follow-up study of nineteen cases", published in 1965, reported that half of its 19 subjects were exclusively heterosexual in behavior four and a half years after treatment, but its outcomes were based on patient self-report and had no external validation. In Haldeman's view, those participants in the study who reported change were bisexual at the outset, and its authors wrongly interpreted capacity for heterosexual sex as change of sexual orientation.


title: Conversion therapy

text: The term "reparative therapy" has been used as a synonym for conversion therapy generally, but according to Jack Drescher it properly refers to a specific kind of therapy associated with the psychologists Elizabeth Moberly and Joseph Nicolosi. The term "reparative" refers to Nicolosi's postulate that same-sex attraction is a person's unconscious attempt to "self-repair" feelings of inferiority.


title: Conversion therapy

text: In the 1940s and 1950s, U.S. neurologist Walter Freeman popularized the ice-pick lobotomy as a treatment for homosexuality. He personally performed as many as 3,439 lobotomy surgeries in 23 states, of which 2,500 used his ice-pick procedure, despite the fact that he had no formal surgical training. Up to 40% of Freeman's patients were gay individuals subjected to a lobotomy in order to change their homosexual orientation, leaving most of these individuals severely disabled for the rest of their lives.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Previous editions of the World Health Organization's ICD included "sexual relationship disorder", in which a person's sexual orientation or gender identity makes it difficult to form or maintain a relationship with a sexual partner. The belief that their sexual orientation has caused problems in their relationship may lead some people to turn to a marriage therapist for help to change their sexual orientation. Sexual orientation disorder was removed from the most recent ICD, ICD-11, after the Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health determined that its inclusion was unjustified.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Homosexual prisoners were a preferred target of Nazi human experimentation during the last years of Nazi rule. The best-known experiments involving homosexual men were attempts by endocrinologist Carl Vaernet to change prisoners' sexual orientations by implanting a pellet that released testosterone. Most of the victims, non-consenting prisoners at Buchenwald, died shortly thereafter.


title: Conversion therapy

text: There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation and can cause significant, long-term psychological harm. This includes significantly higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and other mental health issues in individuals who have undergone conversion therapy than their peers who did not, including a suicide attempt rate nearly twice that of those who did not.


title: Conversion therapy

text: A 2022 study estimated that conversion therapy of youth in the United States cost $650.16 million annually with an additional $9.5 billion in associated costs such as increased suicide and substance abuse.


title: Conversion therapy

text: A 2020 survey carried out on US adults found majority support for banning conversion therapy for minors.


title: Conversion therapy

text: A 2022 YouGov poll found majority support in England, Scotland, and Wales for a conversion therapy ban for both sexual orientation and gender identity, with opposition ranging from 13 to 15 percent.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Some jurisdictions have criminal bans on the practice of conversion therapy, including Malta, France, Germany, Albania, Mexico and Canada. In other countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, and Taiwan, medical professionals are barred from practicing conversion therapy.


title: Conversion therapy

text: In some states, lawsuits against conversion therapy providers for fraud have succeeded, but in other jurisdictions those claiming fraud must prove that the perpetrator was intentionally dishonest. Thus, a provider who genuinely believes conversion therapy is effective could not be convicted.


title: Conversion therapy

text: In 2020 the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims released an official statement that conversion therapy is torture. The same year, UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, said that conversion therapy practices are "inherently discriminatory, that they are cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and that depending on the severity or physical or mental pain and suffering inflicted to the victim, they may amount to torture". He recommended that it should be banned across the world. In 2021 Ilias Trispiotis and Craig Purshouse argue that conversion therapy violates the prohibition against degrading treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, leading to a state obligation to prohibit it.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Many health organizations around the world have denounced and criticized sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts. National health organizations in the United States have announced that there has been no scientific demonstration of conversion therapy's efficacy in the last forty years. They find that conversion therapy is ineffective, risky and can be harmful. Anecdotal claims of cures are counterbalanced by assertions of harm, and the American Psychiatric Association, for example, cautions ethical practitioners under the Hippocratic oath to do no harm and to refrain from attempts at conversion therapy.


title: Conversion therapy

text: Mainstream medical bodies state that conversion therapy can be harmful because it may exploit guilt and anxiety, thereby damaging self-esteem and leading to depression and even suicide. There is also concern in the mental health community that the advancement of conversion therapy can cause social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about gender identity, sexual orientation, and the ability of LGBTQ people to lead happy, healthy lives.


title: Geography

text: Geography (from Greek: , "geographia". Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. The first recorded use of the word γεωγραφία was as a title of a book by Greek scholar Eratosthenes (276–194 BC). Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. One such concept, the first law of geography, proposed by Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences."


title: Geography

text: Geography is a systematic study of the Earth, its features, and phenomena that take place on it. For something to fall into the domain of geography, it generally needs some sort of spatial component that can be placed on a map, such as coordinates, place names, or addresses. This has led to geography being associated with cartography and place names. Although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the Earth's spatial and temporal distribution of phenomena, processes, and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment. Because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants, and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the geographical approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and their spatial patterns. Geography is specific to the planet Earth, and other celestial bodies are specified, such as "geography of Mars," or given another name, such as areography in the case of Mars.


title: Geography

text: Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into three main branches: human geography, physical geography, and technical geography. Human geography largely focuses on the built environment and how humans create, view, manage, and influence space. Physical geography examines the natural environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water, and landforms produce and interact. The difference between these approaches led to the development of integrated geography, which combines physical and human geography and concerns the interactions between the environment and humans. Technical geography involves studying and developing the tools and techniques used by geographers, such as remote sensing, cartography, and geographic information system.


title: Geography

text: For something to exist in the realm of geography, it must be able to be described spatially. Thus, space is the most fundamental concept at the foundation of geography. The concept is so basic, that geographers often have difficulty defining exactly what it is, and instead assume that everyone knows what they are talking about. At its most fundamental, absolute space is the exact site, or spatial coordinates, of objects, persons, places, or phenomena under investigation. We exist in space. Absolute space leads to the view of the world as a photograph, with everything frozen in place when the coordinates were recorded. Today, geographers are trained to remember that the world is not the static image that appears on a map; and instead, the dynamic space where all processes interact and take place.


title: Geography

text: Place is one of the most complex terms in geography. In human geography, place is the synthesis of the coordinates on the Earth's surface, the activity and use that occurs, has occurred, and will occur at the coordinates, and the meaning ascribed to the space by human individuals and groups. This can be extraordinarily complex, as different spaces may have different uses at different times and mean different things to different people. In physical geography, a place includes all of the physical phenomena that occur in space, including the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Places do not exist in a vacuum and instead have complex spatial relationships with each other, and place is concerned how a location is situated in relation to all other locations. As a discipline then, the term place in geography includes all spatial phenomena occurring at a location, the diverse uses and meanings humans ascribe to that location, and how that location impacts and is impacted by all other locations on Earth.


title: Geography

text: Time is usually thought to be within the domain of history, however, it is of significant concern in the discipline of geography. In physics, space and time are not separated, and are combined into the concept of spacetime.


title: Geography

text: Geography is subject to the laws of physics, and in studying things that occur in space, time must be considered. Time in geography is more than just the historical record of events that occurred at various discrete coordinates; but also includes modeling the dynamic movement of people, organisms, and things through space. Time facilitates movement through space, ultimately allowing things to flow through a system. The amount of time an individual, or group of people, spends in a place will often shape their attachment and perspective to that place. Time constrains the possible paths that can be taken through space, given a starting point, possible routes, and rate of travel. Visualizing time over space is challenging in terms of cartography, and includes Space-Prism, advanced 3D geovisualizations, and animated maps.


title: Geography

text: Scale in the context of a map is the ratio between a distance measured on the map and the corresponding distance as measured on the ground. This concept is fundamental to the discipline of geography, not just cartography, in that phenomena being investigated appear different depending on the scale used. Scale is the frame that geographers use to measure space, and ultimately to try and understand a place.