title: Bill de Blasio

text: A key focus of de Blasio's mayoral tenure was to build more affordable housing, with a goal of 200,000 units. His plan passed the City Council, but was controversial. Groups such as the New York Communities for Change came out against the plan, arguing that it promoted gentrification. In April 2017 the state government renewed the 421-a tax abatement program after unions and developers made a deal on wages in qualifying construction projects.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: Atlantic Avenue, in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, which has been scarred by decades of poverty and crime, was the first test and focus of de Blasio's strategy on affordable housing, one of the policy initiatives central to his platform of reducing inequality. Since 2012, city planners had been working to bring residents to forums to consult on the process. The plan was to "invite developers to build up local streets in exchange for more units of affordable housing."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In January 2019, de Blasio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson reached an agreement to change the operations of the New York City Housing Authority. The agreement created "specific requirements and milestones to address the serious health and safety hazards at NYCHA properties, including lead-based paint, mold, heat, vermin, among others".


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In 2019, "City Journal" reported that during the de Blasio administration, "New York City's budget has expanded by some $20 billion, and is expected to total about $93 billion for the coming fiscal year. Expenditures have ballooned three times as fast as the rate of inflation".


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On January 28, 2020, de Blasio said, "this virus was underestimated by the Chinese government. It was actually beginning to spread and was not recognized sufficiently and talked about openly." On February 13, in an interview with NBC News, he said, "this is something we can handle, but you got to follow some basic rules." On March 2, de Blasio encouraged New Yorkers in a tweet "to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus". On March 9, he said that the "vast majority of New Yorkers, being folks under 50 and healthy, are not in particular danger, and if they were to get it, would experience something like a common cold or flu." On March 11, he was "telling people to not avoid restaurants, not avoid normal things that people do. ... If you're not sick, you should be going about your life."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On March 16, "The New York Times" reported that during the previous week, de Blasio's "top aides were furiously trying to change the mayor's approach to the coronavirus outbreak. There had been arguments and shouting matches between the mayor and some of his advisers; some top health officials had even threatened to resign if he refused to accept the need to close schools and businesses."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio was criticized for singling out Jewish residents of the city, following tweets directed at "the Jewish community", who described de Blasio's actions as scapegoating. In early June 2020, he was criticized for enforcing restrictions on religious gatherings to no more than 25% of capacity whereas all other groups were allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Catholic priests and Jewish synagogue worshipers then sued both De Blasio and Governor Cuomo for being over twice as restrictive of worship than protest events. The religious worship restrictions and others that limited New York outdoor gatherings were over-ruled by a federal judge in late June.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: When Brian Lehrer asked De Blasio in a July 2020 radio interview about his approach to helping businesses recover from the pandemic, de Blasio said that his "focus has not been on the business community and the elite", and, quoting Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, that "the state is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie." He quoted Ché Guevara, another communist figure, at a rally in Miami a year earlier, upsetting that city’s Latino community.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In 2014, De Blasio's decision to deny public space to several New York City charter schools provoked controversy among advocates of school vouchers. The decision overturned a Bloomberg administration arrangement that allowed for "co-locations", where charter schools were housed in public school buildings. De Blasio also revoked $200 million of capital funding earmarked for charter schools. "The New York Times" emphasized that de Blasio approved 14 charter school co-locations and only denied three, suggesting that he was being unfairly cast as being opposed to charter schools. Two months after the initial decision, the mayor's office announced that it had found space for the three schools. The city would lease, renovate, and maintain three buildings, which were previously used for Catholic schools, from the Archdiocese of New York. The three charter schools are run by Success Academy Charter Schools.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In April 2019, De Blasio announced his support for the Green New Deal and for legislation to ban the construction of glass and steel skyscrapers in New York City, citing environmental concerns and feeling they contribute to global warming. He also criticized the development at Hudson Yards in Manhattan.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On May 31, 2020, de Blasio issued a statement blaming protesters for being in the way of two police cruisers that pushed a barricade into them. On June 7, 2020, he announced: "We will be moving funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services." De Blasio blamed "anarchist" protesters for inciting and organizing violent riots.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On June 21, 2020, the American Museum of Natural History announced that it was asking city officials to remove the "Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt" with a Native American man and an African man standing next to the horse. De Blasio endorsed the decision.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On February 14, 2019, while addressing a rally in New York City about combating antisemitism, De Blasio said: "Maybe some people don't realize it, but when they support the BDS movement, they are affronting the right of Israel to exist and that is unacceptable." De Blasio condemned Representative Ilhan Omar's remarks about Israel and Israeli lobbyists as "absolutely unacceptable" and "illogical".


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In December 2018, De Blasio announced his support for marijuana legalization in New York City, calling it a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to get a historic issue right for future New Yorkers." He worked with a marijuana task force to produce a report on licensing and regulation, which was released along with a letter of endorsement.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In 2015, de Blasio repealed a public health requirement that mohels inform parents of the risks of metzitzah b'peh, an oral circumcision ritual that was linked to 17 cases of infant herpes, brain damage, and two deaths since 2000. The rule was passed by the city's Board of Health in 2012, which required parents to sign a consent form. The requirement had been called an infringement on religious freedom by some ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders, who sued the city in federal court and pressed their followers not to comply. After de Blasio installed allies and donors on New York City's Board of Health, a new policy was instated so that mohels could be banned for life if they tested positive for herpes and the DNA strain matched the infant's, but only after a child was infected. It was soon revealed that the city was not disclosing new infections as required by the new policy, and children continued to become infected after undergoing the ritual.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio put his wife, Chirlane McCray, in charge of major policy initiatives such as the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and ThriveNYC (a $850 million mental health initiative). This caused criticism since McCray had never been elected to office and was chosen for these positions only because of her relationship with De Blasio. De Blasio accused critics of the arrangement of "sexism" and bemoaned the city's anti-nepotism laws that prevented McCray from receiving a substantial salary.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: During his mayoral tenure, de Blasio's relationship with the New York City Police Department was called "strained", "combative", and "frosty".


title: Bill de Blasio

text: Ending the NYPD's "stop and frisk" policy was a centerpiece of De Blasio's campaign. The practice had been challenged by civil rights groups in federal court, where it was ruled unconstitutional in 2013. The federal appeal of this decision filed by the Bloomberg administration was dropped by de Blasio upon taking office. He vowed to settle cases with claimants who had ongoing litigation against the police for stop and frisk arrests. The NYPD union appealed the decision without de Blasio's support, and was rejected.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio selected Bill Bratton for New York City Police Commissioner, a position he had held under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Bratton, who introduced stop and frisk under Giuliani, promised it would be used "legally, respectfully" and less frequently. Some de Blasio supporters were disappointed with Bratton's appointment.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In February 2014, Pastor Bishop Orlando Findlayter—the founder of the New Hope Christian Fellowship Church, and a friend and supporter of de Blasio—was pulled over for failing to signal before making a left turn. Findlayter was then detained by police on outstanding warrants and driving with a suspended license. De Blasio is alleged to have called the police on Findlayter's behalf. Findlayter was released shortly thereafter. In a press conference, de Blasio told reporters that while he had called the police to make an inquiry regarding Findlayter's arrest he did not ask the police to release him. A spokesperson for the mayor said that de Blasio's call occurred after the police already had decided to release Findlayter. While both the police and City Hall denied that De Blasio requested preferential treatment for his friend, City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said De Blasio's behavior was concerning because "the mayor shouldn't be involved in any way about somebody's arrest."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On December 3, 2014, after a grand jury decided not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, de Blasio said in a speech that he and his African American wife, Chirlane McCray, had had many conversations with their biracial son about taking "special care in any encounters he has with the police officers who are there to protect him." De Blasio also "offered qualified support for protesters after the grand jury decision not to charge the officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York City".


title: Bill de Blasio

text: After New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were killed in an ambush in December 2014, "cops and union leaders publicly rebuked [de Blasio], arguing [that] his earlier remarks had stoked anti-police sentiment." When de Blasio eulogized the two fallen officers, hundreds of their fellow police officers turned their backs on him.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: After the murder of New York City police officer Miosotis Familia in July 2017, de Blasio received further criticism for not attending Familia's vigil. Many officers again turned their backs on him when he spoke at a service for Familia.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In November 2019, de Blasio criticized former mayor Michael Bloomberg's apology for the stop and frisk policy, tweeting, "This is LONG overdue and the timing is transparent and cynical. With all due respect to my predecessor, we've spent six years undoing the damage he created with this bankrupt policy. We ended stop and frisk AND drove down crime. Actions speak louder than words." Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch joined the Mayor in criticizing Bloomberg's apology as well.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: When de Blasio appointed Minerva Tantoco as the city's chief technology officer in fall 2014, he said her goal would be to "develop and implement a coordinated strategy for technology and innovation, for how this city as a whole is going to approach the role of technology in our everyday lives, in our economy, in our schools, in our civic participation." Two years later, Tantoco efforts were only partially successful.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: Along with Governor Cuomo, de Blasio supported moving Amazon's headquarters to Long Island City in the Amazon HQ2 search, and worked with Cuomo to develop a benefits package from New York City and State funds totaling $2.988 billion. In November 2018, Long Island City in Queens was selected as one of two sites for HQ2, along with Crystal City in Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. Long Island City's selection as a site for Amazon's HQ2 was controversial before and after it happened, and was protested by local residents, community organizations, and politicians. After receiving pushback, Amazon withdrew its plans to open HQ2 in Long Island City on February 14, 2019. De Blasio criticized Amazon's decision.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In 2014, de Blasio released a report dedicated to "better transit for New York City." Some of the ideas brought up in the report were to rebuild Penn Station/Madison Square Garden, create more bus rapid transit routes, and a "Vision Zero" initiative to reduce traffic-related deaths in the city.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: The "Vision Zero" initiative, inspired by a successful Swedish plan, saw a gradual decrease in pedestrian fatalities, from 299 in 2013 to 200 in 2018. But in 2019 there was an increase in cyclist deaths, and de Blasio discussed several proposals to combat cyclist deaths, including a $58.4 million plan and requiring cyclists to wear helmets and acquire licenses to operate a bicycle.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: While the de Blasio administration planned on increasing the rate at which bicycle racks were added in the city, the annual rate instead fell by 42% compared to the Bloomberg administration, reaching a new average of 1,633 new racks per year. Jon Orcutt, a spokesman for Bike New York, said, "Everybody's talking about Citi Bikes and scooters but it's the humble bike rack that needs more attention."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: As mayor, de Blasio's signature initiative was the implementation of Universal Pre-K, i.e. publicly funded pre-kindergarten for all New York City residents. He sought to fund the program by increasing taxes on New York City residents earning $500,000 or more. De Blasio's initiative saw an increase in Universal Pre-K enrollment in New York City through 2015, with over 70% of pre-K expansions happening within the ZIP codes of the city's poorest quartile. In 2017, de Blasio proposed an expansion of the program to "3-K", to include three-year-olds. Preschool for three-year-olds would start in poorer neighborhoods, with the goal of covering the entire city, if the state or federal governments provided funding.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: On May 16, 2019, de Blasio announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president after releasing a YouTube video in which he said, "I'm Bill de Blasio, and I'm running for president because it's time we put working people first." He was the first incumbent mayor of New York City to run for president since John Lindsay, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 1972.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: During his campaign, de Blasio expressed support for increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. On June 19, 2019, he said, "We have to make sure there is a peace settlement in Afghanistan; it obviously has to involve the Taliban. Until that point, I don't think it's sensible to take out our troops." De Blasio advocated a robot tax and proposed to make large corporations responsible for five years of income tax from jobs that are automated away.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: Despite his large margins of victory during his mayoral races, polls found de Blasio to be widely unpopular. "The New York Times" described his candidacy as a "long shot", citing his low national poll numbers and inconsistent approval ratings in New York City. An April 2019 poll placed his approval rating at 42% in the city, with 44% of voters disapproving. A May 2019 Quinnipiac University poll of New York City voters found that 76% did not want de Blasio to run for president. Just before he suspended his campaign, his approval rating had dropped to 33%, with 58% disapproving.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio attempted to position himself as a progressive in contrast to the at-the-time front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden. He was hoping to challenge U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both of whom were seen as leaders of the progressive wing of the Democratic party.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio's campaign failed to gain traction. He was unable to qualify for Democratic primary debates in September and October, which were seen as necessary events for his campaign to maintain viability. He regularly polled at 0% among Democratic primary voters, including in his home state. After failing to qualify for the third round of primary debates, de Blasio announced the suspension of his campaign on September 20, 2019. On February 14, 2020, de Blasio endorsed Sanders.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: In October 2021, the New York City Department of Investigations published a report with findings that "the City has not been reimbursed by the de Blasio Campaign for the travel expenses of the security detail during the Mayor’s presidential campaign, totaling over $300,000."


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio and his wife, activist and poet Chirlane McCray, met while both were working for Mayor Dinkins' administration and married in 1994. The couple honeymooned in Cuba in violation of a US travel ban. They lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn before they moved to Gracie Mansion, the traditional residence of New York City mayors. They have two children: Dante, a graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School who graduated from Yale University in 2019, and Chiara, a student at Santa Clara University in California. Chiara addressed her drug use and depression in late December 2013, in a four-minute video that de Blasio's mayoral transition team released.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio, an Italian American, occasionally gives interviews, press conferences, and speeches in Italian.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio is a passionate fan of the Boston Red Sox, having said he has a "deep devotion" to the New York Yankees' archrivals.


title: Bill de Blasio

text: De Blasio has described himself as "spiritual but not religious". His mother rejected her Roman Catholic faith. De Blasio did not attend church in his early life.


title: Dead Hand

text: Dead Hand (, , lit. "Perimeter" System, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601), also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System) that was constructed by the Soviet Union. The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation. An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically initiate the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, , it was said to remain fully functional and able to serve its purpose when needed.


title: Dead Hand

text: "Perimeter" appeared as an alternative system for all units armed with nuclear weapons. It was meant to be a backup communication system, in case the key components of the "Kazbek" command system and the link to the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed by a decapitation first strike.


title: Dead Hand

text: To ensure its functionality the system was designed to be fully automatic, with the ability to decide an adequate retaliatory strike on its own with no (or minimal) human involvement in the event of an all-out attack.


title: Dead Hand

text: According to Vladimir Yarynich, a developer of the system, this system also served as a buffer against hasty decisions based on unverified information by the country's leadership. Upon receiving warnings about a nuclear attack, the leader could activate the system, and then wait for further developments, assured by the fact that even the destruction of all key personnel with the authority to command the response to the attack could still not prevent a retaliatory strike. Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation.


title: Dead Hand

text: The purpose of the Dead Hand system, as described in the book of the same name, was to maintain a second-strike capability, by ensuring that the destruction of the Soviet leadership would not have prevented the Soviet military from releasing its weapons.


title: Dead Hand

text: Soviet concern about the issue grew with the U.S. development of highly accurate submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) systems in the 1980s. Until then, the United States would have delivered most nuclear weapons by long-range bomber or ICBM. Earlier U.S. sub-launched missiles, such as the 1960s-vintage UGM-27 Polaris and 1970s-vintage UGM-73 Poseidon, were considered too inaccurate for a counterforce or first-strike attack, an attack against an opponent's weapons. SLBMs were reserved for attacking cities, where accuracy was of less importance. In the first case, an opponent with effective radar and satellite surveillance could expect a 30-minute warning of an attack before the first detonation. This made an effective first strike difficult, because the opponent would have time to launch on warning to reduce the risk of their forces being destroyed on the ground. The development of highly accurate SLBMs, such as the Trident C4 and, later, the D5, upset this balance. The Trident D5 is considered as accurate as any land-based ICBM. Therefore, US or UK Trident submarine systems could stealthily approach an enemy's coast and launch highly accurate warheads at close range, reducing the available warning to less than three minutes, making a counterforce first strike or a decapitation strike viable.


title: Dead Hand

text: The Soviet Union took steps to ensure that nuclear retaliation, and hence deterrence, remained possible even if its leadership were to be destroyed in a surprise attack. In contrast, Thompson argues that Perimeter's function was to limit acts of misjudgment by political or military leadership in the tight decision-making window between SLBM/cruise missile launches and impact. He quotes Zheleznyakov on the purpose of Perimeter being "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge."


title: Dead Hand

text: Upon activation and determination of the happening of a nuclear war, the system sends out a 15P011 command missile with a special 15B99 warhead that passes commands to open all silos and all command centers of the RVSN with appropriate receivers in flight. The command missile system is similar to the US Emergency Rocket Communications System.


title: Dead Hand

text: This is the only well-known element of the entire system. In the complex sits a 15P011 rocket with the index 15A11 developed by KB "Yuzhnoe", based on the 15A16 (Or MR UR-100U) rocket. With a commanding radio warhead designated 15B99 designed by the LPI Design Bureau, this ensures the transmission of launch orders from the central command post to all missile launch complexes under the impedance of nuclear explosions and active ECMs during the unpowered flight phase. Technical operation is completely identical to operating the 15A16 base rocket. The 15P716 launcher is a shaft-shaped automatic passive system of the "Missile launch facility" type, most likely an upgraded facility coded as OS-84, but does not rule out the possibility of basing the rocket in other types of silos. Development began in 1974 by the order of the Ministry of Defense. Flight tests were carried out on the NIIP-5 range (Baikonur) from 1979 to 1986. A total of 7 launches (with six successful and one partially successful) were conducted and the system had entered service in January of 1985. The 15B99 warhead weighs 1412 kg.


title: Dead Hand

text: This is the least publicly understood component of the entire system, the key element of the doomsday device, with no reliable information on its existence. Speculation exists that this is a complex system, fully equipped with a variety of communication systems and sensors that control the military situation. This system is believed to be able to track the presence and intensity of communications on military frequencies, and receive telemetric signals from the command posts, measure the level of radiation on the surface and determine intense radiation sources in the vicinity that, combined with the detection of short-term seismic disturbance, signifies a multiple-warhead nuclear strike, and the system may possibly even be able to track people still alive in command posts. The correlation system, after analyzing these factors, may take the final step on launching the missiles.


title: Dead Hand

text: Another hypothesis suggests that a dead man's switch is utilized. Upon receiving information about a missile launch, the supreme commander sets the system active, which, if not detecting a signal to stop the combat algorithm, automatically launches the commanding missile.


title: Dead Hand

text: In an informal interview with "Wired", Valery Yarynich, one of the developers, revealed the following information about the algorithm "Perimeter" works on:


title: Dead Hand

text: It was designed to lie semi-dormant until switched on by a high official in a crisis. Then it would begin monitoring a network of seismic, radiation, and air pressure sensors for signs of nuclear explosions. Before launching any retaliatory strike, the system had to check off four if/then propositions: If it was turned on, then it would try to determine that a nuclear weapon had hit Soviet soil. If it seemed that one had, the system would check to see if any communication links to the war room of the Soviet General Staff remained. If they did, and if some amount of time—likely ranging from 15 minutes to an hour—passed without further indications of attack, the machine would assume officials were still living who could order the counterattack and shut down. But if the line to the General Staff went dead, then Perimeter would infer that apocalypse had arrived. It would immediately transfer launch authority to whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunker—bypassing layers and layers of normal command authority.


title: Dead Hand

text: It is claimed that the command post of the system is in a bunker under Kosvinsky Kamen mountain in the northern Urals.


title: Dead Hand

text: In 1967, the Soviet Union first attempted to create a system, called "Signal", which they could use to create 30 premade orders from their headquarters to the missile units. Although the system still was not completely automatic, their intent was no different.


title: Dead Hand

text: In the early 1990s, several former high-ranking members of the Soviet military and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, in a series of interviews to the American defense contractor BDM, admitted the existence of the Dead Hand, making somewhat contradictory statements concerning its deployment.


title: Dead Hand

text: Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in 1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis, that would automatically launch all missiles, triggered by a combination of light, radioactivity and overpressure, even if every nuclear-command center and all leadership were destroyed.


title: Dead Hand

text: Colonel General Andrian Danilevich, Assistant for Doctrine and Strategy to the Chief of the General Staff from 1984 to 1990, stated in 1992 that the Dead Hand had been contemplated, but that the Soviets considered automatic-trigger systems too dangerous. Furthermore, such systems became unnecessary with the advent of efficient early-warning systems and increased missile readiness, so the idea had been rejected.


title: Dead Hand

text: In 1993, Vitaly Katayev, Senior Advisor to the Chairman of the Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1967–1985, responsible for strategic arms and defense policy, arms control negotiations and military doctrine, confirmed that the Dead Hand had been "definitely operational" by the early 1980s. According to Katayev, it was not completely automatic but was intended to be activated manually during a threatening crisis. It was to be triggered by numerous sensors sensitive to light, seismic shock, radiation or atmospheric density.


title: Dead Hand

text: Although both Katayev and Korobushin claimed that the mechanism had already been deployed, Viktor Surikov, Deputy Director of the Central Scientific Research Institute for General Machine Building (TsNIIMash) in 1976–1992, confirmed in 1993 that the Soviets had designed the automatic launch system with seismic, light and radiation sensors, but said that the design had been ultimately rejected by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev on advice of Korobushin and never materialized.


title: Dead Hand

text: Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand. In a 1993 issue of "The New York Times":


title: Dead Hand

text: However, more recent sources indicate the system was semi-automatic. In a 2007 article, Ron Rosenbaum quotes Blair as saying that Dead Hand is "designed to ensure semi-automatic retaliation to a decapitating strike". Rosenbaum writes, "Of course, there's a world of difference between a 'semi-automatic' doomsday device and the totally automatic—beyond human control—doomsday device."


title: Dead Hand

text: In 2011, the commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General , in an interview with "Komsomolskaya Pravda", confirmed the operational state of the Perimeter assessment and communication system.


title: Dead Hand

text: In 2018, Colonel General , the former chief of Russia's Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces, stated that the Perimeter system might become ineffective in the wake of the United States' withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.


title: Irene Cara

text: Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959 – November 25, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and actress of black, Puerto Rican, and Cuban descent. Cara rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film "Fame", and for recording the film's title song "Fame", which reached 1 in several countries.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1983, Cara co-wrote and sang the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film "Flashdance"), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984. Prior to her success with "Fame", Cara portrayed the title character Sparkle Williams in the original 1976 musical drama film "Sparkle".


title: Irene Cara

text: Cara was born and raised in The Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Cara, a steel factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban. Cara had two sisters and two brothers. She began to play the piano by ear, studied music, acting and dance seriously, and began taking dance lessons when she was five. Her performing career started with her singing and dancing professionally on Spanish-language television. She made early TV appearances on "The Original Amateur Hour" (singing in Spanish) and Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show". In 1971–1972, she was a regular on PBS's educational program "The Electric Company" as a member of the show's band, the Short Circus. As a child, Cara recorded a Spanish-language record for the Latin market and an English-language Christmas album. She also appeared in a major concert tribute to Duke Ellington, which featured Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis Jr. and Roberta Flack. Cara attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan.


title: Irene Cara

text: Cara appeared in on- and off-Broadway theatrical shows including musicals, starting with "Maggie Flynn" opposite Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy. Shortly thereafter, she was one of five finalists for the "Little Miss America" pageant. She also appeared in "Via Galactica" with Raúl Juliá, "Ain't Misbehavin'", and "The Me Nobody Knows" (which won an Obie Award). Cara was the original Daisy Allen on the 1970s daytime serial "Love of Life". She later took on the role of Angela in the romance/thriller "Aaron Loves Angela", followed by her portrayal of the title character in "Sparkle".


title: Irene Cara

text: Television brought Cara international acclaim for serious dramatic roles in two outstanding mini-series, "" and "". "John Willis' Screen World", Vol. 28, named her one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976"; that same year, a readers' poll in "Right On!" magazine named her Top Actress.


title: Irene Cara

text: The 1980 hit film "Fame", directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Cara to stardom. She was originally cast as a dancer, but when producers David Da Silva and Alan Marshall and screenwriter Christopher Gore heard her voice, they re-wrote the role of Coco Hernandez for her to play. In this part, she sang both the title song "Fame" and the film's other single, "Out Here on My Own", which were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. These songs helped make the film's soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. Further history was made at the Academy Awards that year: it was the first time that two songs from the same film and sung by the same artist were nominated in the same category. Thus, Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; "Fame," written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award for best original song that year, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Cara earned Grammy Award nominations in 1980 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. "Billboard" named her Top New Single Artist, while "Cashbox Magazine" awarded her both Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist. Asked by "Fame" TV series' producers to reprise her role as Coco Hernandez, she declined, wanting to focus her attention on her recording career; Erica Gimpel assumed the role.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1980, she briefly played the role of "Dorothy" in "The Wiz" on tour, in a role that Stephanie Mills had first portrayed in the original Broadway production. Coincidentally, Cara and Mills had shared the stage together as children in the original 1968 Broadway musical "Maggie Flynn", starring Shirley Jones and Jack Cassidy, in which both young girls played American Civil War orphans.


title: Irene Cara

text: Cara was set to star in her own sitcom, "Irene", on NBC in 1981. The cast had veteran performers Kaye Ballard and Teddy Wilson as well as newcomers Julia Duffy and Keenen Ivory Wayans. However, even though the pilot aired, it was not picked up by the network for the fall season. In 1983, Cara appeared as herself in the film "D.C. Cab", about a group of cabbies. One of the characters, Tyrone, played by Charlie Barnett, is an obsessed Cara fan who decorated his Checker Cab as a shrine to her. Her contribution to the film's soundtrack, "The Dream (Hold On to Your Dream)" played over the closing credits of the film, and was a minor hit, peaking at No. 37 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in February 1984.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1982, Cara earned the Image Award for Best Actress when she co-starred with Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash in the NBC Movie of the Week, Maya Angelou's "Sister, Sister". Cara portrayed Myrlie Evers-Williams in the PBS TV movie about civil rights leader Medgar Evers, "", and earned an NAACP Image Award Best Actress nomination. She also appeared in 1982's "Killing 'em Softly". Cara continued to perform in live theater.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie "Flashdance": "Flashdance... What a Feeling", which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara penned the lyrics to the song with Keith Forsey while riding in a car in New York heading to the studio to record it; Moroder composed the music. Cara admitted later that she was initially reluctant to work with Giorgio Moroder because she had no wish to invite further comparisons with another artist who worked with Moroder, Donna Summer. Despite this, the collaboration paid off, and became a hit in several countries, attracting several awards for Cara. She shared the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song with Moroder and Forsey, becoming the first black woman to win an Oscar in a non-acting category and the youngest to receive an Oscar for songwriting. She won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, 1984 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and American Music Awards for Best R&B Female Artist and Best Pop Single of the Year.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller "City Heat", co-starring with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and singing the standards "Embraceable You" and "Get Happy". She also co-wrote the theme song "City Heat", which was sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May of that year, she scored her final Top 40 hit with "Breakdance" going to No. 8. The follow up, "You Were Made for Me" reached No. 78 that summer but she did not appear on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O'Neal in "Certain Fury", about two troubled young women who flee a court hearing and are mistaken for killers. In 1986, Cara appeared in the film "Busted Up". She also provided the voice of Snow White in the unofficial sequel to Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Filmation's "Happily Ever After", in 1993. That same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in a tour of "Jesus Christ Superstar" opposite Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.


title: Irene Cara

text: Along with her career in acting and hit singles, Cara released three studio albums: "Anyone Can See" in 1982, "What a Feelin'" in 1983, and "Carasmatic" in 1987, the most successful of these being "What a Feelin"'. In 1985, she collaborated with the Hispanic charity supergroup Hermanos in the song "Cantaré, cantarás", in which she sang a solo segment with the Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo. Cara toured Europe and Asia throughout the 1990s, achieving several modest dance hits on European charts, but no U.S. chart hits. She released a compilation of Eurodance singles in the mid to late 1990s entitled "Precarious 90's". Cara also worked as a backup vocalist for Vicki Sue Robinson, Lou Reed, George Duke, Oleta Adams, and Evelyn "Champagne" King.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 1993, a California jury awarded her $1.5 million from a 1985 lawsuit she filed against record executive Al Coury and Network Records, accusing them of withholding royalties from the "Flashdance" soundtrack and her first two solo records. Cara stated that, as a result, she was labeled as being difficult to work with, and that the music industry "virtually blacklisted" her.


title: Irene Cara

text: In March 2004, Cara received two honors with an induction into the Ciboney Cafe's Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the sixth annual Prestige Awards. In June 2005, Cara won the third round of the NBC television series "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time", performing "Flashdance... What a Feeling" and covered Anastacia's song "I'm Outta Love" with her all-female band, Hot Caramel. At the 2006 AFL Grand Final in Melbourne, Cara performed a rendition of the "Flashdance" title track as an opener to the pre-match entertainment.


title: Irene Cara

text: In 2005, Cara contributed a dance single, titled "Forever My Love", to the compilation album titled "Gay Happening Vol. 12".


title: Irene Cara

text: , Cara had residences in both New Port Richey, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was in Hot Caramel, a band which she formed in 1999. Their album, called "Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel", was released on April 4, 2011. Cara appeared in season 2 of CMT's reality show "Gone Country".


title: Irene Cara

text: Cara married stuntman and film director Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles on April 13, 1986. They divorced in 1991.


title: Irene Cara

text: Cara died at her home in Largo, Florida, on November 25, 2022, at the age of 63. As of December 16, 2022, the cause of her death is unknown.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Lost Highway is a 1997 surrealist neo-noir horror film directed by David Lynch and co-written by Lynch and Barry Gifford. It stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, and Robert Blake. The film follows a musician (Pullman) who begins receiving mysterious VHS tapes of him and his wife (Arquette) in their home. He is suddenly convicted of murder, after which he inexplicably disappears and is replaced by a young mechanic (Getty) leading a different life.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was financed by the French production company Ciby 2000 and was largely shot in Los Angeles, where Lynch collaborated with frequent producer Mary Sweeney and cinematographer Peter Deming. The film's surreal narrative structure has been likened to a Möbius strip, while Lynch has described it as a "psychogenic fugue" rather than a conventionally logical story. The film's soundtrack, which was produced by Trent Reznor, features an original score by Angelo Badalamenti and Barry Adamson, as well as contributions from artists including David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Upon release, "Lost Highway" received mixed reviews and grossed $3.7 million in North America after a modest three-week run. Most critics initially dismissed the film as incoherent, but it has since attracted a cult following and critical praise, as well as scholarly interest. "Lost Highway" is the first of three Lynch films set in Los Angeles, followed by "Mulholland Drive" in 2001 and "Inland Empire" in 2006. In 2003, the film was adapted as an opera by the Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Fred Madison, a Los Angeles saxophonist, receives a message on his house intercom: "Dick Laurent is dead." The next morning, his wife Renee finds a VHS tape on their porch containing a video of their house. After having sex, Fred tells her he had a dream about someone resembling her being attacked. He then sees Renee's face as that of a pale old man. Another tape arrives, showing shots of them asleep in their bed. Fred and Renee call the police but the detectives offer no assistance. Fred and Renee attend a party being thrown by her friend Andy. The Mystery Man that Fred dreamed about approaches Fred, claiming to have met him before. The man then says he is at Fred's house at that very moment and answers the house phone when Fred calls him. Fred learns from Andy that the man is a friend of Dick Laurent. Terrified, Fred leaves the party with Renee. The next morning, another tape arrives and Fred watches it alone. To his horror, it shows him hovering over Renee's dismembered body. He is sentenced to death for her murder.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: While on death row, Fred is plagued by headaches and visions of the Mystery Man and a burning cabin in the desert. During a cell check, the prison guard finds that the man in Fred's cell is now Pete Dayton, a young auto mechanic. Although Pete is released into the care of his parents, he is followed by two detectives who are trying to find out more about him. The next day, Pete returns to work at the garage where gangster Mr. Eddy asks him to fix his car. Mr. Eddy takes Pete for a drive, during which Pete witnesses Mr. Eddy beat down a tailgater. The next day, Mr. Eddy returns to the garage with his mistress, Alice Wakefield, and his Cadillac for Pete to repair. Later, Alice returns to the garage alone and invites Pete out for dinner. When Pete and Alice begin an affair, she fears that Mr. Eddy suspects them, and concocts a scheme to rob her friend Andy and leave town. Alice also reveals to Pete that Mr. Eddy is actually an amateur porn producer named Dick Laurent. Pete gets a phone call from Mr. Eddy and the Mystery Man, which frightens Pete so much that he decides to go along with Alice's plan. Pete ambushes Andy and accidentally kills him, before he notices a photograph showing Alice and Renee together. Later, when the police are at the house investigating Andy's death, Alice is inexplicably missing from the photo.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Pete and Alice arrive at an empty cabin in the desert and start having sex outside on the sand. Alice taunts Pete and walks into the cabin as Pete turns back into Fred. Fred searches the cabin and finds only the Mystery Man, who tells him that there is no Alice, only Renee, and starts chasing him with a video camera. Fred escapes and drives to the Lost Highway Hotel, where he finds Mr. Eddy and Renee having sex. After Renee leaves, Fred kidnaps Mr. Eddy and slits his throat. The Mystery Man shoots Mr. Eddy dead and then whispers something to Fred before he disappears. Fred drives to his old house, buzzes the intercom and says, "Dick Laurent is dead." When the two detectives drive up to the house, Fred runs back to his car and drives off with the detectives in pursuit. He leads the police on a high-speed chase through the desert, begins screaming helplessly amid flashes of light, and then falls silent as headlights trace the darkened highway.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was directed by David Lynch as his first feature film since "" (1992), a prequel to his television series "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991). He came across the phrase "lost highway" in the book "Night People" (1992) by Barry Gifford. Because Lynch knew the writer very well and had previously adapted his novel "Wild at Heart" (1990) into a film by the same name, he told him that he loved the phrase as a title for a movie. The two agreed to write a screenplay together, having their own different ideas of what "Lost Highway" should be. They ended up rejecting all of them. Lynch then told Gifford that, during the last night of shooting "Fire Walk with Me", he had a thought about videotapes and a couple in crisis. This idea would develop into the first part of the film until Fred Madison is put on death row. Lynch and Gifford then realized that a transformation had to occur and another story, which would have several links to the first one but also differ, developed. It took them one month to finish the script.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was partially inspired by the O. J. Simpson murder case and Simpson's ability to lead his life afterward. The film's opening scene, where Fred Madison hears the words "Dick Laurent is dead" over his intercom, was inspired by an analogous incident that happened to Lynch at his own house. Because his house was next to actor David Lander's house and both men have the same first name, Lynch thought the stranger must have been wrong about the address. The idea of The Mystery Man "came out of a feeling of a man who, whether real or not, gave the impression that he was supernatural", Lynch explained. The film was financed by the French production company Ciby 2000. Lynch's Asymmetrical Productions, whose offices are near his house in the Hollywood Hills, was also involved in the film's production.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Lynch cast Bill Pullman, a friend and neighbor of his, as the film's central character. Actress Patricia Arquette agreed to be cast as Renee and Alice because she was interested in portraying a sexually desirable and dangerous woman, a role she had never done before. She had also been a fan of Lynch for a long time and felt that it would be an honor to work with him. Actor Balthazar Getty was chosen for the role of Pete Dayton after Lynch saw a picture of him in a magazine and said that he was "the guy for the job". Because the script was so open to interpretation, Getty and Arquette did not know what kind of film "Lost Highway" was supposed to be. According to Getty, "Part of David's technique is to keep his actors guessing, because it creates a certain atmosphere on set."


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Actor Robert Blake was cast as The Mystery Man because Lynch liked his previous work and was always interested in working with him. Although Blake did not understand the script at all, he was responsible for the look and style of his character. When Lynch told him to use his imagination, Blake decided to cut his hair short, part it in the middle, and apply white Kabuki make-up on his face. He then put on a black outfit and approached Lynch, who loved what he had done. Actor Robert Loggia, who had previously expressed interest in playing the role of Frank Booth in Lynch's 1986 mystery film "Blue Velvet", was cast as Mr. Eddy and Dick Laurent. Lynch recalled that, upon learning of Dennis Hopper's casting as Booth, Loggia launched a profanity-laden rant at him, which would eventually become Mr. Eddy's road rage scene. "Lost Highway" also features the final motion picture performance of Richard Pryor.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was shot in Los Angeles, California, in about 54 days, from November 29, 1995, to February 22, 1996. Some of the film's exterior and driving scenes were shot in Griffith Park, while the scenes of the Lost Highway Hotel were filmed at the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel in Death Valley. Lynch owns the property that was used for Fred and Renee's mansion, which is located on the same street as his own house in the Hollywood Hills. The house was configured in a particular way to meet the requirements of the film. A corridor that leads to the bedroom was added and the façade was remodeled with slot windows to make Fred's point of view very limited. The paintings that are on the wall above the couch were done by Lynch's ex-wife and producer Mary Sweeney.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: The scenes that involved nudity and sexual contact proved to be very difficult for Arquette because she considers herself a very modest and shy person. Nevertheless, she felt very protected by Lynch and the film crew, who would always give her robes at any time. The love scene between her and Getty in the desert, which was shot on a dry lake bed 20 miles outside Baker, was a closed set and only key crew were allowed on it. The sequence where Fred transforms into Pete was not computer-generated, but rather accomplished with in-camera techniques: a makeup expert constructed a fake head that was covered with artificial brain matter, which was then intercut with shots of Pullman. The final car chase was shot with two different cameras running at different frame rates. The footage was then sped up to make the scene more aggressive.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Lynch worked with cinematographer Peter Deming to give the film a surreal look. Because the script did not include many descriptions, the film's visual approach evolved as filming progressed. Deming would occasionally pull out the lenses of his camera to defocus a particular scene, while Lynch would often listen to music in his headset and to a scene at the same time to visualize the screenplay. According to him, "Sound and picture working together is what films are [...] So every single sound has to be supporting that scene and enlarging it. A room is, say, nine by twelve, but when you're introducing sound to it, you can create a space that's giant". The notion of a psychogenic fugue was incorporated into the film after the unit publicist read it up on a book about mental illnesses. Lynch felt it was a musical term, stating that "a fugue starts off one way, takes up on another direction, and then comes back to the original, so it [relates] to the form of the film."


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Originally, Lynch wanted to shoot "Lost Highway" in black and white, but the idea was discarded due to the financial risks it could cause. Nevertheless, the film was shot in varying levels of darkness and features few daylight scenes. Some sequences became so dark that it was difficult for viewers to see what was happening. According to Deming, "The thing I wanted to achieve was giving the feeling that anything could come out of the background, and to leave a certain question about what you're looking at. The film is working under the surface while you're watching it." The film's darkness was intentionally not adjusted during post-production. The first cut of the film ran two and a half hours, and a test audience of 50 people was given a preview to give Lynch an idea of what needed to be cut. The film was ultimately cut down to two hours and ten minutes. Most of the deleted scenes were about Pete's life, including a scene where Pete would go out with his friends to a drive-in before going to the bowling alley.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: The film's original score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti with additional music by Barry Adamson. Badalamenti had previously worked with Lynch on "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks". Although most of the score was recorded in Prague, additional compositions were done in London. In New Orleans, Lynch collaborated with musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails to provide additional music. Together, they created music that accompanied the scenes in which Fred and Renee watch the mysterious VHS tapes. Two songs by Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, "The Perfect Drug" and "Driver Down", were specifically composed for the film. Reznor then produced a soundtrack album that includes the film's score and songs by artists such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, Marilyn Manson, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Rammstein.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Marilyn Manson's contributions include their cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You", which was previously released on their 1995 EP "Smells Like Children", and "Apple of Sodom", which was specifically written for the film. The Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan wrote "Eye" after Lynch rejected an early version of "Tear" from the band's 1998 album "Adore". Two songs by Rammstein—"Rammstein" and "Heirate Mich"—were included after Lynch listened to their 1995 debut album "Herzeleid" while exploring locations for the film. The track "Insensatez", an instrumental version of the bossa nova song "How Insensitive" by Antônio Carlos Jobim, was also included as part of the film's soundtrack. The album, which was released on November 26, 1996, reached No. 7 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and was certified Gold status in the US.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Although "Lost Highway" is generally classified as a neo-noir film, the film borrows elements from other genres, including German Expressionism and French New Wave. The terms psychological thriller and horror film have also been used to describe its narrative elements. Writing for the Australian "Metro Magazine", Thomas Caldwell described Fred Madison as "a typical film noir hero, inhabiting a doomed and desolate world characterised by an excess of sexuality, darkness and violence." Another film noir feature that is present in the film is the femme fatale (Alice Wakefield), who misleads Pete Dayton into dangerous situations. The film was also noted for its graphic violence and sexual themes. Lynch defended these images, stating that he was simply being honest with his own ideas for the film.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Some of the film's themes and ideas had been explored before: the 1945 film "Detour" also focuses on a disturbed nightclub musician. The film's setting and mysterious recorded messages were seen as a reference to the 1955 film "Kiss Me Deadly", while its nightmarish atmosphere has been compared to Maya Deren's 1943 short film "Meshes of the Afternoon". Like Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film "Vertigo", the film examines male obsessions with women, who merely represent emotions that relate to them. Lynch has described the film as a "psychogenic fugue" and insisted that, while "Lost Highway" is about "identity", the film is very abstract and can be interpreted in different ways. He does not favor advancing a specific interpretation and said that the film leaves viewers to interpret events as they choose. Gifford, however, thinks that the film offers a rational explanation to its surreal events. According to him, Fred Madison is experiencing a psychogenic fugue, which is manifested when he transforms into Pete. Some viewers think that the film is a homage to Ambrose Bierce's 1890 short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: The film's circular narrative has been likened to a Möbius strip. Cultural critic Slavoj Žižek felt that this circularity is analogous to a psychoanalytic process. According to him, "there is a symptomatic key phrase (as in all of Lynch's films) that always returns as an insistent, traumatic, and indecipherable message (the Real), and there is a temporal loop, as with analysis, where the protagonist at first fails to encounter the self, but in the end is able to pronounce the symptom consciously as his own." This implies that Fred's madness is so powerful that even the fantasy where he sees himself as Pete ultimately dissolves and ends in a nightmare. He also interprets the film's bipartite structure as exploiting "the opposition of two horrors: the phantasmatic horror of the nightmarish noir universe of perverse sex, betrayal, and murder, and the (perhaps much more unsettling) despair of our drab, alienated daily life of impotence and distrust."


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was released in France on January 15, 1997. In North America, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 1997. The film was then given a limited release on February 21, 1997 in 12 theaters, grossing nearly $213,000 at the US box office weekend. The film expanded a week later in 212 theaters and, after a modest three-week run, it went on to make $3.7 million in North America. On May 19, 2017, "Lost Highway" was released in Russia and grossed $28,347. Overall, the film grossed nearly $3.8 million worldwide.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Upon release, "Lost Highway" received mixed reviews from critics. Both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs down", a rating Lynch would later tout as "two more great reasons to see" "Lost Highway". Ebert argued that, while Lynch effectively puts images on the screen and uses a strong soundtrack to create mood, the film does not make sense, concluding that "Lost Highway" "is about design, not cinema". Similarly, Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "Lost Highway" is a "beautifully made but emotionally empty" film that "exists only for the sensation of its provocative moments". Both Stephanie Zacharek of "Salon" and Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" felt that the film was very superficial, especially when compared to "Blue Velvet". Zacharek said that Lynch "traded some of his disturbing originality for noir formula and schticky weirdness", while Gleiberman compared the film's sex scenes to those of "mediocre Hollywood thrillers".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: In a more positive review, "The New York Times" journalist Janet Maslin felt that, while the film's perversity is unoriginal and resembles that of "Blue Velvet", "Lost Highway" still "holds sinister interest of its own" and "invites its audience to ponder". "Metro" editor Richard von Busack praised "Lost Highway" as a "true horror" film due to its confusing and unpleasant screenplay. He explained that horror "ought to transcend logic and ordinary reality" and, unlike with popular horror films like "Scream" (1996), where the difference between screen violence and real violence is obvious, Lynch "present[s] horror as horror, willing to baffle us, willing to wound us". In another positive review, Andy Klein of the "Dallas Observer" felt that "Lost Highway" was a return to form for Lynch and considered it his best work since "Blue Velvet". Klein compared the film's unanswerable concerns to the "Star Gate" sequence from "" (1968), stating that "Lost Highway" is "better absorbed and experienced than analyzed".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Writing for the "Chicago Reader", critic Jonathan Rosenbaum felt that "Lost Highway" was "an audacious move away from conventional narrative and back toward the formal beauty of "Eraserhead"". He credited Lynch's "masterful and often powerful fusions of sound and image" for giving the film a very expressionist style. However, he criticized the noir iconography for its lack of historical context. For example, he explained that, while Arquette's clothes fit in a noir setting, The Mystery Man's video camera is very contemporary and feels out of place. Todd McCarthy of "Variety" concluded that, although "Lost Highway" is "uneven and too deliberately obscure in meaning to be entirely satisfying", the result "remains sufficiently intriguing and startling to bring many of Lynch's old fans back on board".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: At the 1997 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, "Lost Highway" was nominated for Worst Picture and Worst Director, but lost to "Batman & Robin" in both categories. At the 1998 Belgian Film Critics Association, the film was nominated for the Grand Prix award, but lost to "Lone Star".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: "Lost Highway" was released on DVD on March 25, 2008, by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The DVD is presented in anamorphic widescreen in the 2.35:1 ratio with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. The film was then released on Blu-ray format in France in 2010, and in Japan and the United Kingdom in 2012. The British edition includes a collection of short, experimental films that Lynch had previously sold on his website. However, it was encoded in 1080i resolution at a 50 Hz frame rate, as opposed to the 1080p resolution at 24 frames per second of the French and Japanese editions. In the United States, "Lost Highway" was released on Blu-ray on June 25, 2019, by Kino Lorber using the 2010 master. Lynch did not participate in the release, saying that "It was made from old elements and not from a restoration of the original negative. I hope that a version from the restoration of the original negative will happen as soon as possible." Kino Lorber responded saying the release was sourced from the Universal Pictures master, and they had intended to work with Lynch on the release but "sent email after email without one response". The Criterion Collection announced that a 4K Blu-ray with restoration supervised and approved by Lynch would be released on October 11, 2022.


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: Although not as universally praised as other Lynch films, "Lost Highway" has retrospectively attracted critical praise and scholarly interest. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4 out of 10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Marking a further escalation in David Lynch's surrealist style, "Lost Highway" is a foreboding mystery that arguably leads to a dead end, although it is signposted throughout with some of the director's most haunting images yet." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 52 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Jeremiah Kipp of "Slant Magazine" claimed that the film was not an artistic failure, stating that "in many ways, it's Lynch at his most daring, emotional, and personal". Writing for "Little White Lies", William Carroll considered the film a prelude to "Mulholland Drive" due to its "Los Angeles' iconic topography", and felt that it deserves to be regarded as one of the director's best works. Similarly, "Daily Vanguard" editor Victoria Castellanos remarked that the film "serves as a wonderful companion to "Mulholland Drive" and "Inland Empire", and in many ways is more surreal and emotional than some of Lynch's other films".


title: Lost Highway (film)

text: As a cult film, "Lost Highway" was included in "The A.V. Club"s "The New Cult Canon" section. Editor Scott Tobias viewed it as "more cohesive than it might appear at first blush", and argued that Lynch "goes digging for truths that people don't know or won't acknowledge about themselves—within dreams, within the subconscious, within those impossibly dark hallways where we fear to tread". Lucia Bozzola of the AllMovie online database claimed that, after "Fire Walk With Me", "Lost Highway" marked an artistic and cinematic comeback for Lynch and that it remains "a sound/image tour de force". "Lost Highway" received five votes in the 2012 "Sight & Sound" critics' poll of The Greatest Films of All Time, ranking 323rd. In 2003, the film was adapted as an opera by the Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, with a libretto by Elfriede Jelinek.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: The 2012 NFL draft was the 77th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players for their rosters. The draft, which is officially called the "NFL Player Selection Meeting", was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City from April 26 to April 28, 2012. There were 253 draft selections: 221 regular selections and 32 compensatory selections. The Indianapolis Colts, who compiled the league's worst season in with a 2–14 record, had the right to the first selection. A record 26 prospects attended the draft in person.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: A main story around the draft was around quarterback prospect Andrew Luck. On April 17, Indianapolis general manager Ryan Grigson announced that the team would take Luck as their first-overall pick after releasing their longtime starting quarterback Peyton Manning, saying it was "the right thing to do" in anticipation of the "media gauntlet" Luck would face in the days leading up to the draft. Luck was highly touted as one of the best quarterback prospects in years and widely regarded as the top overall prospect in the draft. As a result, he had been the subject of the "Suck for Luck" campaigns by fans, who hoped that their teams would end up with the worst record in the 2011 season so they would have the chance to draft him. He was successful with the Colts, but dealt with several injuries throughout his career and decided to retire in 2018 while still in his prime, after winning the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. Another story of the draft was around Heisman-trophy winning quarterback Robert Griffin III. He was selected second-overall by the Washington Redskins, and had a breakout rookie season en route to winning that year's NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award. However, Griffin suffered an injury during the postseason that same year and has struggled to show the same level of play since; Griffin would later be released by the Redskins after the 2015 season.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: The draft was highly regarded for its quarterback talent, with six out of the eleven quarterbacks selected (Luck, Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Russell Wilson, Nick Foles, and Kirk Cousins) selected to at least one Pro Bowl. Tannehill and Foles both had a season in which they led the NFL in passer rating; Foles was also named MVP of Super Bowl LII. As of 2022, Cousins is ranked in the top ten in career passer rating and completion percentage. Wilson was the most successful quarterback of the draft, making nine Pro Bowls and leading the Seahawks to their first Super Bowl victory. The draft also had several notable quarterbacks who are now regarded as draft busts. There were two players drafted in 2012 at 28 years old. Brandon Weeden became the oldest first-round selection in NFL history at 28 years old when he was selected by the Cleveland Browns, but left the team after two seasons. Jeris Pendleton became the oldest seventh-round selection in NFL history at 28 years old when he was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars, but he left the team after one season. Brock Osweiler and Ryan Lindley also had largely unsuccessful careers in the NFL. A rare occurrence happened when the first and final picks in the draft were both quarterbacks and were taken by the same team; Chandler Harnish was chosen with the final pick of the draft by the Colts, causing him to be dubbed Mr. Irrelevant for 2012. Besides its quarterbacks, the draft overall is considered one of the best of all-time with numerous prospects showing Hall of Fame talent throughout their careers, including Defensive Player of the Year winners Luke Kuechly and Stephon Gilmore, along with perennial Pro Bowlers Lavonte David, Bobby Wagner, Fletcher Cox, T. Y. Hilton, Chandler Jones, Johnny Hekker, and Justin Tucker.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: A record 65 non-seniors announced their intention to forgo their remaining NCAA eligibility and declare themselves eligible to be selected. Of the 65, 44 (or 67.7%) were drafted.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: The selection of Luck, a junior, marked the fourth straight draft where the first overall selection was not a senior. Prior to the 2012 draft, six out of the previous seven first-overall draft selections had been players who had entered the draft early. Eight of the first ten players chosen in this draft were non-seniors, which matched the record set in the previous draft. Mark Barron and Ryan Tannehill were the only two seniors among the first ten draftees.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: A supplemental draft was held on July 12, 2012. For each player selected in this draft, the team forfeits its pick in that round in the draft of the following season. Eight players were available, but only one was selected.


title: 2012 NFL Draft

text: In the explanations below, (D) denotes trades that took place during the draft, while (PD) indicates trades completed pre-draft.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1966 novel "The Last Picture Show" by Larry McMurtry. The film's ensemble cast includes Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and Cybill Shepherd. Set in a small town in northern Texas from November 1951 to October 1952, it is a story of two high-school seniors and long-time friends, Sonny Crawford (Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Bridges).


title: The Last Picture Show

text: "The Last Picture Show" was theatrically released on October 22, 1971, by Columbia Pictures. It was a critical and commercial success, grossing $29 million on a $1.3 million budget, and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Johnson and Bridges, and Best Supporting Actress for Burstyn and Leachman, with Johnson and Leachman winning.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: In 1998, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."


title: The Last Picture Show

text: In 1951, Sonny Crawford and Duane Jackson are high-school seniors and friends in tiny Anarene, a declining oil town in northern Texas. Duane is dating Jacy Farrow, the richest and prettiest girl in town. Sonny breaks up with his girlfriend Charlene Duggs.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: At Christmas time, Sonny begins an affair with Ruth Popper, the depressed middle-aged wife of his high-school coach. At a Christmas dance, Jacy is invited by Lester Marlow to a skinny dipping party at the home of Bobby Sheen, a wealthy young man who seems to be a better prospect than Duane.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: A group of boys take their young, mentally disabled friend, Billy, to a prostitute to lose his virginity, but she hits Billy in the face when he ejaculates prematurely. When Duane and Sonny take Billy back home, local businessman Sam tells them that since they cannot even take care of a friend, he is barring them from the pool hall, movie theater, and café


title: The Last Picture Show

text: he owns, all centerpieces of the town's social life. Duane successfully hides in the back seat. At the café, Genevieve, the waitress, tells Sonny she knows that Duane was with the group but agrees not to tell Sam.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: During the weekend of New Year's Eve Duane and Sonny go on a road trip to Mexico. Before they drive off, Sam, who has forgiven Sonny, wistfully wishes he still had the stamina to join them, and gives them some extra money. They return from the trip hung over and tired, to learn that Sam died suddenly of a stroke on New Year's Eve. In his will he left the movie theater to the woman who ran the concession stand; the café to Genevieve; $1,000 to the preacher's son, Joe Bob Blanton; and the pool hall to Sonny.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Because Bobby has told Jacy that he does not date virgins, she invites Duane to a motel for sex, but Duane is unable to get an erection. She loses her virginity to Duane on their second attempt and then breaks up with him by telephone. When Bobby marries another girl, Jacy is disappointed. Out of boredom she has sex on a pool table with Abilene, a roughneck foreman who works for her father and who is also her mother's lover. He is brutally cold to her afterward. Jacy then sets her sights on Sonny, who drops Ruth without a word. Duane quarrels with Sonny over Jacy, "his" girl, smashing a bottle into Sonny's left eye that leaves him badly injured and disqualified for military service. Duane then joins the Army to fight in Korea.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Jacy suggests to Sonny that they elope to Oklahoma. They marry and on their way to a honeymoon on Lake Texoma they are stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper. Jacy had left a note telling her parents about their plan, secretly hoping they would stop her. The Farrows have them held in custody until they arrive, her father dismissing Sonny completely and taking Jacy home. Sonny rides back with Jacy's mother, Lois, who reveals she was Sam's youthful lover and chides Sonny that he was much better off with Ruth Popper than with Jacy. The marriage is promptly annulled.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Duane returns to town on leave from the Army before shipping out for Korea. Sonny shows up at his home, and the two make amends. They go to the picture show, its very final screening (the Western, "Red River", set in Texas and starring John Wayne). The next morning, Sonny sees Duane off on the bus. Billy is sweeping the street and is hit and killed by a truck, to the complete indifference of some of the local townsmen who blame him for being stupid and careless. Sonny is devastated and berates the men for their behavior. He then seeks comfort from Ruth who has since become even more depressed and has shuttered herself in her house. She explodes in hurt and anger. Then, spent, she takes his outstretched hand, tentatively reuniting the pair.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Going into "The Last Picture Show" Peter Bogdanovich was a 31-year-old stage actor, film essayist, and critic, with one small film to his directorial credit, "Targets" (also known as "Before I Die"). He had made the first with his wife and collaborator, Polly Platt. As Bogdanovich later explained to "The Hollywood Reporter", while waiting in a cashier's line in a drugstore, he happened to look at the rack of paperbacks and his eye fell on an interesting title, "The Last Picture Show". The back of the book said it was about "kids growing up in Texas" and Bogdanovich decided that it did not interest him and put it back. A few weeks later, actor Sal Mineo handed Platt a copy of the book. "I always wanted to be in this", he said, "but I'm a little too old now" and recommended that Platt and Bogdanovich make it into a film. According to Bogdanovich's recollection, Platt said, "I don't know how you make it into a picture, but it's a good book." Bogdanovich, McMurtry, and Platt adapted the novel into the film of the same name.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Stephen Friedman was a lawyer with Columbia Pictures but keen to break into film production as he had bought the film rights to the book, so Bogdanovich hired him as producer.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: After discussing the proposed film with Orson Welles, his houseguest at the time, Bogdanovich agreed with him that shooting the film in black and white would work aesthetically, which by then was an unusual choice.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: The film was shot in Larry McMurtry's small hometown of Archer City located in north-central Texas near the Oklahoma state line. McMurtry had renamed the town "Thalia" in his book; Bogdanovich dubbed it Anarene (for a ghost town south of Archer City). The similarity to famed cowtown Abilene, Kansas, in Howard Hawks' "Red River" (1948) was intentional. "Red River" again is tied in as "the last picture show", which Sonny and Duane watch at the end of the film.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: After shooting wrapped, Bogdanovich went back to Los Angeles to edit the film footage on a Moviola. Bogdanovich has said that he edited the entire film himself but refused to credit himself as editor, reasoning that director and co-writer were enough. When informed that the Motion Picture Editors Guild required an editor credit, he suggested Donn Cambern, who had been editing another film, "Drive, He Said" (1971), in the next office and had helped Bogdanovich with some purchasing paperwork concerning the film's opticals. Cambern disputes this, stating that Bogdanovich did do an edit of the film, which he screened for a selection of guests, including Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson and himself. The consensus was the film was going to be great, but needed further editing to achieve its full potential. Cambern claims Bogdanovich invited him to do so, during which he made significant contributions to the film's final form.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Bogdanovich obtained a rare waiver from the Directors Guild of America to have his name appear only at the end of the film, after the actors' credits, as he felt it was more meaningful for the audience to see their names after their performances.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: The film features entirely diegetic music, including many songs of Hank Williams Sr. and other country & western and 1950s popular music recording artists.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars in his original review and named it the best film of 1971. He later added it to his "Great Movies" list, writing that "the film is above all an evocation of mood. It is about a town with no reason to exist, and people with no reason to live there. The only hope is in transgression." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called it a "lovely film" that "rediscovers a time, a place, a film form—and a small but important part of the American experience." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film four stars out of four and wrote, "Like few films in recent years, Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" ends with us wanting to see more of the people who occupy the small town world that is Anarene, Tex. in 1951. This emotion is not easily achieved. It is a result of a Peyton Place investigation into Anarene's bedrooms, parked cars, football games, movie theater, restaurant, and pool hall." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" called the film "the most considered, craftsmanlike and elaborate tribute we have yet had to what the movies were and how they figured in our lives." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" called it "an exceedingly well-made and involving narrative film with decent aims, encouraging us to understand and care about its characters, though not to emulate them."


title: The Last Picture Show

text: , review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes displays an approval rating of 100% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 9/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Making excellent use of its period and setting, Peter Bogdanovich's small town coming-of-age story is a sad but moving classic filled with impressive performances." According to Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 93 out of 100 based on 15 critics, the film received "universal acclaim".


title: The Last Picture Show

text: It ranked No. 19 on "Entertainment Weekly"'s list of the 50 Best High School Movies. In 2007, the film was ranked No. 95 on the American Film Institute's 10th Anniversary Edition of the 100 greatest American films of all time.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: In April 2011, "The Last Picture Show" was re-released in UK and Irish cinemas, distributed by Park Circus. "Total Film" magazine gave the film a five-star review, stating: "Peter Bogdanovich's desolate Texan drama is still as stunning now as it was in 1971."


title: The Last Picture Show

text: The film was released by The Criterion Collection in November 2010 as part of its box set "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story". It included a high-definition digital transfer of Peter Bogdanovich's director's cut, two audio commentaries, one from 1991, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall; the other from 2009, featuring Bogdanovich ""The Last Picture Show": A Look Back", (1999) and "Picture This" (1990), documentaries about the making of the film, "A Discussion with Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich", a 2009 Q&A, screen tests and location footage, and excerpts from a 1972 television interview with director François Truffaut about the New Hollywood.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Bogdanovich re-edited the film in 1992 to create a "director's cut". This version restores seven minutes of footage that Bogdanovich trimmed from the 1971 release because Columbia had imposed a firm 119-minute limit. With this requirement removed in the 1990s, Bogdanovich used the 127-minute cut on laserdisc, VHS and DVD releases. The original 1971 cut was never released on DVD or blu-ray for years, though it was released on VHS and laserdisc through Columbia Tristar Home Video. The 4K UHD release however, has the theatrical cut along with the more known director's cut. It's included as a part of Sony's Columbia Classics 4K Volume 3 set.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: There are two substantial scenes restored in the director's cut. The first is a sex scene between Jacy and Abilene that plays in the poolhall after it has closed for the night; it precedes the exterior scene where he drops her off home and she says "What a night. I never thought "this" would happen." The other major insertion is a scene that plays in Sam's café, where Genevieve watches while an amiable Sonny and a revved-up Duane decide to take their road trip to Mexico; it precedes the exterior scene outside the pool hall when they tell Sam of their plans, the last time they will ever see him.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Several shorter scenes were also restored. One comes between basketball practice in the gym and the exterior at The Rig-Wam drive-in; it has Jacy, Duane and Sonny riding along in her convertible (and being chased by an enthusiastic little dog), singing an uptempo rendition of the more solemn school song sung later at the football game. Another finds Sonny cruising the town streets in the pick-up, gazing longingly into Sam's poolhall, café and theater, from which he has been banished. Finally, there is an exterior scene of the auto caravan on its way to the Senior Picnic; as it passes the fishing tank where he had fished with Sam and Billy, Sonny sheds a tear for his departed friend and his lost youth.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Two scenes got slightly longer treatments: Ruth's and Sonny's return from the doctor, and the boys' returning Billy to Sam after his encounter with Jemmie Sue—both had added dialogue. Also, a number of individual shots were put back in, most notably a Gregg Toland-style deep focus shot in front of the Royal Theatre as everyone gets in their cars.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: "Texasville", the 1990 sequel to "The Last Picture Show", based on McMurtry's 1987 novel of the same name, was also directed by Bogdanovich, from his own screenplay, without McMurtry this time. The film reunites actors Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid, Sharon Ullrick (née Taggart) and Barc Doyle.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Stephen King's novel "Lisey's Story" makes repeated references to "The Last Picture Show" as the main character Scott Landon frequently watches the film throughout the novel during flashbacks.


title: The Last Picture Show

text: The 1972 Roxy Music UK hit single "Virginia Plain" includes the line, "Last Picture Show's down the drive-in."


title: The Last Picture Show

text: Season 3, Episode 20 of "Dawson's Creek", "The Longest Day", features two characters, Dawson Leery and Joey Potter, watching "The Last Picture Show" and comparing it to their similar relationship.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy "Long Day's Journey into Night" is often included on lists of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman".


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known ("Ah, Wilderness!"). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square) in New York City. A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression, alcoholism and dereliction. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, "Long Day's Journey into Night"). O'Neill had previously been employed by the "New London Telegraph", writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by George Piece Baker, but left after one year.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film "Reds", about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of "Bound East for Cardiff" that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took "Bound East for Cardiff" out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as "The Emperor Jones", began downtown and then moved to Broadway.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In an early one-act play, "The Web", written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill's first published play, "Beyond the Horizon", opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was "The Emperor Jones", which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include "Anna Christie" (Pulitzer Prize 1922), "Desire Under the Elms" (1924), "Strange Interlude" (Pulitzer Prize 1928), "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1931), and his only well-known comedy, "Ah, Wilderness!", a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 1936, O'Neill received the Nobel Prize in Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. O'Neill was profoundly influenced by the work of Swedish writer August Strindberg, and upon receiving the Nobel Prize, dedicated much of his acceptance speech to describing Strindberg's influence on his work. In conversation with Russel Crouse, O'Neill said that "the Strindberg part of the speech is no 'telling tale' to please the Swedes with a polite gesture. It is absolutely sincere. [...] And it's absolutely true that I am proud of the opportunity to acknowledge my debt to Strindberg thus publicly to his people". Before the speech was sent to Stockholm, O'Neill read it to his friend Sophus Keith Winther. As he was reading, he suddenly interrupted himself with the comment: "I wish immortality were a fact, for then some day I would meet Strindberg". When Winther objected that "that would scarcely be enough to justify immortality", O'Neill answered quickly and firmly: "It would be enough for me".


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play "The Iceman Cometh" was produced in 1946. The following year's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as "The Great God Brown" and "Lazarus Laughed."


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir "Part of a Long Story". They divorced on July 2, 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called "Casa Genotta". He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, "Tao House", is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, "Spithead," with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, "A Touch of the Poet" and "More Stately Mansions", were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, "The Iceman Cometh", "Long Day's Journey into Night", and "A Moon for the Misbegotten". He managed to complete "Moon for the Misbegotten" in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: O'Neill died at the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play "Long Day's Journey into Night" to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously published works include "A Touch of the Poet" (1958) and "More Stately Mansions" (1967).


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In 2000, a team of researchers studying O'Neill's autopsy report concluded that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.


title: Eugene O'Neill

text: In Warren Beatty's 1981 film "Reds", O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.