title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, having been inducted in 1980 for his individual career, and in 2010 as a member of the 1960 United States men's Olympic basketball team and president of the National Basketball Players Association. Also in 1980, Robertson was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary Team. He was again voted as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. The United States Basketball Writers Association renamed their College Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor in 1998, and he was one of five people chosen to represent the inaugural National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame class in 2006. He was ranked as the 36th best American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN. In October 2021, Robertson was honored as one of the league’s greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.<ref name="nba.com/75"></ref>


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson was also an integral part of "Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n" of 1970. The landmark NBA antitrust suit, which was filed when Robertson was the president of the NBA Players' Association, led to an extensive reform of the league's strict free agency and draft rules and, subsequently, to higher salaries for all players. He was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2009.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson was born into poverty in Charlotte, Tennessee. When he was approximately 18 months old, his parents moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he grew up in a segregated housing project. He preferred to play basketball over baseball, which was more popular in the neighborhood because it was "a poor kids' game". He learned how to shoot by using tennis balls and rags wrapped with rubber bands and tossing them into a peach basket in the back of his family's home.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson attended Crispus Attucks High School, an all-black high school, where he was coached by Ray Crowe, whose emphasis on a fundamentally sound game had a positive effect on his style of play. As a sophomore in 1954, he starred on an Attucks team that lost in the semi-state finals (state quarterfinals) to eventual state champions Milan, a story that would later be the basis of the classic 1986 movie "Hoosiers". When Robertson was a junior, Crispus Attucks dominated its opposition, going 31–1, and winning the 1955 state championship, the first for any all-black school in the nation. It was also the first state championship won by an Indianapolis team in the Hoosier tournament. In 1956, the team finished with a 31–0 record and won a second straight IHSAA Men's Basketball Championship, becoming the first team in Indiana to secure a perfect season and compiling a state-record 45 straight victories. After their championship game wins, the team was paraded through town in a regular tradition, but they were then taken to a park outside downtown to continue their celebration, unlike other teams. Robertson stated: "[Officials] thought the blacks were going to tear the town up, and they thought the whites wouldn't like it."


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In his senior season, Robertson scored 24.0 points per game and was named Indiana Mr. Basketball in 1956. After his graduation that year, Robertson enrolled at the University of Cincinnati.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson continued to excel while playing for the Cincinnati Bearcats, recording a scoring average of 33.8 points per game, the third-highest in college history. In each of his three years, he won the national scoring title, was named an All-American, and was chosen College Player of the Year, while setting 14 NCAA and 19 school records.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson's stellar play led the Bearcats to a 79–9 overall record during his three varsity seasons, including two Final Four appearances; however, a championship eluded Robertson, something that would become a repeated occurrence until late in his professional career. When Robertson left college, he was the all-time leading NCAA scorer until fellow Hall-of-Fame player Pete Maravich topped him in 1970. Robertson took Cincinnati to national prominence during his time there, but the university's greatest success in basketball took place immediately after his departure, when the team won national titles in 1961 and 1962, missing a third consecutive title in 1963 by just two points. He continues to stand atop the Bearcats' record book and the many records he still holds include points in one game at 62 (one of his six games of 50 points or more), career triple-doubles at 10, career rebounds per game at 15.2, and career points at 2,973.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson had many outstanding individual game performances, including 10 triple-doubles. His personal best may have been his line of 45 points, 23 rebounds, and 10 assists against Indiana State in 1959. Despite his success on the court, Robertson's college career was soured by racism. In those days, Southern university programs such as those of Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina did not recruit black athletes, and road trips to segregated cities were especially difficult, with Robertson often sleeping in college dorms instead of hotels. Years later, he told "The Indianapolis Star": "I'll never forgive them." Decades after his college days, Robertson's stellar NCAA career was rewarded by the United States Basketball Writers Association when they renamed the trophy awarded to the NCAA Division I Player of the Year the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998. This honor brought the award full circle for Robertson, as he had won the first two awards ever presented.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: After college, Robertson and Jerry West co-captained the 1960 U.S. basketball team at the 1960 Summer Olympics. The team, described as the greatest assemblage of basketball talent ever at that point, steamrolled the competition to win the gold medal. Robertson was a starting forward along with Purdue's Terry Dischinger, but played point guard as well. He was the leading scorer of the team, as the U.S. team won its nine games by a margin of 42.4 points. Ten of the twelve college players on the American squad later played in the NBA, including Robertson as well as future Basketball Hall-of-Famers West, Jerry Lucas, and Walt Bellamy.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Prior to the 1960–61 NBA season, Robertson made himself eligible for the 1960 NBA draft. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals as a territorial pick. The Royals gave Robertson a $33,000 signing bonus. In his NBA debut, Robertson recorded 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 140–123 win over the visiting Lakers. On November 15, 1960, Robertson recorded a then-career-high of 44 points to go along with 15 rebounds and 11 assists in a 124–115 win over the Philadelphia Warriors. In his rookie season, Robertson averaged 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 9.7 assists (leading the league), almost averaging a triple-double for the entire season. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year, was elected into the All-NBA First Team—which would happen in each of Robertson's first nine seasons—and made the first of 12 consecutive All-Star Game appearances. In addition, he was named the 1961 NBA All-Star Game MVP following his 23-point, 14-assist, 9-rebound performance in a West victory; however, the Royals finished with a 33–46 record and stayed in the cellar of the Western Division. On February 10, 1962, Robertson recorded 32 points, 21 rebounds, and 16 assists in a 134–118 win over the Hawks.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In the 1961–62 season, Robertson became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, with 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists. Robertson also set a then-NBA record for the most triple-doubles during the regular season with 41 triple-doubles; the record would stand for over half a century until 2016–17, when Russell Westbrook recorded 42 and joined Robertson as the only other player to average a triple-double for an entire season. He broke the assists record by Bob Cousy, who had recorded 715 assists two seasons earlier, by logging 899, and joined Johnny Green and Elgin Baylor as the only players in NBA history with the height of 6'5 or smaller to have grabbed 900+ rebounds in a season. The Royals earned a berth to the 1962 NBA playoffs; however, they were eliminated in the first round by the Detroit Pistons. In the 1962–63 season, Robertson further established himself as one of the greatest players of his generation, averaging 28.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 9.5 assists, narrowly missing out on another triple-double season. The Royals advanced to the Eastern Division Finals, but succumbed in a seven-game series against a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In the 1963–64 season, the Royals achieved a 55–25 record, which put them second place in the Eastern Division. Under new coach Jack McMahon, Robertson flourished. Robertson led the NBA in free-throw percentage, scored a career-high 31.4 points per game, and averaged 9.9 rebounds and 11.0 assists per game. The averages for his first five NBA seasons are a triple-double: 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists per game. He won the NBA MVP award and became the only player other than Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to win it from 1960 to 1968. Robertson also won his second All-Star Game MVP award that year after scoring 26 points, grabbing 14 rebounds, and dishing off 8 assists in an East victory. In the 1964 NBA playoffs, the Royals defeated the Philadelphia 76ers, but then were dominated by the Celtics 4 games to 1.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson averaged a triple-double over his first five seasons in the NBA with the Royals, recording averages of 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 10.6 assists per game in 451 contest. On December 18, 1964, Robertson recorded a career-high 56 points on 17-for-33 shooting from the field, to go along with 9 rebounds and 12 assists in a 111–107 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. From the 1964–65 season on, things began to turn sour for the franchise. Despite Robertson recording averages of at least 24.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 8.1 assists in the six following seasons, the Royals were eliminated in the first round from 1965 to 1967, then missed the playoffs from 1968 to 1970. In the 1969–70 season, the sixth disappointing season in a row, fan support was waning. To help attract the public, 41-year-old head coach Bob Cousy made a short comeback as a player. For seven games, the former Celtics point guard partnered with Robertson in the Royals' backcourt, but they missed the playoffs.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Prior to the 1970–71 season, the Royals stunned the basketball world by trading Robertson to the Bucks for Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk. No reasons were officially given, but many pundits suspected head coach Bob Cousy was jealous of all the attention Robertson was getting. Robertson himself said: "I think he was wrong and I will never forget it."


title: Oscar Robertson

text: The relationship between Oscar and the Royals had soured to the point that Cincinnati had also approached the Lakers and Knicks about deals involving their star player; the Knicks players who were discussed in those scenarios are unknown, but Los Angeles stated publicly that the Royals asked about Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, with the Lakers saying they would not consider trading either star. The trade proved highly beneficial for Robertson. After being stuck with an under-performing team the last six years, he now was paired with the young Lew Alcindor, who would years later become the all-time NBA scoring leader as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. With Alcindor in the low post and Robertson running the backcourt, the Bucks charged to a league-best 66–16 record, including a then-record 20-game win streak, a dominating 12–2 record in the 1971 NBA playoffs, and crowned their season with the NBA title by sweeping the Baltimore Bullets 4–0 in the 1971 NBA Finals. In his first NBA finals game, Robertson recorded 22 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for the Bucks. For the first time in his career, Robertson had won an NBA championship.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: From a historical perspective, Robertson's most important contribution was made not on a basketball court but in a court of law. It was the year of the landmark "Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n", an antitrust suit filed by the NBA's Players Association against the league. As Robertson was the president of the Players Association, the case bore his name. In this suit, the proposed merger between the NBA and American Basketball Association was delayed until 1976, and the college draft, as well as the free agency clauses, were reformed. Robertson himself stated that the main reason was that clubs basically owned their players: players were forbidden to talk to other clubs once their contract was up, because free agency did not exist until 1988. Six years after the suit was filed, the NBA finally reached a settlement, the ABA–NBA merger took place, and the Oscar Robertson suit encouraged signing of more free agents and eventually led to higher salaries for all players.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: On the hardwood, the veteran Robertson still proved he was a valuable player. Paired with Abdul-Jabbar, two more division titles with the Bucks followed in the 1971–72 and 1972–73 season. In Robertson's last season, he helped lead Milwaukee to a league-best 59–23 record and helped them to reach the 1974 NBA Finals. There, Robertson had the chance to end his stellar career with a second ring. The Bucks were matched up against a Boston Celtics team powered by an inspired Dave Cowens, and the Bucks lost in seven games. As a testament to Robertson's importance to the Bucks, in the season following his retirement the Bucks fell to last place in their division with a 38–44 record in spite of the continued presence of Abdul-Jabbar.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: After he retired as an active player, Robertson stayed involved in efforts to improve living conditions in his native Indianapolis, especially concerning fellow African-Americans. In addition, he worked as a color commentator with Brent Musburger on games televised by CBS during the 1974–75 NBA season. His trademark expressions were, "Oh, my!" and "Oh, Brent, did you see that!" in reaction to flashy or spectacular situations such as fast breaks, slam dunks, player collisions, etc. He also returned to the booth for the 1988–89 season calling games on TBS with Hot Rod Hundley.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: After his retirement, the Kansas City Kings (the Royals moved there while Robertson was with the Bucks) retired his No. 14; the retirement continues to be honored by the Kings in their current home of Sacramento. The Bucks also retired the No. 1 he wore in Milwaukee. In 1994, a nine-foot bronze statue of Robertson was erected outside the Fifth Third Arena at Shoemaker Center, the current home of Cincinnati Bearcats basketball. Robertson attends many of the games there, viewing the Bearcats from a chair at courtside. In 2006, the statue was relocated to the entrance of the Richard E. Lindner Athletics Center at the University of Cincinnati.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Starting in 2000, Robertson served as a director for Countrywide Financial Corporation, until the company's sale to Bank of America in 2008. In July 2004, Robertson was named interim head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats men's basketball team for approximately a month while head coach Bob Huggins served a suspension stemming from a drunk-driving conviction.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: After many years out of the spotlight, Robertson was recognized on November 17, 2006, for his impact on college basketball when he was chosen to be a member of the founding class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was one of five people, along with John Wooden, Bill Russell, Dean Smith, and James Naismith, selected to represent the inaugural class. In January 2011, Robertson joined a class action lawsuit against the NCAA, "O'Bannon v. NCAA", challenging the organization's use of the images of its former student athletes.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In 2015, Robertson was among a group of investors who placed a marijuana legalization initiative on the Ohio ballot. The initiative sought exclusive grow rights for the group members while prohibiting all other cultivation except small amounts for personal use. Robertson appeared in a television advertisement advocating for passage of the initiative, but it was ultimately defeated.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson is regarded as one of the greatest players in NBA history, a triple threat who could score inside, outside and also was a stellar playmaker. His rookie scoring average of 30.5 points per game is the third-highest of any rookie in NBA history, and Robertson averaged more than 30 points per game in six of his first seven seasons. Only three other players in the NBA have had more 30+-point-per-game seasons in their career. Robertson was the first player to average more than 10 assists per game, doing so at a time when the criteria for assists were more stringent than today. Robertson is also the first guard in NBA history to ever average more than 10 rebounds per game, doing so three times. It was a feat that would not be repeated until Russell Westbrook managed to achieve it during the 2016–17 season. In addition to his 1964 regular-season MVP award, Robertson won three All-Star Game MVPs in his career (in 1961, 1964, and 1969). He ended his career with 26,710 points (25.7 per game, ninth-highest all time), 9,887 assists (9.5 per game), and 7,804 rebounds (7.5 per game). He led the league in assists six time; at the time of his retirement, he was the NBA's all-time leader in career assists and free throws made, and was the second all-time leading scorer behind Wilt Chamberlain.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson also set yardsticks in versatility. If his first five NBA seasons are strung together, Robertson averaged a triple-double over those, averaging 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 10.6 assists. For his career, Robertson had 181 triple-doubles, a record that had never been approached for decades until by Westbrook in the 2020-21 season. These numbers are even more astonishing if it is taken into account that the three-point shot, which benefits sharpshooting backcourt players, did not exist when he played. In the 1967–68 season, Robertson became the first of only two players in NBA history to lead the league in both scoring average and assists per game in the same season (also achieved by Nate Archibald). The official scoring and assist titles went to other players that season because the NBA based the titles on point and assist totals (not averages) prior to the 1969–70 season; during his career, Robertson won a total of six NBA assist titles. For his career, Robertson shot a high .485 field goal average and led the league in free-throw percentage twice—in the 1963–64 and 1967–68 seasons.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Standing , Robertson is recognized by the NBA as the first legitimate "big guard", paving the way for other oversized backcourt players like Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson. Furthermore, he is also credited with having invented the head fake and the fadeaway jump shot, a shot which Michael Jordan later became famous for. For the Cincinnati Royals, now relocated and named the Sacramento Kings, he scored 22,009 points and 7,731 assists, and is the all-time leader in both statistics for the combined Royals/Kings teams.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 28, 1980. On October 30, 1980, Robertson was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary Team. In 1996, Robertson was honored as one of the league’s greatest players of all-time by being named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team. He received the "Player of the Century" award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 2000 and was ranked third on "SLAM" "Top 75 NBA Players" in 2003, behind fellow NBA legends Jordan and Chamberlain. Furthermore, in 2006, ESPN named Robertson the second greatest point guard of all time, praising him as the best post-up guard of all time and placing him only behind Johnson. In 2017, it was announced that a life-sized bronze sculpture of Robertson would be featured alongside other Indiana sports stars at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Old National Bank Sports Legends Avenue of Champions, located in the museum's sports park opening in 2018. In October 2021, Robertson was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In 1959, the Player of the Year Award was established to recognize the best college basketball player of the year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Five nominees are presented and the individual with the most votes receives the award during the NCAA Final Four. In 1998, it was renamed the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor, as the player that won the first two awards, because of his outstanding career and his continuing efforts to promote the game of basketball. In 2004, an 18" bronze statue of Robertson was sculpted by world-renowned sculptor Harry Weber. In 2022, the NBA renamed its Western Conference championship trophy after Robertson.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Robertson is the son of Mazell and Bailey Robertson. He has two brothers, Bailey Jr. and Henry. He remembers a tough childhood, plagued by poverty and racism. When a biography was going to be written about him in the 1990s, Robertson joked that his life had been "dull" and that he had been "married to the same woman for a long time". In 1997, Robertson donated one of his kidneys to his daughter Tia, who suffered lupus-related kidney failure. He has been an honorary spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation ever since. In 2003, he published his own autobiography, "The Big O: My Life, My Times, My Game". Robertson also owns the chemical company Orchem, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: Regarding basketball, Robertson has stated that legendary Harlem Globetrotters players Marques Haynes and "clown prince" Goose Tatum were his idols. In his eighties, he still follows basketball on TV and attends most home games for the University of Cincinnati, his alma mater. He lists woodworking as his prime hobby. Robertson adds that he still could average a triple-double season in today's basketball and that he is highly skeptical that anyone else could do it; it was later done by Russell Westbrook in the 2016–17 season. On June 9, 2007, Oscar received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Cincinnati for both his philanthropic and entrepreneurial efforts. He is also a member of the Beta Eta chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.


title: Oscar Robertson

text: In August 2018, Robertson auctioned off his 1971 championship ring, Hall of Fame ring, and one of his Milwaukee Bucks game jerseys. Each item sold between $50,000 and $91,000. On July 20, 2021, on the eve of the Bucks winning their second championship and first since his tenure, Robertson wrote a piece in "The Players' Tribune" voicing his support for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.


title: Jim Backus

text: James Gilmore Backus (February 25, 1913 – July 3, 1989) was an American actor. Among his most famous roles were Thurston Howell III on the 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," the father of James Dean's character in "Rebel Without a Cause," the voice of the nearsighted cartoon character "Mr. Magoo", the rich Hubert Updike III on the radio version of "The Alan Young Show", and Joan Davis' character's husband (a domestic court judge) on TV's "I Married Joan". He also starred in his own show of one season, "The Jim Backus Show", also known as "Hot Off the Wire".


title: Jim Backus

text: An avid golfer, Backus made the 36-hole cut at the 1964 Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournament. He was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus was born February 25, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Bratenahl, Ohio, an East Side suburb of Cleveland located on the Lake Erie shore, surrounded by the city on three sides. He was the son of Russell Gould Backus and Daisy Taylor (née Gilmore) Backus. He attended Shaw High School in East Cleveland, Ohio and graduated from University School in Hunting Valley, Ohio.


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus was acting on radio as early as 1940, playing the role of millionaire aviator Dexter Hayes on "Society Girl" on CBS.


title: Jim Backus

text: He had an extensive career and worked steadily in Hollywood over five decades, often portraying characters with an "upper-crust", New England-like air, much like his best-known role, Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island". He appeared in (and narrated) "A Dangerous Profession" (1949); "Deadline – U.S.A." (1951) with Humphrey Bogart; "Pat and Mike" (1952) with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn; "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955); "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" (1957); and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963). He also made television appearances on "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962).


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus was the voice of the nearsighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo. Years later, when Backus was a frequent talk show guest, he would recount the time Marilyn Monroe urgently beckoned him into her dressing room. Henny Backus, Jim's wife, recalled the story: "Jim was in the 1952 film "Don't Bother to Knock", with Marilyn Monroe. He came home one night during the filming and told me that Miss Monroe in her most seductive breathy voice asked him to meet her in her dressing room. His curiosity got the better of him and he went. Once there, she exclaimed like an excited child, 'Do Mr. Magoo!' And Jim did."


title: Jim Backus

text: He frequently could be heard on primetime radio programs in the postwar era, including "The Jack Benny Program", and he portrayed an exceedingly vain character named Hartley Benson on "The Judy Canova Show" on the CBS Radio Network, as well as a similar character named Hubert Updike on "The Alan Young Show" on the NBC Radio Network. He also starred on the short-lived variety program "The Jim Backus Show" on the ABC Radio Network in 1957 and 1958, when that network changed its name to the American Broadcasting Network (ABN) and tried out a "Live and Lively" format of "Big Time Radio" with orchestras and audiences. Backus costarred in the comedy show "I Married Joan" from 1952 to 1955, portraying the husband of Joan Davis.


title: Jim Backus

text: In stark contrast to his usual affluent characters, he guest-starred on "The Brady Bunch" as an old gold prospector, a role he also played on a "Gilligan's Island" episode. He also had a role in the final season episode "The Hustler" in which he plays Mike's boss, Mr. Matthews.


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus appeared on "Gilligan's Island" for all three seasons of its run, 1964 to 1967, and later in reunion TV films made between 1978 and 1981. By the third and final film, "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island", Backus was suffering from Parkinson's disease and his participation was limited to a cameo appearance. Backus also returned as the voice of Mr. Magoo in various revivals between 1964 and 1977, which included "The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo" and "What's New, Mr. Magoo?".


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus played Reverend Sims in the 1975 "Brides and Grooms" episode of "Gunsmoke". He also appeared in "Never Con a Killer" (1977), the pilot for the ABC crime drama "The Feather and Father Gang". In 1981, he and his wife Henny appeared in an episode of "The Love Boat". In it, he had one line in his four scenes.


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus and his wife, Henny Backus, co-wrote several humorous books, including: "...Only When I Laugh", his autobiography, "Backus Strikes Back", a memoir, "Forgive Us Our Digressions: An Autobiography", and "What Are You Doing After the Orgy?" — the title taken from a line Backus spoke in the 1965 film "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!" He also co-wrote the 1971 family film "Mooch Goes to Hollywood", about a dog that tries to become a movie star.


title: Jim Backus

text: In the late 1950s, he made two novelty 45 rpm records, "Delicious" and "Cave Man". In 1974, a full-length comedy LP album was released on the Doré label under the title "The Dirty Old Man", with sketches written by Bob Hudson and Ron Landry, who also appear on the album, along with voice-actress Jane Webb. Backus also played the voice of God in the recording of "Truth of Truths", a 1971 rock opera based on the Bible.


title: Jim Backus

text: Backus acted in several television commercials. As Mr. Magoo, he also helped advertise the General Electric line of products over the years. In "Bowl 'Em Over with GE Bulbs" (1963), a Cinécraft Productions sales training film made for the GE Large Lamp Division, Backus introduces the Mr. Magoo Soft White light bulb TV advertising campaign for Fall 1963. For the first time, General Electric commercials would be shown in color on prime-time TV shows, including the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He was also spokesman for La-Z-Boy furniture during the 1970s.


title: Jim Backus

text: In the late 1980s, he was reunited with former co-star Natalie Schafer in an advertisement for Orville Redenbacher's popcorn. They reprised their roles from "Gilligan's Island", but instead of still being shipwrecked, the setting was a luxurious study or den. This would be the final TV appearance for both actors, who were in frail health. They also both appeared on Fox's short lived talk show "The Late Show" with Ross Shafer, along with the rest of the cast of "Gilligan's Island", in 1988.


title: Jim Backus

text: On July 3, 1989, Backus died in Los Angeles from complications of pneumonia after suffering from Parkinson's disease for many years.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tamlyn Naomi Tomita (born January 27, 1966) is a Japanese-American actress and singer. She made her screen debut as Kumiko in "The Karate Kid Part II" (1986) and reprised the character for the streaming series "Cobra Kai" (2021). She is also well known for her role as Waverly in "The Joy Luck Club" (1993). Additional films include "Come See the Paradise" (1990), "Picture Bride" (1994), "Four Rooms" (1995), "Robot Stories" (2003), "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004) and "" (2005).


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tomita also has played several recurring roles on television series, including "24", "Glee", "Teen Wolf" and "How to Get Away with Murder". She starred on the Epix drama series "Berlin Station" (2016), and in 2017 began starring in the ABC medical drama "The Good Doctor". In 2020, she had a recurring role in "".


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tamlyn Tomita, a first generation Japanese-American (issei), was born on a military base in Okinawa and grew up in Los Angeles. Her Japanese-American father was in an internment camp during World War II. He met her mother while stationed in Okinawa between the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Her mother was of half-Okinawan Japanese and half-Filipino descent, born in Manila and emigrated to Okinawa after World War II. Her father became an LAPD officer upon returning to Los Angeles.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tomita graduated from Granada Hills High School and attended UCLA, where she studied history and planned to become a history teacher. While a junior at UCLA, she participated in Nisei Week, where she was crowned its 1984 queen. She and several other Japanese-American girls were asked by Helen Funai, the 1963 pageant queen, to audition for the role of Kumiko in "The Karate Kid II". She promised her parents that she would finish college, and then explore acting.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: After "The Karate Kid II", Tomita had major roles in a number of independent movies. Her biggest role was in the 1990 drama film "Come See the Paradise". In 1993, she co-starred opposite Ming-Na Wen in the ensemble cast drama "The Joy Luck Club" and the next year she had a role in the 1994 independent film "Picture Bride". In 1995 Tomita appeared alongside Antonio Banderas in the Robert Rodriguez-directed segment of the vignette anthology comedy "Four Rooms".


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: In the 21st Century, Tomita has had roles in other independent films and co-starred in several major Hollywood productions, including playing Janet Tokada in "The Day After Tomorrow". In 2005, she starred in the Brazilian drama film "" and also had a leading role in the independent film "Robot Stories" in 2003. She was also in "Only the Brave" about the Japanese American segregated fighting unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of World War II, which included two other "Karate Kid" stars, Yuji Okumoto and Pat Morita.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tomita appeared as a character named Ming Li on the NBC daytime soap opera "Santa Barbara" from May to September 1988. In 1994, she guest-starred in the first episode of season 3 of "". In 2008, she made her return to daytime soaps with a recurring role on ABC's "General Hospital". In 2012, she had another recurring role on NBC's "Days of Our Lives".


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: From 1996 to 1997, Tomita was a regular cast member in the short-lived UPN drama series, "The Burning Zone". In 1993, she starred in the pilot movie for "Babylon 5". During her career she has guest starred on shows such as "Seven Days"; "Quantum Leap"; "Living Single"; "Murder, She Wrote"; "Chicago Hope"; "Will & Grace"; "Nash Bridges"; "The Shield"; "Strong Medicine"; "Stargate SG-1"; ""; "The Mentalist"; "Private Practice"; "True Blood"; "Zoo"; "Tour of Duty"; "Criminal Minds"; and many other dramas and comedies. She had longer term recurring roles on "Crossing Jordan", "JAG", "24", "Eureka", "Heroes", "", "Glee", "Teen Wolf", "Resurrection", "How to Get Away with Murder", and "Chasing Life".


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: In 2016, Tomita played a series regular role on the Epix drama series "Berlin Station". From 2017 to 2019 she was a recurring character on the ABC medical drama "The Good Doctor".


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tomita began a recurring role as the Vulcan/Romulan hybrid Commodore Oh on the CBS All Access web television series "" in 2020.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: In 2021, she reprised her 1980s role as Kumiko for two episodes in Season 3 of "Cobra Kai", a television sequel to the "Karate Kid" films.


title: Tamlyn Tomita

text: Tomita is married to actor Daniel Blinkoff, whom she had dated for many years. She previously was married once before.


title: Christa Miller

text: Christa Beatrice Miller is an American actress and model who has achieved success in television comedy. Her foremost roles include Kate O'Brien on "The Drew Carey Show" and Jordan Sullivan on "Scrubs". She has also appeared in "Seinfeld", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "". From 2009 to 2015, she starred in the TBS (formerly ABC) sitcom "Cougar Town".


title: Christa Miller

text: Miller was born in Manhattan, New York City and attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart. She is the daughter of Bonnie Trompeter, and a niece of actress Susan Saint James and NBC Sports executive Dick Ebersol. She has a sister, Leona, and a brother, John.


title: Christa Miller

text: Her days as a child model were curtailed after an operation for a benign bone tumor. After attending Convent of the Sacred Heart, she returned briefly to modeling, but soon took acting lessons, and gave up modeling when she moved to Los Angeles in 1990. She was a cover model and had a pictorial in the first U.S. edition of "Maxim".


title: Christa Miller

text: Miller's first role on television was in "Kate & Allie", which starred her real-life aunt, Susan Saint James, whom she resembles. She then appeared in episodes of "Northern Exposure", "Fresh Prince of Bel Air", and "Party of Five". She had a small role in the horror film "Stepfather III" (1992) with Priscilla Barnes. Miller later appeared twice on "Seinfeld", as two different characters. In the 1993 episode "The Sniffing Accountant", she played the prospective boss of George Costanza. She had intended to be a dramatic actress, and this role proved to be a turning point for Miller, who realized how much she enjoyed comedy. Two years later, she returned to "Seinfeld" in "The Doodle" to play George's girlfriend, Paula. This episode proved to be a boon to her career, as she convinced co-creator Larry David to provide her with a rough-cut video of the still-unaired episode when she auditioned for "The Drew Carey Show", whose producers had initially thought she was too inexperienced. David's support helped Miller win over the producers of "The Drew Carey Show", who cast her as Kate O'Brien, whom she played from 1995 to 2002.


title: Christa Miller

text: In 2001, Miller's husband, writer-producer Bill Lawrence, conceived a new comedy drama, "Scrubs". Miller was given a guest role as Dr. Cox's (John C. McGinley) acerbic ex-wife Jordan Sullivan. Originally, the character was intended to appear in only one episode; in season 2, the role became recurring. When her young cousin Teddy Ebersol, son of Susan St. James and Dick Ebersol, died in a plane crash in 2004, "Scrubs" dedicated the season-4 episode "My Lucky Charm" to him. Miller also was the voice of Cleopatra in the short-lived animated show "Clone High". She had a leading role in the 2008 two-part TV miniseries "The Andromeda Strain". She also appeared in the "" episode "".


title: Christa Miller

text: In 2009, Miller began starring on "Cougar Town", a sitcom created and produced by her husband and starring Courteney Cox, with whom Miller worked in a three-part story-arc of season 8 of "Scrubs".


title: Christa Miller

text: Miller married Bill Lawrence in 1999. They have three children; Charlotte (born June 8, 2000), William (born January 3, 2003), and Henry (born October 8, 2006).


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: "Eleanor Rigby" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album "Revolver". It was also issued on a double A-side single, paired with "Yellow Submarine". The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: "Eleanor Rigby" continued the transformation of the Beatles from a mainly rock and roll- and pop-oriented act to a more experimental, studio-based band. With a double string quartet arrangement by George Martin and lyrics providing a narrative on loneliness, it broke sharply with popular music conventions, both musically and lyrically. The song topped singles charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada and New Zealand.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Paul McCartney came up with the melody for "Eleanor Rigby" as he experimented on his piano. Donovan recalled hearing McCartney play an early version of the song on guitar, where the character was named Ola Na Tungee. At this point, the song reflected an Indian musical influence and its lyrics alluded to drug use, with references to "blowing his mind in the dark" and "a pipe full of clay".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The name of the protagonist that McCartney initially chose was not Eleanor Rigby, but Miss Daisy Hawkins. In 1966, McCartney told "Sunday Times" journalist Hunter Davies how he got the idea for his song:


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: McCartney said that the idea to call his character "Eleanor" was possibly because of Eleanor Bron, the actress who starred with the Beatles in their 1965 film "Help!" "Rigby" came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd. McCartney noticed the store while visiting his girlfriend of the time, actress Jane Asher, during her run in the Bristol Old Vic's production of "The Happiest Days of Your Life" in January 1966. He recalled in 1984: "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. 'Eleanor Rigby' sounded natural."<ref name="Mullen/BBCNews"></ref>


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In an October 2021 article in "The New Yorker", McCartney wrote that his inspiration for "Eleanor Rigby" was an old lady who lived alone and whom he got to know very well. He would go shopping for her and sit in her kitchen listening to stories and her crystal radio set. McCartney said, "just hearing her stories enriched my soul and influenced the songs I would later write."


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: McCartney wrote the melody and first verse alone, after which he presented the song to the Beatles when they were gathered in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood. Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Lennon's childhood friend Pete Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas. Harrison came up with the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear" and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked. It was then that Shotton suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character for McCartney's own father.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: McCartney could not decide how to end the song, and Shotton suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea, later acknowledging Shotton's help. In Lennon's recollection, the final touches were applied to the lyrics in the recording studio, at which point McCartney sought input from Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans, the Beatles' longstanding road managers.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: "Eleanor Rigby" serves as a rare example of Lennon subsequently claiming a more substantial role in the creation of a McCartney composition than is supported by others' recollections. In the early 1970s, Lennon told music journalist Alan Smith that he wrote "about 70 per cent" of the lyrics,<ref name="HitParader/Songalong"></ref> and in a letter to "Melody Maker" complaining about Beatles producer George Martin's comments in a recent interview, he said that "Around 50 per cent of the lyrics were written by me at the studios and at Paul's place." In 1980, he recalled writing almost everything but the first verse. Shotton remembered Lennon's contribution as being "virtually nil", while McCartney said that "John helped me on a few words but I'd put it down 80–20 to me, something like that." According to McCartney, "In My Life" and "Eleanor Rigby" are the only Lennon–McCartney songs where he and Lennon disagreed over their authorship.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In musicologist Walter Everett's view, the lyric writing "likely was a group effort". Historiographer Erin Torkelson Weber says that, from all the available accounts, McCartney was the principal author of the song and only Lennon's post-1970 recollections contradict this. In the same 1980 interview, Lennon expressed his resentment at the way McCartney had sought their bandmates' and friends' creative input, rather than collaborate with Lennon directly. Lennon added, "That's the kind of insensitivity he would have, which upset me in later years." In addition to citing this emotional hurt, Weber suggests that the song's critical acclaim may have motivated Lennon's assertions, as he sought to portray himself as a greater musical genius than McCartney in the years following the Beatles' break-up.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The song is a prominent example of mode mixture, specifically between the Aeolian mode, also known as natural minor, and the Dorian mode. Set in E minor, the song is based on the chord progression Em–C, typical of the Aeolian mode and utilising notes ♭3, ♭6, and 7 in this scale. The verse melody is written in Dorian mode, a minor scale with the natural sixth degree. "Eleanor Rigby" opens with a C-major vocal harmony ("Aah, look at all ..."), before shifting to E-minor (on "lonely people"). The Aeolian C-natural note returns later in the verse on the word "dre-eam" (C–B) as the C chord resolves to the tonic Em, giving an urgency to the melody's mood.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The Dorian mode appears with the C# note (6 in the Em scale) at the beginning of the phrase "in the church". The chorus beginning "All the lonely people" involves the viola in a chromatic descent to the 5th; from 7 (D natural on "All the lonely peo-") to 6 (C on "-ple") to 6 (C on "they) to 5 (B on "from"). According to musicologist Dominic Pedler, this adds an "air of inevitability to the flow of the music (and perhaps to the plight of the characters in the song)".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The lyrics represent a departure from McCartney's previous songs, in their avoidance of first- and second-person pronouns and by diverging from the themes of a standard love song. The narrator takes the form of a detached onlooker, akin to a novelist or screenwriter. Beatles biographer Steve Turner says that this new approach reflects the likely influence of Ray Davies of the Kinks, specifically the latter's singles "A Well Respected Man" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Author Howard Sounes compares the song's narrative to "the isolated broken figures" typical of a Samuel Beckett play, as Rigby dies alone, no mourners attend her funeral, and the priest "seems to have lost his congregation and faith". In Everett's view, McCartney's description of Rigby and McKenzie elevates individuals' loneliness and wasted lives to a universal level in the manner of Lennon's autobiographical "Nowhere Man". Everett adds that McCartney's imagery is "vivid and yet common enough to elicit enormous compassion for these lost souls".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: "Eleanor Rigby" does not have a standard pop backing. None of the Beatles played instruments on it, although Lennon and Harrison did contribute harmony vocals. Like the earlier song "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby" employs a classical string ensemble – in this case, an octet of studio musicians, comprising four violins, two violas and two cellos, all performing a score composed by George Martin. When writing the string arrangement, Martin drew inspiration from Bernard Herrmann's work, particularly the latter's score for the 1960 film "Psycho".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Whereas "Yesterday" is played legato, "Eleanor Rigby" is played mainly in staccato chords with melodic embellishments. McCartney, reluctant to repeat what he had done on "Yesterday", explicitly expressed that he did not want the strings to sound too cloying. For the most part, the instruments "double up" – that is, they serve as a single string quartet but with two instruments playing each of the four parts. Microphones were placed close to the instruments to produce a more biting and raw sound. Engineer Geoff Emerick was admonished by the string players saying "You're not supposed to do that." Fearing such close proximity to their instruments would expose the slightest deficiencies in their technique, the players kept moving their chairs away from the microphones until Martin got on the talk-back system and scolded: "Stop moving the chairs!" Martin recorded two versions, one with vibrato and one without, the latter of which was used. Lennon recalled in 1980 that "Eleanor Rigby" was "Paul's baby, and I helped with the education of the child ... The violin backing was Paul's idea. Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi, and it was very good."


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The octet was recorded on 28 April 1966, in Studio 2 at EMI Studios. The track was completed in Studio 3 on 29 April and on 6 June. Take 15 was selected as the master. The final overdub, on 6 June, was McCartney's addition of the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" refrain over the song's final chorus. This was requested by Martin, who said he came up with the idea of the line working contrapuntally to the chorus melody.<ref name="Fontenot/About"></ref>


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The original stereo mix had the lead vocal alone in the right channel during the verses, with the strings mixed to one channel, while the mono single and mono LP featured a more balanced mix. For the track's inclusion on "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" in 1999, a new stereo mix was created that centres McCartney's voice and spreads the string octet across the stereo image.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: On 5 August 1966, "Eleanor Rigby" was simultaneously released on a double A-side single, paired with "Yellow Submarine", and on the album "Revolver". In the LP sequencing, it appeared as the second track, between Harrison's "Taxman" and Lennon's "I'm Only Sleeping". The Beatles thereby broke with their policy of ensuring that album tracks were not issued on their UK singles. According to a report in "Melody Maker", the reason for this was to thwart sales of cover recordings of "Eleanor Rigby". Harrison confirmed that they expected "dozens" of artists to have a hit with the song; however, he also said the track would "probably only appeal to Ray Davies types". Writing in the 1970s, music critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler described the motivation behind the single as a "growing dodge in the ever-innovative music industry", building on UK record companies' policy of reissuing an album's most popular tracks, particularly those that had been culled for release as a single in the US, on a spin-off extended play.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The pairing of a ballad devoid of any instrumentation played by a Beatle and a novelty song marked a significant departure from the content of the band's previous singles.<ref name="Unterberger/AM"></ref> Writing in his 1977 book "The Beatles Forever", Nicholas Schaffner recalled that not only did the two sides have little in common with one another, but "'Yellow Submarine' was the most flippant and outrageous piece the Beatles would ever produce, [and] 'Eleanor Rigby' remains the most relentlessly tragic song the group attempted." Unusually for their post-1965 singles also, the Beatles did not make a promotional film for either of the songs. Music historian David Simonelli groups "Eleanor Rigby" with "Taxman" and the band's May 1966 single tracks "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" as examples of the Beatles' "pointed social commentary" that consolidated their "dominance of London's social scene".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In the United States, the record's release coincided with the group's final tour and a public furore over the publication of Lennon's remarks that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus Christ"; he also predicted the downfall of Christianity and described Christ's disciples as "thick and ordinary". In the US South, particularly, some radio stations refused to play the band's music and organised public bonfires to burn Beatles records and memorabilia. Capitol Records were therefore wary of the religious references in "Eleanor Rigby" and promoted "Yellow Submarine" as the lead side. During the band's first tour press conference, on 11 August, one reporter suggested that Father McKenzie's sermons going unheard referred to the decline of religion in society. McCartney replied that the song was about lonely individuals, one of whom happened to be a priest.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The double A-side topped the "Record Retailer" chart (subsequently adopted as the UK Singles Chart) for four weeks, becoming their eleventh number-one single on the chart, and "Melody Maker"s chart for three weeks. It was also number 1 in Australia. The single topped charts in many other countries around the world, although "Yellow Submarine" was usually the listed side. In the US, disc jockeys began flipping the single midway through the tour as the radio boycotts were lifted. With each song eligible to chart separately there, "Eleanor Rigby" entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 in late August and peaked at number 11 for two weeks, and "Yellow Submarine" reached number 2.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In "Melody Maker"s appraisal of "Revolver", the writer described "Eleanor Rigby" as a "charming song" and one of the album's best tracks. Derek Johnson, reviewing the single for the "NME", said it lacked the immediate appeal of "Yellow Submarine" but "possess[ed] lasting value" and was "beautifully handled by Paul, with baroque-type strings". Although he praised the string arrangement, Peter Jones of "Record Mirror" found the song "Pleasant enough but rather disjointed", saying, "it's commercial, but I like more meat from the Beatles." Ray Davies offered an unfavourable view when invited to give a song-by-song rundown of "Revolver" in "Disc and Music Echo". He dismissed "Eleanor Rigby" as a song designed "to please music teachers in primary schools", adding: "I can imagine John saying, 'I'm going to write this for my old schoolmistress.' Still it's very commercial."<ref name="Davies/Disc"></ref>


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Reporting from London for "The Village Voice", Richard Goldstein stated that "Revolver" was ubiquitous around the city, as if Londoners were uniting behind the Beatles in response to the antagonism shown towards the band in the US. He wrote: "As a commentary on the state of modern religion, this song will hardly be appreciated by those who see John Lennon as an anti-Christ. But 'Eleanor Rigby' is really about the unloved and un-cared-for." Commenting on the lyrics, Edward Greenfield of "The Guardian" wrote, "There you have a quality rare in pop music, compassion, born of an artist's ability to project himself into other situations." He found this "Specific understanding of emotion" evident also in McCartney's new love songs and described him as "the Beatle with the strongest musical staying power". While bemoaning that Americans' attention was overly focused on the band's image and non-musical activities, "KRLA Beat"s album reviewer predicted that "Eleanor Rigby" would "become a contemporary classic", adding that, aside from the quality of the string arrangement, "the haunting melody is one of the most beautiful to be found in our current pop music" and the lyrics "[are] both accurate and unforgettable". "Cash Box" found the single's pairing "unique" and described "Eleanor Rigby" as "a powerfully arranged, haunting story of sorrow and frustration".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The "NME" chose "Eleanor Rigby" as its "Single of the Year" for 1966. "Melody Maker" included the song among the year's five "singles to remember", and Maureen Cleave of "The Evening Standard" recognised the single and "Revolver" as the year's best records in her round-up of 1966. At the 9th Annual Grammy Awards in March 1967, "Eleanor Rigby" was nominated in three categories, winning the award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance, Male or Female for McCartney.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: "Eleanor Rigby" appears in the Beatles' 1968 animated film "Yellow Submarine" as the band's submarine drifts over the desolate streets of Liverpool. Its poignancy ties in quite well with Starr (the first member of the group to encounter the submarine), who is represented as quietly bored and depressed. Starr's character states: "Compared with my life, Eleanor Rigby's was a gay, mad world." Media theorist Stephanie Fremaux groups the song with "Only a Northern Song" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as a scene that most clearly conveys the Beatles' "aims as musicians". In her description, the segment depicts "moments of color and hope in a land of conformity and loneliness". With special effects directed by Charlie Jenkins, the animation incorporates photographs of silhouetted people; bankers with bowler hats and umbrellas are seen on rooftops, overlooking the streets.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The track also appears on several of the band's greatest-hits compilations, including "A Collection of Beatles Oldies", "The Beatles 1962–1966" and "1". In 1986, "Yellow Submarine" / "Eleanor Rigby" was reissued in the UK as part of EMI's twentieth anniversary of each of the Beatles' singles and peaked at number 63 on the UK Singles Chart. The 2015 edition of "1" and the expanded "1+" box set includes a video clip for the song, taken from the "Yellow Submarine" film.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 1996, a stereo remix of Martin's isolated string arrangement was released on the Beatles' "Anthology 2" outtakes compilation. For the song's inclusion on the "Love" album in 2006, a new mix was created that adds a strings-only portion at the start of the track and closes with a transition featuring part of Lennon's acoustic guitar from the 1968 song "Julia".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: McCartney's recollection of how he chose the name of his protagonist came under scrutiny in the 1980s, after a headstone engraved with the name "Eleanor Rigby" was discovered in the graveyard of St Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, in Liverpool.<ref name="Richards/Guardian"></ref> Part of a well-known local family, Rigby had died in 1939 at the age of 44. Close by was a headstone bearing the name McKenzie. St Peter's was where Lennon attended Sunday school as a boy, and he and McCartney first met at the church fete there in July 1957. McCartney has said that while he often walked through the churchyard, he had no recollection of ever seeing Rigby's grave. He attributed the coincidence to a product of his subconscious. McCartney has also dismissed claims by people who, because of their name and a tenuous association with the Beatles, believed they were the real Father McKenzie.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 1990, McCartney responded to a request from Sunbeams Music Trust by donating a historical document that listed the wages paid by Liverpool City Hospital; among the employees listed was Eleanor Rigby, who worked as a scullery maid at the hospital.<ref name="Reuters/Meeja"></ref> Dating from 1911 and signed by the 16-year-old Rigby, the document attracted interest from collectors because of what it seemingly revealed about the inspiration behind the Beatles song. It sold at auction in November 2008 for £115,000. McCartney stated at the time: "Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictitious character that I made up ... If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me."


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Rigby's grave in Woolton became a landmark for Beatles fans visiting Liverpool. A digitised image of the headstone was added to the 1995 music video for the Beatles' reunion song "Free as a Bird". Continued interest in a possible connection between the real-life Eleanor Rigby and the 1966 song led to the deeds for the grave being put up for auction in 2017, along with a Bible that once belonged to Rigby and a handwritten score for the track (subsequently withdrawn) and other items of Beatles memorabilia.<ref name="Pidd/Guardian"></ref>


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Although "Eleanor Rigby" was far from the first pop song to deal with death and loneliness, according to Ian MacDonald it "came as quite a shock to pop listeners in 1966". It took a bleak message of depression and desolation, written by a famous pop group, with a sombre, almost funeral-like backing, to the number one spot of the pop charts. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic cites the song's focus on "the neglected concerns and fates of the elderly" as "just one example of why the Beatles' appeal reached so far beyond the traditional rock audience".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In its inclusion of compositions that departed from the format of standard love songs, "Revolver" marked the start of a change in the Beatles' core audience, as their young, female-dominated fanbase gave way to a following that increasingly comprised more serious-minded, male listeners. Commenting on the preponderance of young people who, under the influence of drugs such as marijuana and LSD, increasingly afforded films and rock music exhaustive analysis, Mark Kurlansky writes: "Beatles songs were examined like Tennyson's poems. Who was Eleanor Rigby?"


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The song's lyrics became the subject of study by sociologists, who from 1966 began to view the band as spokesmen for their generation. In 2018, Colin Campbell, professor of sociology at the University of York, published a book-length analysis of the lyrics, titled "The Continuing Story of Eleanor Rigby". Writing in the 1970s, however, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler dismissed the song's sociological relevance as academics "rear[ing] a mis-shapen skull", adding: "Though much praised at the time (by sociologists), 'Eleanor Rigby' was sentimental, melodramatic and a blind alley."


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: According to author and satirist Craig Brown, the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby" have been "the most extravagantly praised" of all the Beatles' songs, "and by all the right people". These include poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Thom Gunn, the last of whom likened the song to W.H. Auden's poem "Miss Gee", and literary critic Karl Miller, who included the lyrics in his 1968 anthology "Writing in England Today".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In his 1970 book "Revolt in Style", Liverpudlian musician and critic George Melly admired the "imaginative truth of 'Eleanor Rigby'", likening it to author James Joyce's treatment of his own hometown in "Dubliners". Novelist and poet A.S. Byatt recognised the song as having the "minimalist perfection" of a Samuel Beckett story. In a talk on BBC Radio 3 in 1993, Byatt said that "Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door" – a line that MacDonald deems "the single most memorable image in The Beatles' output" – conveys a level of despair unacceptable to English middle-class sensibilities and, rather than being a reference to make-up, suggests that Rigby "is faceless, is nothing" once alone in her home.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 1982, the "Eleanor Rigby" statue was unveiled on Stanley Street in Liverpool as a donation from Tommy Steele in tribute to the Beatles. The plaque carries a dedication to "All the Lonely People".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 2004, "Revolver" appeared second in "The Observer"s list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums", compiled by a panel of 100 contributors. In his commentary for the newspaper, John Harris highlighted "Eleanor Rigby" as arguably the album's "single greatest achievement", saying that it "perfectly evokes an England of bomb sites and spinsters, where in the darkest moments it does indeed seem that 'no one was saved'". Harris concluded: "Most pop songwriters have always wrapped up Englishness in camp and irony – here, in a rare moment for British rock, post-war Britain is portrayed in terms of its truly grave aspects."


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: David Simonelli cites the chamber-orchestrated "Eleanor Rigby" as an example of the Beatles' influence being such that, whatever the style of song, their progressiveness defined the parameters of rock music. Music academics Michael Campbell and James Brody highlight the track's melodic shape and imaginative backing to illustrate how, paired with similarly synergistic elements in "A Day in the Life", the Beatles' use of music and lyrics made them one of the two acts in 1960s rock, along with Bob Dylan, who were "most responsible for elevating its level of discourse and expanding its horizons".


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: Soon after its release, Melly stated that "Pop has come of age" with "Eleanor Rigby", while songwriter Jerry Leiber said, "I don't think there's ever been a better song written." In a 1967 interview, Pete Townshend of the Who commented on the Beatles: "They are basically my main source of inspiration – and everyone else's for that matter. I think 'Eleanor Rigby' was a very important musical move forward. It certainly inspired me to write and listen to things in that vein." In his television show "", which aired in April 1967, American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein championed the Beatles' talents among contemporary pop acts and highlighted the song's string arrangement as an example of the eclectic qualities that made 1960s pop music worthy of recognition as art. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees said that their 1969 song "Melody Fair" was influenced by "Eleanor Rigby". America's single "Lonely People" was written by Dan Peek in 1973 as an optimistic response to the Beatles track.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 2000, "Mojo" ranked "Eleanor Rigby" at number 19 on the magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of All Time". In BBC Radio 2's millennium poll, listeners voted it as one of the top 100 songs of the twentieth century. It was ranked at number 137 on "Rolling Stone"s list "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and number 243 on the 2021 revised list. "Eleanor Rigby" was inducted into the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. Based on its appearances in professional rankings and listings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists "Eleanor Rigby" as the 186th most acclaimed song in history. It has been a "Desert Island Discs" selection by individuals such as Cathy Berberian, Charles Aznavour, Patricia Hayes, Carlos Frank and Geoffrey Howe. Similarly, Marshall Crenshaw named it to a list of ten songs that represent perfect songwriting.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: By the mid-2000s, over 200 cover versions of "Eleanor Rigby" had been made. George Martin included the song on his November 1966 album "George Martin Instrumentally Salutes "The Beatle Girls"", one of a series of interpretive works by the band's producer designed to appeal to the easy listening market.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: The song was also popular with soul artists seeking to widen their stylistic range. Ray Charles recorded a version that was released as a single in 1968 and peaked at number 35 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 36 in the UK. Lennon highlighted it as a "fantastic" cover. Aretha Franklin's version of "Eleanor Rigby" charted at number 17 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in December 1969. Music journalist Chris Ingham recognises the Charles and Franklin recordings as notable progressive soul interpretations of the song.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: McCartney recorded a new version of "Eleanor Rigby", with Martin again scoring the orchestration, for his 1984 film "Give My Regards to Broad Street". Departing from the premise of the film, the song's sequence features McCartney dressed in Victorian costume. On the accompanying soundtrack album, the track segues into a symphonic extension titled "Eleanor's Dream". He has also performed the song frequently in concert, starting with his 1989–90 world tour.


title: Eleanor Rigby

text: In 2021, composer Cody Fry arranged recordings submitted by 400 musicians into an orchestral cover of "Eleanor Rigby". It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: Hospital emergency codes are coded messages often announced over a public address system of a hospital to alert staff to various classes of on-site emergencies. The use of codes is intended to convey essential information quickly and with minimal misunderstanding to staff while preventing stress and panic among visitors to the hospital. Such codes are sometimes posted on placards throughout the hospital or are printed on employee identification badges for ready reference.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: Hospital emergency codes have varied widely by location, even between hospitals in the same community. Confusion over these codes has led to the proposal for and sometimes adoption of standardized codes. In many American, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian hospitals, for example "code blue" indicates a patient has entered cardiac arrest, while "code red" indicates that a fire has broken out somewhere in the hospital facility.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In order for a code call to be useful in activating the response of specific hospital personnel to a given situation, it is usually accompanied by a specific location description (e.g., "Code red, second floor, corridor three, room two-twelve"). Other codes, however, only signal hospital staff generally to prepare for the consequences of some external event such as a natural disaster.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: Australian hospitals and other buildings are covered by Australian Standard 4083 (1997) and many are in the process of changing to those standards.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In Ontario, a standard emergency response code set by the Ontario Hospital Association is used, with minor variations for some hospitals.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In the UK, hospitals have standardised codes across individual NHS trusts (England and Wales) and health boards (Scotland), but there are not many standardised codes across the entire NHS. This allows for differences in demands on hospitals in different areas, and also for hospitals of different roles to communicate different alerts according to their needs (e.g., a major trauma centre like St. George's Hospital in South London has different priority alert needs to a rural community hospital like West Berkshire Community Hospital).


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In 2000, the Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) determined that a uniform code system was needed after three people were killed in a shooting incident at a hospital after the wrong emergency code was called. While codes for fire (red) and medical emergency (blue) were similar in 90% of California hospitals queried, 47 different codes were used for infant abduction and 61 for combative person. In light of this, the HASC published a handbook titled "Healthcare Facility Emergency Codes: A Guide for Code Standardization" listing various codes and has strongly urged hospitals to voluntarily implement the revised codes.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In 2008, the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, Oregon Patient Safety Commission, and Washington State Hospital Association formed a taskforce to standardize emergency code calls. After both states had conducted a survey of all hospital members, the taskforce found many hospitals used the same code for fire (code red); however, there were tremendous variations for codes representing respiratory and cardiac arrest, infant and child abduction, and combative persons. After deliberations and decisions, the taskforce suggested the following as the Hospital Emergency Code:


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In 2015, the South Carolina Hospital Association formed a work group to develop plain language standardization code recommendations. Abolishing all color codes was suggested. In 2016, the Texas Hospital Association encouraged the use of standardized plain language emergency alerts at all Texas hospitals. The only color code that was still recommended was "code blue," meaning a cardiac arrest.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: Plain language alerts are announced using the following format: "Alert Type + Description + Location (general to specific) + Instructions (if applicable)." For example, if a patient in ICU Bed 4 went into cardiac arrest, the alert would be "Medical Alert + Code Blue + Second Floor + Intensive Care Unit + Bed 4."


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: "Code blue” is used to indicate that a patient requires resuscitation or is in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest. When called overhead, the page takes the form of "Code blue, [floor], [room]" to alert the resuscitation team where to respond. Every hospital, as a part of its disaster plans, sets a policy to determine which units provide personnel for code coverage. In theory any medical professional may respond to a code, but in practice, the team makeup is limited to those with advanced cardiac life support or other equivalent resuscitation training. Frequently these teams are staffed by physicians (from anesthesia and internal medicine in larger medical centers or the emergency physician in smaller ones), respiratory therapists, pharmacists, and nurses. A code team leader will be a physician in attendance on any code team; this individual is responsible for directing the resuscitation effort and is said to "run the code". Most usually, it’s used as a case of emergency and when a doctor or surgeon calls “Code Blue!” it is representing an emergency.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: This phrase was coined at Bethany Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. The term "code" by itself is commonly used by medical professionals as a slang term for this type of emergency, as in "calling a code" or describing a patient in arrest as "coding" or "coded".


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: In some hospitals or other medical facilities, the resuscitation team may purposely respond slowly to a patient in cardiac arrest, a practice known as "slow code", or may fake the response altogether for the sake of the patient's family, a practice known as "show code". Such practices are ethically controversial, and are banned in some jurisdictions.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: "Plan blue" was used at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City to indicate arrival of a trauma patient so critically injured that even the short delay of a stop in the ER for evaluation could be fatal; "plan blue" was called out to alert the surgeon on call to go immediately to the ER entrance and take the patient for immediate surgery.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: "Doctor" codes are often used in hospital settings for announcements over a general loudspeaker or paging system that might cause panic or endanger a patient's privacy. Most often, "doctor" codes take the form of "Paging Dr. Sinclair", where the doctor's "name" is a code word for a dangerous situation or a patient in crisis, e.g.: "Paging Dr. Firestone, third floor," to indicate a possible fire on the floor specified.


title: Hospital emergency codes

text: Specific to emergency medicine, incoming patients in immediate danger of life or limb, whether presenting via ambulance or walk-in triage, are paged locally within the emergency department as "resus" [ri:səs] codes. These codes indicate the type of emergency (general medical, trauma, cardiopulmonary or neurological) and type of patient (adult or pediatric). An estimated time of arrival may be included, or "now" if the patient is already in the department. The patient is transported to the nearest open trauma bay or evaluation room, and is immediately attended by a designated team of physicians and nurses for purposes of immediate stabilization and treatment.


title: Resting bitch face

text: Resting bitch face, also known as RBF, or bitchy resting face (BRF), is a facial expression that unintentionally appears like a person is angry, annoyed, irritated, or contemptuous, particularly when the individual is relaxed, resting, or not expressing any particular emotion.


title: Resting bitch face

text: The concept has been studied by psychologists and may have psychological implications related to facial biases, gender stereotypes, human judgement and decision-making. The concept has also been studied by scientists with information technology. Using a type of facial recognition system, they found that the phenomenon is real and the condition is as common in males as in females, despite the gendered word "bitch" that is used to name the concept.


title: Resting bitch face

text: In a 2013 year-end round-up of newly popular words and phrases, "The New York Times" writer Grant Barrett asserted that the phrase dates back "at least ten years".


title: Resting bitch face

text: On May 22, 2013, the comedy group Broken People uploaded a parody public service announcement video titled "Bitchy Resting Face" (BRF) on the Funny or Die website in which male and female "sufferers" of an annoyed-looking blank expression ask for understanding from non-sufferers. The video features comedian Milana Vayntrub.


title: Resting bitch face

text: The term has become widely referred to in the media. It has made its way into lifestyle and fashion magazines for women such as "Cosmopolitan" and "Elle", and been mentioned in published literature, both fiction and non-fiction.


title: Resting bitch face

text: Hadley Freeman wrote that since it appeared in the Broken People video, it had enjoyed a stratospheric rise, and pointed out that the male equivalent term Resting Asshole Face (RAF) highlighted in this video had not received the same degree of comment. New York University psychologist Jonathan Freeman carried out a study showing that slightly angry facial expressions make other people think you are untrustworthy.


title: Resting bitch face

text: In a 2014 article in the journal "Philological Quarterly", Chloé Hogg, asserted that the phenomenon was not new, and offered Hyacinthe Rigaud's portrait of Louis XIV of France depicting his "bitchy resting face". Levels of resting bitch face can vary greatly, with different magnitudes and amounts of fierceness.


title: Resting bitch face

text: In 2015, CBS News reported that some plastic surgeons were using plastic surgery to help patients with RBF.


title: Resting bitch face

text: In October 2015, scientists from the company Noldus Information Technology used their FaceReader software to analyze the faces of celebrities like Kanye West, Kristen Stewart, Anna Kendrick and Queen Elizabeth II, notable public figures who have been known to occasionally wear a less-than-pleased expression, and proved that resting bitch face does exist.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: The CAmion Équipé d'un Système d'ARtillerie (English: "Truck equipped with an artillery system") or CAESAR is a French 155 mm, 52-calibre self-propelled howitzer installed on a 6x6 or 8x8 truck chassis that can fire all 39/52 caliber NATO-standard shells. Equipped with an autonomous weapon network incorporating an inertial navigation system and ballistic computer, the CAESAR can notably accurately strike targets more than away using ERFB (Extended Range, Full Bore) ammunition with base bleed, or targets over away using rocket assisted or smart ammunition.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: Units manufactured for the French Army use a 6x6 Renault "Sherpa 5" chassis, while exported versions have been integrated on the 6x6 Unimog U2450L chassis or the 8x8 Tatra 815 chassis for example. The CAESAR platform was developed by French defense contractor GIAT Industries (now known as Nexter) and has been exported to various countries including Belgium, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Ukraine.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: CAESAR was developed in the 1990s as a technology demonstrator by the French state-owned company GIAT Industries, in cooperation with Lohr Industrie. It was first shown in public in 1994. Four years later, a pre-production model underwent trials with the French Army.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: The CAESAR is a wheeled, 155mm 52-caliber self-propelled howitzer. It holds 18 rounds and is typically operated by a crew of five, though if necessary the CAESAR can be operated by a crew as few as three. It can be transported by a C-130 or A400M heavy cargo aircraft. It has a firing range of approximately using an Extended Range, Full Bore (ERFB) shell, and more than using rocket assisted shells. The system is integrated with a fully computerized system, providing automatic control. During Eurosatory 2006, CAESAR was exhibited with an automated laying system based on the SIGMA 30 inertial navigation system.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: It is fast to set up for firing and to leave the firing position; it can fire six rounds and move away within two minutes.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: In February 2022, Nexter was awarded a contract by the French Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) for the development of the CAESAR 6x6 Mark II new generation (NG) artillery system. The Mark II features a new chassis with a more powerful 460 hp engine and new automatic gearbox, new fire control software, and a Level 2 mine and ballistic armored cabin raising the vehicle's weight to 25 tonnes (27.56 tons). The contract begins a four-year development phase, after which the Mark II will enter production. In 2024, the DGA will choose whether to start production of 109 newly built Mark IIs or to procure 33 new vehicles while retrofitting the 76 CAESARs already in service.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: On 16 September 2015 at DSEI 2015, Nexter unveiled the CAESAR 8x8 which features a high level of mobility ensured by a modified Tatra T-815 8x8 chassis. The 8x8 CAESAR is fitted as standard with an unarmoured forward control four-person cab, but one of the options is a fully armour protected cab. Gross vehicle weight would depend on the level of armour protection, but is about 30 tonnes. It is powered by a 410 hp diesel engine. It holds 36 rounds.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: Eight CAESARs were sent to Afghanistan during the summer of 2009 to support French operations. They were deployed on 1 August 2009 by the 3rd Marine Artillery Regiment (3è RAMa), followed by five others, deployed as a firebase in FOB Tora, Tagab and Nijrab. They are fitted with cabin armor add-ons, with fireport.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: During Operation Serval in Mali, four CAESAR were deployed by the 68 régiment d'artillerie d'Afrique (68th Artillery Regiment of Africa).


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: In April 2011, the Royal Thai Army used the CAESAR against Cambodia's BM-21. The Thai Army claimed that they destroyed two or more BM-21 systems.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: Several CAESAR were deployed in Mali by France during Operation Serval, in which they saw action in the Battle of Ifoghas, amongst others. France also deployed four CAESAR to Iraq for the Battle of Mosul, where French forces supported the Iraqi Army's operation to reclaim Mosul from ISIL from October 2016 to July 2017. Multiple CAESAR were deployed to Iraq on the border with Syria from 8 November 2018 to April 2019 to support the Syrian Democratic Forces in the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani, the ultimately successful operation to capture the final town held by the Islamic State group. They deployed to Firebase Saham, a base freshly constructed by the United States Army to provide fire support during the battle, especially during cloudy days when U.S. aircraft could not see to conduct airstrikes.


title: CAESAR self-propelled howitzer

text: –The CAESAR was offered to the Brazilian Army as part of the "VBCOAP 155mm SR" program for the acquisition of 36 Self-propelled howitzer


title: Spike Milligan

text: Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an English-Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Milligan was the co-creator, main writer, and a principal cast member of the British radio comedy programme "The Goon Show", performing a range of roles including the characters Eccles and Minnie Bannister. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of the Goons. He took his success with "The Goon Show" into television with "Q5", a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". He wrote and edited many books, including "Puckoon" (1963) and a seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with "" (1971). He also wrote comical verse, with much of his poetry written for children, including "Silly Verse for Kids" (1959).


title: Spike Milligan

text: Terence Alan Milligan was born in Ahmednagar on 16 April 1918 during the British Raj, the son of an Irish father, Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890–1969), a regimental sergeant-major in the British Indian Army, and English mother, Florence Mary Winifred (née Kettleband; 1893–1990). He spent his childhood in Poona and later in Rangoon, capital of British Burma. He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and later at St Paul's High School, Rangoon. Due to his father remaining in the Indian Army after the end of the First World War, steady promotion meant "the family's lifestyle became almost lavish"; Milligan considered that "My old man lived the life of a gentleman on sergeant's pay".


title: Spike Milligan

text: When Army cuts meant his father's position was no longer required, Milligan travelled, by sea, from India to England for the first time; he arrived on a winter's morning and was bemused by the climate, so different from India's, remembering the dock's "terrible noise, and everything so cold and grey." The Milligan family lived in England in somewhat straitened circumstances, Leo Milligan only being able to find "a poorly paid job in the Associated Press photo library"; Milligan recalled his mother "often tense and angry... a domestic tyrant" due to having to manage on "next to no income". After moving to Brockley, south east London from the age of 12 in 1931, Milligan attended Brownhill Road School (later to be renamed Catford Boys School) and St Saviours School, Lewisham High Road. Disliking his first name Terry, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.


title: Spike Milligan

text: On leaving school, he worked as a clerk in the Woolwich Arsenal, played the cornet and discovered jazz. He also joined the Young Communist League to demonstrate his hatred of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, who were gaining support near his home in South London.


title: Spike Milligan

text: During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s, Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist, guitarist, and trumpeter before, during and after being called up for military service joining the Royal Artillery, in the fight against Nazi Germany, but even then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops. After his call-up, but before being sent abroad, he and fellow musician Harry Edgington (1919–1993) (whose nickname 'Edge-ying-Tong', inspired one of Milligan's most memorable musical creations, the "Ying Tong Song") would compose surreal stories, filled with puns and skewed logic, as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks. One biographer describes his early dance band work as follows: "He managed to croon like Bing Crosby and win a competition: he also played drums, guitar and trumpet, in which he was entirely self taught"; he also acquired a double bass, on which he took lessons and would strum in jazz sessions. Milligan had perfect pitch.


title: Spike Milligan

text: During the Second World War, Milligan served as a signaller in D Battery (later 19 Battery), 56th Heavy Regiment, Royal Artillery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024. The unit was equipped with the obsolete First World War era BL 9.2-inch howitzer and based in Bexhill on the south coast of England. Milligan describes training with these guns in part two of "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall", claiming that, during training, gun crews resorted to shouting "bang" in unison as they had no shells with which to practise.


title: Spike Milligan

text: The unit was later re-equipped with the BL 7.2-inch howitzer and saw action as part of the First Army in the North African campaign and then in the succeeding Italian campaign. Milligan was appointed lance bombardier and was about to be promoted to bombardier, when he was wounded in action in the Italian theatre at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Subsequently, hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer (identified in his war diaries as Major Evan "Jumbo" Jenkins) back to Gunner. It was Milligan's opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him, because Milligan constantly kept up the morale of his fellow soldiers, whereas Jenkins's approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener. An incident also mentioned was when Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him, only to discover that the musicianship of the gunners was far superior to his own ability to play "Whistling Rufus".


title: Spike Milligan

text: After hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of rear-echelon military jobs in Italy, eventually becoming a full-time entertainer. He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called "The Bill Hall Trio", in concert parties for the troops. After being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the trio but returned to Britain soon after. While he was with the Central Pool of Artists (a group he described as composed "of bomb-happy squaddies") he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays, which displayed many of the key elements of what would later become "The Goon Show" (originally called "Crazy People") with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as a performer or script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, "The Goon Show". During its first season the BBC titled the show as "Crazy People", or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials, by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.


title: Spike Milligan

text: The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service. Although he did not perform as much in the early shows, Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the "Goon Show" episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child, Seán) and through most of Series 6, he collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of his contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts. Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6 but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' death from a brain haemorrhage in January 1959; Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.


title: Spike Milligan

text: "The Goon Show" was recorded before a studio audience and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums. For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc, which required the cast to adhere closely to the script but by Series 4, the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered—the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects. Over the first three series, Milligan's demands for increasingly complex sound effects (or "grams", as they were then known) pushed technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits—effects had to be created mechanically (foley) or played back from discs, sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously. With magnetic tape, these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex, tightly edited effects "stings" that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to perform using foley or disc. In the later years of the series many Goon Show "grams" were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a notable example being the "Major Bloodnok's Stomach" effect, realised by Dick Mills.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Although the Goons elevated Milligan to national stardom, the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll. During Series 3 he had the first of several serious mental breakdowns, which also marked the onset of a decades-long cycle of manic-depressive illness. In late 1952, possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons' stars, Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Sellers but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers's neighbouring flat, armed with a potato knife, he accidentally walked straight through the plate-glass front door. He was hospitalised, heavily sedated for two weeks and spent almost two months recuperating; fortunately for the show, a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on production. Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing "The Goon Show" for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage.


title: Spike Milligan

text: A lesser-known aspect of Milligan's life in the 1950s and 1960s was his involvement in the writers' agency Associated London Scripts. Milligan married for the first time and began a family. This reportedly distracted him from writing so much that he accepted an invitation from Eric Sykes to share his small office, leading to the creation of the co-operative agency.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Milligan made several forays into television as a writer-performer, in addition to his many guest appearances on interview, variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s. "The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d" (1956), starring Peter Sellers, was the first attempt to translate Goons humour to TV; it was followed by "A Show Called Fred" and "Son of Fred", both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester, who went on to work with the Beatles. During a visit to Australia in 1958, a similar special was made for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, "The Gladys Half-Hour", which also featured local actors Ray Barrett and John Bluthal, who would appear in several later Milligan projects. In 1961, Milligan co-wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom "Sykes and a...", co-starring Sykes and Hattie Jacques and the one-off "Spike Milligan Offers a Series of Unrelated Incidents at Current Market Value".


title: Spike Milligan

text: The 15-minute series "The Telegoons" (1963), was the next attempt to transplant the Goons to television, this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters. The initial intention was to "visualise" original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes but this proved difficult, because of the rapid-fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC's refusal to allow the original audio to be used. Fifteen-minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead, with Milligan, Sellers and Secombe reuniting to provide the voices; according to a contemporary press report, they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15-minute shows. Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and (presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Milligan's next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series "The World of Beachcomber" (1968), made in colour for BBC 2; it is believed all 19 episodes are lost. That same year, the three Goons reunited for a televised re-staging of a vintage "Goon Show" for Thames Television, with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade but the pilot was not successful and no further programmes were made.


title: Spike Milligan

text: In early 1969, Milligan starred in brownface in the situation comedy "Curry and Chips", created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. "Curry and Chips" set out to satirise racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful "Till Death Us Do Part", with Milligan 'browning up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani–half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints, because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language'—one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word "bloody" in one episode—and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes. Milligan was also involved in the ill-fated programme "The Melting Pot".


title: Spike Milligan

text: Director John Goldschmidt's film "The Other Spike" dramatised Milligan's nervous breakdown in a film for Granada Television, for which Milligan wrote the screenplay and in which he played himself. Later that year, he was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in "Q5", the first in the innovative "Q..." TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to "Monty Python's Flying Circus", which premiered several months later. There was a hiatus of several years, before the BBC commissioned "Q6" in 1975. "Q7" appeared in 1977, "Q8" in 1978, "Q9" in 1980 and "There's a Lot of It About" in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programmes, had he been given the opportunity. A number of episodes of the earlier "Q" series are missing, presumed wiped.


title: Spike Milligan

text: Milligan's daughter, Laura, conceived and co-wrote an animated series called "The Ratties" (1987). Milligan narrated the 26 five-minute episodes. He later voiced the highly successful animated series "Wolves, Witches and Giants", which aired on ITV from 1995 to 1998. The series was written by Ed Welch, who had previously appeared in the "Q" series, and collaborated with Spike on several audio productions produced and directed by Simon & Sara Bor. "Wolves, Witches and Giants" was broadcast in more than 100 territories, including Britain and the United States.