title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 13 July 1964, the appeals by Lennie Field and Brian Field (no relation) against the charges of conspiracy to rob were allowed. This resulted in their sentences being in effect reduced to five years only. On 14 July 1964, the appeals by Roger Cordrey and Bill Boal were allowed, with the convictions for conspiracy to rob quashed, leaving only the receiving charges. Justice Fenton Atkinson concluded that a miscarriage of justice would result if Boal's charges were upheld, given that his age, physique and temperament made him an unlikely train robber. Luckily for him, as the oldest robber, Cordrey was also deemed to be not guilty of the conspiracy because his prints had not been found at Leatherslade Farm.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Brian Field was only reluctantly acquitted of the robbery. Justice Atkinson stated that he would not be surprised if Field were not only part of the conspiracy, but also one of the robbers. The charges against the other men were all upheld. In the end, Lennie Field and Bill Boal got some measure of justice, but Boal died in prison in 1970 after a long illness.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 12 August 1964, Wilson escaped from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham in under three minutes, the escape being considered unprecedented in that a three-man team had broken into the prison to extricate him. His escape team was never caught and the leader, nicknamed "Frenchy", had disappeared from the London criminal scene by the late 1960s. Two weeks after his escape Wilson was in Paris for plastic surgery. By November 1965, Wilson was in Mexico City visiting old friends Bruce Reynolds and Buster Edwards. Wilson's escape was yet another dramatic twist in the train robbery saga.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Eleven months after Wilson's escape, in July 1965, Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison, 15 months into his sentence. A furniture van was parked alongside the prison walls and a ladder was dropped over the 30-foot-high wall into the prison during outside exercise time, allowing four prisoners to escape, including Biggs. The escape was planned by recently released prisoner Paul Seaborne, with the assistance of two other ex-convicts, Ronnie Leslie and Ronnie Black, with support from Biggs's wife, Charmian. The plot saw two other prisoners interfere with the warders, and allow Biggs and friend Eric Flower to escape. Seaborne was later caught by Butler and sentenced to four-and-a-half years; Ronnie Leslie received three years for being the getaway driver. The two other prisoners who took advantage of the Biggs escape were captured after three months. Biggs and Flower paid a significant sum of money to be smuggled to Paris for plastic surgery. Biggs said he had to escape because of the length of the sentence and what he alleged to be the severity of the prison conditions.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Jimmy White – With the other robbers on the run and having fled the country, only White was at large in the United Kingdom. White was a renowned locksmith/thief and had already been on the run for 10 years before the robbery. He was said to have "a remarkable ability to be invisible, to merge with his surroundings and become the ultimate Mr Nobody." He was a wartime paratrooper and a veteran of Arnhem. According to Piers Paul Read in his 1978 book "The Train Robbers", he was "a solitary thief, not known to work with either firm, he should have had a good chance of remaining undetected altogether, yet was known to be one of the Train Robbers almost at once—first by other criminals and then by the police". He was unfortunate in that Brian Field's relatives had dumped luggage containing £100,000 only a mile from a site where White had bought a caravan and hidden £30,000 in the panelling. In addition, a group of men purporting to be from the Flying Squad broke into his flat and took a briefcase containing £8,500. Throughout his three years on the run with wife Sheree and baby son Stephen, he was taken advantage of or let down by friends and associates. On 10 April 1966, a new friend recognised him from photos in a newspaper and informed the police. They arrested him at Littlestone while he was at home. He only had £8,000 to hand back to them. The rest was long gone. He was tried in June 1966 at Leicester Assizes and Mr Justice Nield sentenced him to 18 years' jail, considerably less than the 30 years given to other principal offenders.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Buster Edwards – Edwards fled to Mexico with his family, to join Bruce Reynolds (and later Charlie Wilson) but returned voluntarily to England in 1966, where he was sentenced to 15 years.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Charlie Wilson – Wilson took up residence outside Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on Rigaud Mountain in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood where the large, secluded properties are surrounded by trees. He lived under the name Ronald Alloway, a name borrowed from a Fulham shopkeeper. His wife and three children soon joined him. He joined an exclusive golf club and participated in the activities of the local community. It was only when he invited his brother-in-law over from the UK for Christmas that Scotland Yard was able to track him down and recapture him. They waited three months before making their move, in the hope that Wilson would lead them to Reynolds, the last suspect still to be apprehended. Wilson was arrested on 25 January 1968 by Tommy Butler. Many in Rigaud petitioned that his wife and three daughters be allowed to stay in the Montreal area.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Bruce Reynolds – On 6 June 1964, Reynolds arrived in Mexico, with his wife Angela and son Nick joining him a few months later, after they evaded the obvious police surveillance. A year later in July 1965, Buster Edwards and his family arrived, although unlike the Reynolds family they planned to return to England at some stage, and did not like Mexico. Charlie Wilson, on the run with his family still back in England, visited them for six weeks, so three of the train robbers were together in exile for a time. After the Edwards family returned to England, the Reynoldses also decided to leave Mexico and go to Canada to potentially join up with the Wilson family, leaving on 6 December 1966. They had spent much of their share of the robbery by this point – living far more extravagantly than the Edwardses had. After realising the danger in settling near the Wilsons in Montreal, they went to live in Vancouver, and then went to Nice, France. Reynolds did not want to go to Australia where Biggs was, and needing money decided to go back to England, settling briefly in Torquay before being captured by Tommy Butler.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Ronnie Biggs – Biggs fled to Paris, where he acquired new identity papers and underwent plastic surgery. In 1966, he moved to Adelaide, Australia, where he worked as a builder and he and his wife had a third son. Tipped off that Interpol was showing interest, he moved to Melbourne working as a set constructor for Channel 9, later escaping to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after police had discovered his Melbourne address. Biggs could not be extradited because there was no extradition treaty between Britain and Brazil, and additionally he became father to a Brazilian son, which afforded him legal immunity. As a result, he lived openly in Rio for many years, safe from the British authorities. In 1981, Biggs's Brazilian son became a member of a successful band Turma do Balão Mágico, but the band quickly faded into obscurity and dissolved.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: In May 2001, aged 71 and having suffered three strokes, Biggs voluntarily returned to England. Accepting that he could be arrested, his stated desire was to "walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter". Arrested on landing, after detention and a short court hearing he was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. On 2 July 2009, Biggs was denied parole by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who considered Biggs to be still "wholly unrepentant", but was released from custody on 6 August, two days before his 80th birthday, on 'compassionate grounds'. He died on 18 December 2013, aged 84.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Following the deaths of Goody on 29 January 2016, and Tommy Wisbey on 30 December 2016, Bob Welch is the only remaining known member of the gang known still alive. In later years, the robbers generally came together only for the funerals of their fellow gang members. Wilson's funeral on 10 May 1990 was attended by Bruce Reynolds, who reported seeing Edwards, Roy James (who got into a verbal argument with the press), Welch (hobbling on crutches) and White (who went unnoticed due to his ability to blend into the background). At Edwards' funeral in 1994, Reynolds saw only Welch. (Hussey, Wisbey and James were in prison.)


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After being sentenced on 16 April 1964, Field served four years of his five-year sentence. He was released in 1967. While he was in prison, his wife Karin divorced him and married a German journalist. Karin wrote an article for the German magazine "Stern". She confirmed that she took Roy James to Thame railway station so he could go to London and that she led a convoy of two vans back to her house, where the gang were joined by wives and girlfriends for a big party to celebrate the crime. When Reynolds returned to the UK in 1968, he tried to contact Field as this was the only way he could get in touch with the "Ulsterman". It seems that Field was ambushed upon his release from prison by a recently released convict, "Scotch Jack" Buggy, who presumably roughed up or even tortured Field with a view to extorting some of the loot from the robbery. Subsequently, Field went to ground and Buggy was killed shortly after. Reynolds gave up trying to find Field.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Field changed his name to Brian Carlton to disappear. Sometime after his release from prison he married Sian, from Wales. In the mid/late 1970s, they worked for the Children's Book Centre (since sold) in Kensington High Street, London. Field and his wife Sian were responsible for the company's operations in central and southern Europe, to where they shipped English language books and held book fairs at international English schools. Field, aged 44, and Sian, aged 28, died in a car crash on the M4 motorway on 27 April 1979, a year after the last of the robbers had completed their sentences. The accident occurred as they returned from a visit to Sian's parents in Wales. A Mercedes driven by Amber Bessone, the pregnant 28-year-old daughter of a well-known hairdresser Raymond Bessone (Mr Teasy Weasy) crossed a damaged section of the guard rail and slammed into Field's oncoming Porsche. The Fields, Amber, her husband and two children were all killed instantly. It was several weeks after the accident that Field's true identity was discovered. It is not clear whether his wife Sian ever knew of his past.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The last of the robbers released, (after serving about one-third of his sentence) Wilson returned to the life of crime and was found shot dead at his villa in Marbella, Spain, on 24 April 1990. His murder was thought to be related to suspected cheating in drug-dealing. He is buried in Streatham cemetery.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After he was released, he became a flower seller outside Waterloo station. His story was dramatised in the 1988 film "Buster", with Phil Collins in the title role. Edwards died by suicide, hanging himself in a garage in November 1994. His family continued to run the flower stall after his death.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: James went back to motor racing following his release on 15 August 1975. However, he crashed several cars and his chances of becoming a driver quickly faded. After the failure of his sporting career, he returned to his trade as a silversmith. He produced the trophy given to Formula One promoters each year thanks to his acquaintance with Bernie Ecclestone. In 1982, he married a younger woman, but the marriage soon broke down. By 1983, James and Charlie Wilson had become involved in an attempt to import gold without paying excise duty. James was acquitted in January 1984 for his part in the swindle. In 1993, he shot and wounded his father-in-law, pistol-whipped and partially strangled his ex-wife, after they had returned their children for a day's outing. He was sentenced to six years in jail. In 1996, James underwent triple-bypass surgery and was subsequently released from prison in 1997, only to die almost immediately afterwards on 21 August after another heart attack. He was the fifth member of the gang to die, despite being the youngest.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Cordrey was the first of the robbers released, but his share of the theft had almost entirely been recovered by the police. He went back to being a florist at his sister's business upon his release. He is now dead, and his son Tony has publicly acknowledged his dad confirmed that Bill Boal was innocent of any involvement in the robbery.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Bruce Reynolds, the last of the robbers to be caught, was released from prison on 6 June 1978 after serving 10 years. Reynolds, then aged 47, was helped by Gordon Goody to get back on his feet, before Goody departed for Spain. By October 1978, day-release ended and he had to report to a parole officer. Frank Monroe, one of the three robbers who was never caught, temporarily gave Reynolds a job, but did not want to attract undue attention by employing him for too long. Reynolds later got back together with his wife Angela and son Nicholas. He was arrested in 1983 for drug-related offences (Reynolds denied having any involvement). He was released again in March 1985 and dedicated himself to helping his wife recover from a mental breakdown. In 2001, he and his son Nicholas travelled with reporters from "The Sun" newspaper to take Biggs back to Britain. In 2010, he wrote the afterword for "Signal Red", Robert Ryan's novel based on the robbery, and he regularly commented on the robbery. He died in his sleep, aged 81, on 28 February 2013.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Upon his acquittal and release, and after finding his share of the loot stolen and/or destroyed, Daly gave up his life of crime and went "straight". He and his wife Barbara and their three children moved to Cornwall, where he worked as a street sweeper until the age of 70, known to the locals as Gentleman John or John the Gent. Daly told no one about the robbery as he was told he could face a retrial. He died six weeks after his brother-in-law Reynolds.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 6 August 2009, Biggs was granted release from prison on "compassionate grounds", due to a severe case of pneumonia and other ongoing health problems. In 2011 he updated his autobiography, "Odd Man Out: The Last Straw". Having suffered a series of strokes after his release, and unable to speak for the previous three years, Biggs died at the Carlton Court Care home, London on 18 December 2013.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Tommy Wisbey was luckier than most of the others, in that his loot had been entrusted to his brothers, and when he emerged, he had a house in South London and a few other investments to keep him going. During his prison stint, his daughter Lorraine had died in a car accident. He took a while to learn how to live harmoniously with his wife Rene (his daughter Marilyn having moved out upon his return). Shortly after his release, Wisbey was imprisoned on remand over a swindle involving travellers' cheques. The judge acknowledged the minor nature of his role.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Jim Hussey was released on 17 November 1975 and married girlfriend Gill (whom he had met just before the robbery). Hussey's share of the loot had been entrusted to a friend of Frank Monroe who squandered it despite Monroe periodically checking on its keeper.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Wisbey and Hussey fell back into crime and were jailed in 1989 for cocaine dealing, with Wisbey sentenced to 10 years and Hussey to seven years. In her book "Gangster's Moll", Marilyn Wisbey recounts that on 8 June 1988, after returning home from a visit to an abortion clinic and resting they were raided by the Drugs Squad. The raid uncovered 1 kg of cocaine and Rene and Marilyn Wisbey were arrested along with Jimmy Hussey, who had been spotted accepting a package from Wisbey in a park. Wisbey himself was captured a year later in Wilmslow, Cheshire. He was allegedly staying with another woman, to the shock of his wife and daughter. In return for Hussey and Wisbey pleading guilty, the two women were unconditionally freed. Upon their release from prison, both men retired from work.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Wisbey later explained: "We were against drugs all our lives, but as the years went on, towards the end of the '70s, it became more and more the 'in' thing. Being involved in the Great Train Robbery, our name was good. They knew we had never grassed anyone, we had done our time without putting anyone else in the frame". On 26 July 1989, the two men pleaded guilty and admitted at Snaresbrook Crown Court, London that they were a part of a £500,000 cocaine trafficking ring. Wisbey's grandson has also had trouble with the law in Cyprus.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Bob Welch (born March 1929) was released on 14 June 1976. He was the last of those convicted in Aylesbury to be released. Welch moved back in with his wife June and his son. He threatened the man left in charge of his share of the theft to retrieve the remainder. A leg injury sustained in prison forced him to undergo several operations, which left him disabled.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: He was released from prison on 23 December 1975, aged 46 and went to live with his ill mother in her small cottage in Putney. Unlike the other robbers, he was exceptionally lucky in that the man he left in charge of his affairs was loyal and successful so he was able to live a relatively well-off life. In his final years of incarceration Goody had taken full benefit of the newly established education college at Wormwood Scrubbs and studied Spanish to GCE standard.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: He later moved to Mojacar, southern Spain, where he bought property and a bar and settled down, believing it safer to be out of the United Kingdom. He was at one point accused of cannabis smuggling but ultimately cleared. He continued to live in Mojacar until his death on 29 January 2016, following an illness.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: While there has been a lot of mystery surrounding several of the gang who were not imprisoned, in reality, the police knew almost the entire gang almost instantly. By 29 August 1963 Commander Hatherill had 14 names, and told police that Brian Field had tried to enlist another gang to rob the train, who turned him down. Hatherill's list was unerringly accurate—all the major gang members who were later jailed were identified, except Ronnie Biggs. With the exception of the minor accomplices Lennie Field, Bill Boal and the train driver, the list was complete, although of course "The Ulsterman" was not identified. In terms of the ones who got away, there were four others identified: Harry Smith, Danny Pembroke, a fair-haired man (25 years old and well-spoken, not named) and a nondescript man (not named but maybe Jimmy Collins).


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: In 2019, Pembroke's son, also called Danny, confirmed that his father was present during the raid. He escaped detection as he always wore gloves, including at the hideout at the farm, and went outside to the toilet rather than using the one inside the house. The son stated that Pembroke, whose share of the loot was £150,000 (about £3 million in 2019), died in 2015 aged 79.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Both Piers Paul Read and Bruce Reynolds refer to three robbers who got away as Bill Jennings, Alf Thomas and Frank Monroe.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Piers Paul Read refers to this man as Bill Jennings in "The Train Robbers", while Bruce Reynolds adds a nickname, 'Flossy'. Ronnie Biggs refers to him as Mr One, as do other accounts. According to Bruce Reynolds, "Flossy had no previous convictions and stayed well out of contact with the group. A shadowy figure, nobody knew exactly where he lived—or even what his real name was. All we knew that he was one hundred per cent, and was sure to last out the hullabaloo. The last report of him said that he was in a safe house, banged up with two gorgeous girls and enough champagne to sink a battleship."


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: It is clear that while Reynolds claims to not have known his real name, 'Flossy' was not just a participant in the Great Train Robbery, he was a core part of the gang who participated in the London Airport robbery. This robbery was the audacious raid that Gordon Goody and Charlie Wilson were acquitted of. That raid consisted of Roy James and Mickey Ball as the getaway drivers, with six robbers—Bruce Reynolds, Buster Edwards, Gordon Goody, Charlie Wilson, Flossy (and a sixth man who did not participate in the train robbery). In the end, the only one caught after the airport raid was Mickey Ball, who pleaded guilty to being a getaway driver when a witness mistook him for Flossy, and to avoid being blamed for the actual violence he agreed to plead guilty as an accomplice, and was in prison during the Great Train Robbery. He was given £500 from the proceeds of the Train Robbery.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Henry Thomas 'Harry' Smith (born 20 October 1930) is believed to be Flossy, and unlike most other robbers, actually got to spend his share of the loot, buying 28 houses, a hotel and drinking club in Portsmouth. Smith died in 2008. Smith was the only man not ultimately arrested that was on both the Hatherill list and Tommy Butler's list.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Danny Pembroke was an ex-army man who was a South London taxi driver and a South Coast Raider. At Leatherslade Farm he was the most careful of the gang, and nothing was ever found to associate him with the robbery, despite the police being satisfied that he was one of the gang, and had searched his house in September 1963. However, afraid that he would be betrayed, he did a deal with Frank Williams and paid back £47,245. Following the robbery, Pembroke left for America for a couple of years, knowing he was set up for life, and then returned to live quietly in Kent. He died aged 79 from a heart attack, at home and in his sleep on 28 February 2015. Pembroke had five children, and his son Danny Jr., admitted to his involvement in a Channel Four documentary in August 2019. According to Bruce Reynolds, Monroe, who was never caught, worked as a film stunt man for a while before starting a paper and scrap metal recycling business.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The replacement train driver was never caught, and never suspected of even existing by police, due to the fact that Jack Mills in the end had to drive the train. He also never profited from the crime, as Ronnie Biggs never paid him his £20,000 "drink". The driver, of course, was not a member of the gang (as defined by receiving an equal share), just an accomplice.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Piers Paul Read called the replacement train driver "Stan Agate", and Stan was apparently the true nickname of the replacement driver. Read, concerned that the robbers may have hurt him, went to see Ronnie Biggs in Brazil to get his details, although was dismayed to find that Biggs did not know his last name and knew and cared very little about him. With the meager details provided, Read used a detective agency to track down the driver at a town 20 miles south of London, and found that he was still alive, although somewhat senile and being cared for by his wife. The wife admitted that she had burnt all the clothes that he had worn that night, and had nervously waited for either the gang to murder him or the police to arrest him. Read promised not to reveal their identities. Unlike the other three members of the gang who got away, Peta Fordham does make mention of the replacement driver, but notes that he is said now to be dead, perhaps the robbers who provided material for the book did not want the police looking for him, as at the time of publishing (1965) Reynolds, White and Edwards were still on the run.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Ronnie Biggs, in his 1994 autobiography, "Odd Man Out", said that Bruce Reynolds offered him a chance to join the gang if he could find a train driver. Biggs was renewing the front windows of a train driver's house in Redhill, who he calls 'Peter' (and whom he believes to be dead by 1994). Ronnie offers him a £40,000 share of the profits, tells Reynolds and gives his address to John Daly who then proceeds to check him out. It seems that while he was an older man, he still had to apply for two weeks leave of absence from his job. According to Biggs, 'Peter' was paid his £40,000 'drink', although other accounts claim otherwise. Biggs states that Mary Manson drove 'Peter' and John Daly home, while Reynolds drove Biggs home.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: John Wheater was released from prison on 11 February 1966 and managed his family's laundry business in Harrogate. He later wrote two articles in the "Sunday Telegraph", which published the first one on 6 March 1966. He died in July 1985.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Lenny Field was released in 1967 and went to live in North London. He disappeared from the public eye.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Mary Manson, an associate of Bruce Reynolds and John Daly, was charged with receiving £820 from the robbery; she was held for six weeks but was released. Mary took care of wives and children of some of the robbers while they were on the run or in jail.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Mills had constant trauma headaches for the rest of his life, before dying of leukaemia in 1970. Mills's assailant was one of three members of the gang that were never identified by the others. However, in November 2012, Hussey made a death-bed confession that it was him, although there were suspicions that this was repayment of a debt, to divert attention from the real perpetrator.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Frank Williams (at the time a detective inspector) claimed that at least three men who were directly involved are still at liberty and enjoying their full share of the money stolen and the profits from the way they invested it, one of them being the man responsible for the attack on the train driver. Williams said that the train driver's assailant was not some phantom figure lurking in the criminal underworld, and that he traced him, identified him and took him to Scotland Yard where, with Tommy Butler, Williams questioned him. He could not be charged because of lack of evidence; there were no fingerprints or identifiable marks anywhere. None of those arrested informed on this person, although it was claimed that he had completely disobeyed instructions and used violence during the robbery.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: David Whitby (24 January 1937 – 6 January 1972) was also from Crewe. He was traumatised by his track-side assault and subsequent rough treatment and never recovered from his ordeal. He was 26 years old at the time of the robbery. He was able to resume his job as a secondman, but died from a heart attack on 6 January 1972 at the age of 34 in Crewe, Cheshire.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Engineer William Gerald "Bill" Boal (22 October 1913 – 26 June 1970), an accomplice after the fact of Roger Cordrey. He was considered so at the time because he knew Cordrey and moreover was found in Cordrey's car where a large stash of the stolen money was hidden. He died in jail of cancer. His family are now trying to have his name cleared, as they believe, based on evidence not used in the original trial, that Boal was at best an accomplice after the fact with no knowledge of the robbery, and that it was likely that Cordrey told him nothing about the provenance of the cash. Furthermore, both Ronnie Biggs and Gordon Goody, two surviving gang members at the time, gave sworn affidavits asserting that Boal was innocent. Both gang members stated that they believed Boal was "stitched up" by the police.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The audacity and scale of the robbery was yet another controversy with which the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan had to cope. Macmillan resigned in October 1963, claiming poor health—he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and believed he did not have long to live, but the diagnosis turned out to be incorrect. He did not contest his seat at the next election in September 1964, which the Labour Party won under Harold Wilson.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: After his success in securing White and Edwards, Tommy Butler got the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Joseph Simpson, to suspend his retirement on his 55th birthday so he could continue to hunt the robbers. This paid off with the arrests of first Wilson, then Reynolds. When asked by a reporter after the sentencing of Reynolds whether that was the end of it, Butler replied that it was not over until Biggs was caught. In 1969 he was finally forced to accept compulsory retirement, and later died in 1970, aged 57. That same day, Biggs' memoirs were published in "The Sun" newspaper.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Butler's deputy, Frank Williams, was passed over to be his replacement as head of the Flying Squad because of his deal with Edwards (which he thought would seal his promotion) and his deal with another of the robbers who was never caught. Following this, he left the force to become head of security for the airline Qantas. He wrote his autobiography "No Fixed Address", which was published in 1973.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Jack Slipper of the Metropolitan Police was promoted to detective chief superintendent. He became so involved in the case that he continued to hunt many of the escaped robbers after he retired. He believed Biggs should not be released after returning to the UK in 2001 and he often appeared in the media to comment on any news item connected with the robbery before his death on 24 August 2005 at the age of 81.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Detective Chief Superintendent Ernest Malcolm Fewtrell, head of the Buckinghamshire Crime Investigation Department (CID) was born on 29 September 1909 and died on 28 November 2005, aged 96. He retired on the last day of the trial after the verdicts were handed down at the then compulsory retirement age of 55. This allowed him (with Ronald Payne of "The Sunday Telegraph", who was involved in the paper's coverage of the case) to be the first of the investigators to write a book "The Train Robbers" on the robbery investigation in 1964. In the book, he expressed some frustration with the Flying Squad although he mostly had praise for individual officers. His one regret was that he had the search for the hideout carried out radiating outwards from the scene of the robbery rather than an inwards search from a perimeter. He worked as an accommodation officer for Portsmouth Polytechnic before retiring to live by the sea near Swanage. He continued to express disgust at any film that he felt glamourised the robbers. It has been said that he bore a striking resemblance to John Thaw, who was the star of "Inspector Morse", which, perhaps coincidentally, was a television series about a detective in the Thames Valley Police Force (the modern-day successor to Buckinghamshire Constabulary). Fewtrell was assisted and later succeeded in the investigation by John Woolley, who served in the Buckinghamshire Constabulary from 1959 to 1984.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: George Hatherill (1898–1986) had his service extended by one year because of the need to complete the investigation of the Great Train Robbery. He visited Canada and the US as a lecturer on police matters. He died on 17 June 1986 at the age of 87.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Gerald MacArthur died aged 70 on 21 July 1996. He was famous for breaking up the Richardson Gang at a time when a significant number of London-based detectives were known to be corrupt.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: One of the Post Office carriages that was part of the remaining train (not involved in the actual robbery) is preserved at the Nene Valley Railway at Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, and is being restored. The actual carriage that was robbed [M30204M] was retained for seven years following the robbery, and then taken to Norfolk and burned in the presence of police and Post Office representatives at a scrapyard near Norwich in 1970. This was to deter collector/souvenir hunters. Locomotive English Electric Type 4 – D326 (later 40126) was involved in a number of serious operating incidents. The locomotive was scrapped at Doncaster Railway workshops in 1984. The retrieved Monopoly board used by the robbers at their Leatherslade Farm hideout and a genuine £5 note from the robbery are on display at the Thames Valley Police museum in Sulhamstead, Berkshire.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: For some years Network Rail described the location of the robbery as "Train Robbers' bridge" in their infrastructure records, and a structure identification plate showing this was attached to the bridge. This led to an outcry advocating restoration of the original name of Bridego Bridge. In late 2013 Network Rail bowed to public pressure, but this time named it Mentmore Bridge. The sign was replaced around 2017.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: £2,631,684 was stolen (although the police report says £2,595,997). The bulk of the haul was in £1 notes and £5 notes (both the older white note and the newer blue note which was half its size). The £5 notes were bundled in batches of £2,500, the £1 notes in batches of £500. There were also ten-shilling notes in batches of £250. A quantity of Irish and Scottish money was also stolen.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: With the exception of a few 'drinks' for associates, the loot was split into 17 equal shares of around £150,000 each (George Hatherill claims that there were 18 shares).


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: With a few notable exceptions, the money was quickly laundered or divided by friends, family and associates of the robbers. Much was laundered through bookmakers (Wilson and Wisbey were themselves bookmakers) although, astonishingly, only a few hundred pounds were identifiable by serial number so the robbers could have spent the money without fear of being traced. There were 1,579 notes whose serial numbers were known and the rest of the money was completely untraceable.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The £5 notes were of two different types, because in 1957 the British Government had begun to replace the large white notes with smaller blue ones. The final changeover had not been completed by the time of the robbery. The white notes quickly became far more conspicuous to use, making it harder for them to be spent.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Although within six months of the robbery 10 of the robbers had been locked up awaiting trial and three others were wanted criminals on the run, very little of the money had actually been recovered. This has led to speculation that there is a great deal of robbery loot still out there. In fact, the money was soon seized and spent by predatory gangsters and greedy associates, relatives and lawyers. Thus the proceeds of the greatest cash robbery in British history were quickly used up, with few of the robbers receiving any real long-term benefit.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Less than £400,000 was eventually recovered. Over half of this consisted of the shares of Roger Cordrey (£141,017) and (allegedly) Brian Field (£100,900). A further £36,000 was recovered from Jimmy White's caravan. Roy James was carrying £12,041 when captured. The final sum recovered was £47,245 that was found in a telephone box in Great Dover Street, Newington, South London.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The £47,245 recovered from a telephone box included 57 notes whose serial numbers had been recorded by the bank in Scotland. This money was part of a deal struck with Frank Williams by Danny Pembroke. Piers Paul Read, in "The Train Robbers", claimed that the police were feeling the pressure because although they had caught many of the robbers, they had failed to recover much of the money. While no evidence had been found against Pembroke, who was believed to have been one of the South Coast Raiders, some of the identifiable bank notes had been traced back to him through friends who had been charged with receiving. Given that the police had insufficient evidence against Pembroke, either at Leatherslade Farm or definitive connection with either of the two gangs, Butler was prepared to let him go. Williams convinced Butler to pull Pembroke in for questioning and in return for releasing him and not charging his friends with more serious crimes, £50,000 was to be returned.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: On 3 December 1963, which happened to be the same day that Roy James was taken into custody, the police received an anonymous tip directing them to the money in the phone box. The money was driven up to Aylesbury and taken into custody by Detective Superintendent Fewtrell, who wondered how his London colleagues could know how much money there was. He had to bring in bank clerks to count the damp and musty money to determine the final sum.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Williams made no admission to the recovery of the money being the result of a deal with Pembroke. Despite claiming that his negotiations were responsible for the return of this money, Williams in his book "No Fixed Address" (1973) claimed not to know the identity of the person who had returned the money, although he did mention several robbers to whom he had offered deals through intermediaries. He noted that it seemed to him that Butler was sceptical of his efforts and that at the press conference Hatherill and Millen did not reveal the circumstances behind the find and that he was never asked to talk with them about it. Despite Pembroke being the man identified as the assailant of the train driver, Jack Mills, by Bruce Reynolds (albeit indirectly), Williams only makes mention of the assailant once in his book. In this section (often quoted by other sources), he confirms that, with Tommy Butler, he questioned the man they knew to be the assailant but that they had no evidence to convict him. Strangely, however, he makes no further mention of him.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The deal done with Pembroke caused outrage in the police hierarchy. It is hinted in several books that the deals done by Williams were responsible for his being overlooked for promotion and that Williams was unhappy that his efforts were not recognised by Butler, but were instead hidden from superiors.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: For his part, George Hatherill, in his book "A Detective's Tale", stated that the motive behind the return of the money was not known for certain. He said that the money was returned by "one about whom extensive inquiries had been made and who in fact was interrogated at length. But in spite of our strong suspicions, nothing could be proved against him and so no charge could be brought. My belief is that he thought we knew more about him than we did, and thinking things were getting hot, he decided to get rid of the money to avoid being found in possession with it". Hatherill does not mention Williams at all in his book. He retired on the last day of the trial at Aylesbury.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The 19 gang members who were arrested shortly after the robbery had to spend a large amount on legal fees (approximately £30,000 each).


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: The robbers who spent much time on the run overseas—Reynolds, Wilson and Edwards—had very little left when finally arrested, having had to spend money avoiding capture and indulging in lavish lifestyles without finding employment. Much of Jimmy White's money was taken from him.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: According to Marilyn Wisbey, her father's share was hidden by his father Tommy Wisbey Senior in the panels in the doors of his home. Butler raided them three times but he never found the train money. The majority of the money was reputedly entrusted to Wisbey's father and also to his younger brother Ron, who coincidentally had saved some money of his own that was confiscated by the police and returned to Ron three months later. By the time Wisbey was released from jail all of his share had either been spent or invested. Marilyn agrees with Piers Paul Read's assessment of how her father's share of approximately £150,000 was spent. Although the Wisbey share was one that was not taken by other criminals, Marilyn Wisbey is still bitter that her relatives got to spend a fair amount of the loot while the overall sum dwindled away. However, her grandfather used some of the money to buy them a house in Upper Norwood.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Up to six of the robbers escaped punishment in one way or another - "The Ulsterman", three robbers who were never caught, John Daly who had his charges dismissed at the trial and Ronnie Biggs who escaped from jail and managed to avoid being taken back to the UK. Daly had entrusted his money to another crook. This man had betrayed him to the police and had absconded with the money. He died before Daly could catch up with him. Upon the release of the others in the mid-1970s, "Bill Jennings" got in touch with Buster Edwards and "Frank Monroe" got in touch with the South Coast Raiders. Both said that they had no money left. Danny Pembroke went initially to America and John Daly at the time was said to be living on unemployment benefits in the west of England. Ronnie Biggs quickly spent his share getting a new life. He loved his new life in Australia, although by the time his family arrived in 1966, all but £7,000 had been spent. £55,000 had been paid as a package deal to get him out of the UK. The rest had gone on legal fees and expenses.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: These books were written in the immediate aftermath of the 1964 trial and before the capture of several of the gang.


title: Great Train Robbery (1963)

text: Books written by senior police in the early 1970s, after their retirement, chiefly present accounts of the investigation, capture, trial and recapture of the robbers.


title: Sarika

text: Sarika Thakur is an Indian actress and costume designer. In 2005, she won the National Film Award for Best Actress for the English-language film "Parzania". She was also awarded the National Film Award for Best Costume Design for her work in "Hey Ram" (2001).


title: Sarika

text: Sarika was born in New Delhi into a family of Marathi and Rajput descent. Her father abandoned the family when she was very young. From then on, she became the breadwinner of the family. As she had to work for a living, she did not attend school.


title: Sarika

text: Sarika started her film career as a child actor at the age of 5, playing the role of a boy, Master Sooraj, during the 1960s in Hindi language films. Her most notable and popular appearance as a child artist was in the year 1967 in the musical superhit "Hamraaz", where she was seen as the daughter of Vimi named "baby Saarika". She appeared in many children's movies. Later, she moved on to films with Rajshri Productions "Geet Gaata Chal" with Sachin, with whom she starred in many Hindi and Marathi films.


title: Sarika

text: She gave birth to a baby girl, Shruti Hassan in 1986. She gave up her acting career after her marriage to Kamal Haasan and moved to Chennai with him during the peak of her career. Their younger daughter, Akshara Haasan, was born in 1991. After separating from her husband, she made a comeback in Hindi films. She played Ipsita Ray Chakraverti in the film "Sacred Evil – A True Story" which failed at the box office.


title: Sarika

text: In year 2000, Sarika won the National Film Award for Best Costume Design for the film "Hey Ram". Her performance in "Parzania" in which she plays the role of a Zoroastrian woman who loses her child during the 2002 riots of India, earned her the National Film Award for Best Actress. Khalid Mohamed wrote for "Hindustan Times" of her performance, "Sarika is marvellously restrained and lifelike, making you care for Parzania straight from the heart."


title: Sarika

text: Sarika has starred as Sheetal Thadani in the movie "Bheja Fry" (2006), where she played the wife of Rajat Kapoor. She also had a small but important role in "Manorama Six Feet Under". Her latest movie is "Shoebite", which has been delayed for production, where she stars opposite Amitabh Bachchan.


title: Sarika

text: Apart from acting, she also served as the costume designer, sound designer and associate director for "Kuruthipunal" (1995) under Raaj Kamal Films International.


title: William Petersen

text: William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his role as Gil Grissom in the CBS drama series "" (2000–2015), for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award; he was further nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards as a producer of the show. He reprised his role as Gil Grissom in the sequel "", which premiered on October 6, 2021.


title: William Petersen

text: He also starred in the films "To Live and Die in L.A." (1985), "Manhunter" (1986), "Young Guns II" (1990), "Fear" (1996), "The Contender" (2000), "Detachment" (2011), and "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" (2012).


title: William Petersen

text: Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, the youngest of six children of June (née Hoene; 1909–2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen (1907 – 2004), who worked in the furniture business. Of Danish and German descent, he was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother. He has two brothers, Arthur Jr. and Robert, and three sisters, Anne, Mary Kay, and Elizabeth.


title: William Petersen

text: He graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, in 1972. He was accepted to Idaho State University on a football scholarship. While at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course, which changed the direction of his life. He left school along with his wife, Joanne, in 1974, and followed a drama professor to the Basque country, where he studied as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque culture: He studied the Basque language and gave his daughter the Basque name "Maite Nerea" ("My Beloved"); she was born in Arrasate/Mondragón in 1975. Petersen returned to Idaho with the intention of being an actor. Not wanting to work a nonacting job in Idaho, he returned to the Chicago area, living with relatives. He became active in the theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which he has been an ensemble member since 2008, and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble, which also included other prominent Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine.


title: William Petersen

text: In 1985, Petersen received his first break when he played a Secret Service agent gone rogue to avenge his mentor in William Friedkin's 1985 action film "To Live and Die in L.A." In 1986, he played FBI agent Will Graham in the first Hannibal Lecter film, "Manhunter". Because his role was so emotionally exhausting, he did everything he could to rid himself of Graham after finishing principal photography. He shaved off his beard, cut his hair, and bleached it blond. He also claims to have done this because, while rehearsing for a play in Chicago, his dialogue was always coming out like Graham's; he dyed his hair so he could look in the mirror and see a different person.


title: William Petersen

text: He declined a part in Oliver Stone's "Platoon", as it would have kept him in the Philippines, away from his family. Instead, he worked on the 1987 HBO made-for-TV movie "Long Gone" as a minor league baseball player and manager named Cecil "Stud" Cantrell. Petersen was offered the role of Henry Hill in the film "Goodfellas", but turned it down. An exposé about the film in the May 2015 issue of "Playboy" claims that Petersen turned down the audition altogether. In a 1990 ABC three-part miniseries, "The Kennedys of Massachusetts", Petersen played U.S. President John F. Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. The film won an Emmy and a Golden Globe from eight and two nominations, respectively. Also in 1990, Petersen portrayed the infamous Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett in "Young Guns II".


title: William Petersen

text: In 1993, Petersen appeared in a CBS TV miniseries, "Return to Lonesome Dove", as former Ranger Gideon Walker. He played Steven Walker, a father who stops at nothing to break up the relationship between his daughter and her vicious boyfriend in "Fear" (1996). Petersen played Governor Jack Hathaway, an unscrupulous candidate for vice president following the death of the incumbent, in "The Contender" in 2000.


title: William Petersen

text: He appeared uncredited in the noir thriller "Mulholland Falls" as a character who finds himself on the violent receiving end of a Los Angeles police squad's tactics. In 1999, he starred in "Kiss the Sky" as "Jeff." He appeared as part of an all-star cast in a remake of the 1997 film "12 Angry Men" (as Juror #12, a.k.a. "the Snob").


title: William Petersen

text: From 2000 to 2009, he played Dr. Gil Grissom in the CBS crime drama "". Petersen took a break from CSI in 2006 to appear in a five-week run of the Trinity Repertory Company production of "Dublin Carol" by Conor McPherson, in Providence, Rhode Island. Petersen renewed his contract with CBS to appear on "CSI" for the 2008–09 season, reportedly for $600,000 per episode. On July 15, 2008, the Associated Press reported that Petersen was leaving the show as a regular following Season 9's tenth episode in order to pursue more stage-acting opportunities, but that he might return for guest spots. He remained an executive producer of the show. He reprised his role of Gil Grissom in the eleventh-season episode "The Two Mrs. Grissoms" (aired February 3, 2011). He came back in 2015 as a guest in the series finale, "Immortality."


title: William Petersen

text: In February 2020, Petersen announced to return for a "CSI" sequel series along with Jorja Fox, before the series was picked up as "".


title: William Petersen

text: In 1975, Petersen and his then wife Joanne Brady welcomed a daughter, Maite. In June 2003, Petersen married his longtime girlfriend Gina Cirone. On July 5, 2011, Petersen and Cirone welcomed twins, a daughter and son, via surrogate.


title: William Petersen

text: Peterson is an avid Chicago Cubs fan. In 2004, he described to "Playboy" a near-death experience he had in the 1980s which gave him "assurance" that there is an afterlife.


title: William Petersen

text: In August 2021, Petersen was taken to the hospital via ambulance after feeling unwell on the set of "". He was experiencing symptoms of exhaustion after 12 weeks of shooting, and released from the facility soon after.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Moonraker is a 1979 spy-fi film, the eleventh in the "James Bond" series produced by Eon Productions, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry, and Richard Kiel. Bond investigates the theft of a Space Shuttle, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with space scientist Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and to recreate humanity with a master race.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The story was intended by author Ian Fleming to become a film even before he completed the novel in 1954; he based it on a screenplay manuscript he had devised earlier. The film's producers had originally intended to make "For Your Eyes Only", but chose "Moonraker" owing to the rise of the science fiction genre in the wake of the "Star Wars" phenomenon. Budgetary issues led to the film being shot primarily in France; other locations included Italy, Brazil, Guatemala and the United States. The soundstages of Pinewood Studios in England, traditionally used for the series, were only used by the special effects team.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "Moonraker" had a high production cost of $34 million, more than twice as much as "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), and it received mixed reviews. However, the film's visuals were praised, with Derek Meddings being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and it eventually became the highest-grossing film of the series at the time with $210.3 million worldwide, a record that stood until 1995's "GoldenEye".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: This was Bernard Lee's final outing as M. Lee was scheduled to reprise his role in "For Your Eyes Only", but was admitted to hospital in November 1980, diagnosed with stomach cancer. He then died in January 1981 before any of M's scenes could be filmed.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: A Drax Industries Moonraker Space Shuttle on loan to the United Kingdom is hijacked in midair while on a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The carrier is destroyed but no wreckage of the shuttle is found. M, head of MI6, assigns James Bond, Agent 007, to investigate. En route to England, Bond is attacked and pushed out of an aeroplane by the mercenary assassin Jaws. He survives by stealing a parachute from the pilot, while Jaws lands on a trapeze net within a circus tent. At the Drax Industries spaceplane-manufacturing complex in California, Bond meets the owner of the company, Hugo Drax, and his henchman Chang. Bond also meets Dr. Holly Goodhead, an astronaut, and survives an assassination attempt while inside a centrifuge chamber. Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour, helps Bond find blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice; Drax discovers her involvement and has her killed by his pet dogs.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In Venice, Bond encounters Goodhead and observes her snooping around a door near the glass factory, then is chased through the canals by Drax's henchmen. He returns to the factory at night to investigate and discovers a secret biological laboratory, and learns that the glass vials are to hold a nerve gas deadly to humans, but harmless to plants and animals. Chang attacks Bond, but Bond hurls him through the stained glass clockface of the Saint Mark's clocktower, killing him; during the fight, Bond finds evidence that Drax is moving his operation to Rio de Janeiro. Rejoining Goodhead, he deduces that she is a CIA agent spying on Drax. Bond has saved one of the vials he found earlier, as the only evidence of the now-empty laboratory; he gives it to M for analysis, who permits him to go to Rio de Janeiro under the pretense of being on leave.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Bond survives attacks by Jaws, Chang's replacement, during Rio Carnival and on the Sugarloaf Cable Car. After Jaws' cable car crashes, he is rescued from the rubble by Dolly, a young woman, and the two fall in love. Drax's forces capture Goodhead, but Bond escapes; he learns that the toxin comes from a rare orchid indigenous to the Amazon jungle. Bond travels the Amazon River and comes under attack from Drax's forces, before eventually locating his base. Captured by Jaws, Bond is taken to Drax and witnesses four Moonrakers lifting off. Drax explains that he stole back the loaned Shuttle because another in his fleet had developed a fault during assembly. Bond and Goodhead are locked in a room under the launch platform, and narrowly escape being burned alive by the exhausts of "Moonraker 5", which is carrying Drax, and pose as pilots on "Moonraker 6". The shuttles dock with Drax's space station, hidden from radar by a cloaking device.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Bond and Goodhead disable the radar jamming cloaking device; the United States sends a platoon of Marines aboard another shuttle to intercept the now-visible space station. Jaws captures Bond and Goodhead, to whom Drax reveals his plan to destroy human life by launching 50 globes that would disperse the nerve gas into Earth's atmosphere. Drax had transported several dozen genetically perfect young men and women of varying races to the space station in the shuttles. They would live there until Earth was safe again for human life, their descendants a "new master race". Bond persuades Jaws to switch his allegiance by getting Drax to admit that anyone not measuring up to his physical standards, including him and Dolly, would be exterminated. Jaws attacks Drax's guards, and a laser battle ensues between Drax's forces and Bond, Jaws, and the Marines. Drax's forces are defeated as the station is destroyed, while Bond shoots and ejects Drax into space. Bond and Goodhead use Drax's laser-armed "Moonraker 5" to destroy the three launched globes and return to Earth. Jaws and Dolly, who ejected themselves in one of Drax's escape pods, are recovered by the Marines. Bond's superiors get a video feed of "Moonraker 5" and are bemused to see Bond and Goodhead making love in zero gravity.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The end credits for the previous Bond film, "The Spy Who Loved Me", said, "James Bond will return in "For Your Eyes Only"". However, following the box office success of the 1977 space-themed film "Star Wars", the producers chose the novel "Moonraker" as the basis for the next film. "For Your Eyes Only" was postponed and ended up following "Moonraker" in 1981.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Ian Fleming had originally intended the novel, published in 1955, to be made into a film even before he began writing it. A part of the novel was thus based on an original idea for a screenplay which had been on his mind for years. Fleming first pitched the novel to Hungarian-British film producer Alexander Korda, who had expressed interest in purchasing the rights to "Live and Let Die". In 1954, Stanley Meyer attempted to purchase an option for both "Live and Let Die" and "Moonraker", but withdrew his offer after Fleming asked for too much money. In 1955, American actor John Payne offered $1,000 for a nine-month option to "Moonraker", plus $10,000 if production eventually took off. The negotiations broke up the following year because of disagreements regarding Payne's ownership of the other Bond novels caused when Fleming tried to manipulate Payne and the Rank Organisation into getting in a bidding war with each other. Fleming eventually settled with Rank Organisation, a British company who owned Pinewood Studios. Rank wound up not developing the film, even after Fleming contributed his own script trying to push production forward, and Fleming purchased the rights back in 1959. "Moonraker" ended up being the last James Bond novel to receive a screen adaptation until "Casino Royale" in 2006.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: However, as with several previous Bond films, the story from Fleming's novel is almost entirely dispensed with, and little more than the idea of Hugo Drax as an industrialist who makes rockets was used in the film. Drax has a plan for a master race in the film, but in the novel actually had been a Nazi (unbeknownst to the British). The dramatic scene of Bond and his female companion being trapped in an exhaust duct under a rocket where they are nearly burned to death also appears in the film. Otherwise the film is more in keeping with contemporary trends in science fiction. The 2002 Bond film "Die Another Day" makes further use of some ideas and character names from the novel. Tom Mankiewicz wrote a short outline for "Moonraker" that was mostly discarded. According to Mankiewicz, footage shot at Drax's lairs was considerably more detailed than the edited result in the final version. Some scenes from Mankiewicz's script were used in subsequent films, including the Acrostar Jet sequence, used in the pre-credit sequence for "Octopussy", and the Eiffel Tower scene in "A View to a Kill".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In 1978 Steven Spielberg offered to direct the film after the release of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", but Albert R. Broccoli turned him down.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In March 2004 rumours surfaced about a lost 1956 version of "Moonraker" by Orson Welles, and a James Bond web site repeated it on April Fool's Day in 2004 as a hoax. Supposedly, this recently discovered lost film consisted of 40 minutes of raw footage with Dirk Bogarde as Bond, Welles as Drax, and Peter Lorre as Drax's henchman.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The screenplay of "Moonraker" differed so much from Ian Fleming's novel that Eon Productions authorised the film's screenwriter Christopher Wood to write a novelisation, his second (after "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me"). It was named "James Bond and Moonraker" to avoid confusion with Fleming's original novel "Moonraker". It was published in 1979, with the film's release.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Roger Moore had originally signed a three-film contract with Eon Productions, which covered his first three appearances: "Live and Let Die" in 1973, "The Man with the Golden Gun" in 1974 and "The Spy Who Loved Me" in 1977. From Moonraker onwards, Moore was contracted on a film-by-film basis.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Initially, the chief villain, Hugo Drax, was to be played by British actor James Mason, but once the decision was made that the film would be an Anglo-French co-production under the 1965–1979 film treaty, French actor Michael Lonsdale was cast as Drax and Corinne Cléry was chosen for the part of Corinne Dufour, to comply with qualifying criteria of the agreement. Stewart Granger and Louis Jourdan were considered also for the role of Drax. Jourdan later portrayed prince Kamal Khan, chief villain of "Octopussy". American actress Lois Chiles had originally been offered the role of Anya Amasova in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), but had turned down the part when she decided to take temporary retirement. Chiles was cast as Holly Goodhead by chance, when she was given the seat next to Lewis Gilbert on a flight and he believed she would be ideal for the role as the CIA scientist. Jaclyn Smith was originally offered the role of Holly Goodhead but had to turn it down owing to scheduling conflicts with "Charlie's Angels". Drax's henchman Chang was played by Japanese aikido instructor Toshiro Suga; he was recommended for the role by executive producer Michael G. Wilson, who was one of his pupils. Wilson, continuing a tradition he started in the film "Goldfinger", has a small cameo role in "Moonraker": he appears twice, first as a tourist outside the Venini Glass shop and museum in Venice, then at the end of the film as a technician in the US Navy control room.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The Jaws character, played by Richard Kiel, makes a return, although in "Moonraker" the role is played more for comedic effect than in "The Spy Who Loved Me". Jaws was intended to be a villain against Bond to the bitter end, but director Lewis Gilbert stated on the DVD documentary that he received so much fan mail from small children saying "Why can't Jaws be a goodie not a baddie", that as a result he was persuaded to gradually transform Jaws into Bond's ally by the end of the film.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Originally Jaws's girlfriend was going to be portrayed as even more massive than him, but Kiel insisted on a rewrite. Diminutive French actress Blanche Ravalec, who had recently begun her career with minor roles in French films such as Michel Lang's "Holiday Hotel" (1978) and Claude Sautet's "A Simple Story" (1978), was cast as the bespectacled Dolly, the girlfriend of Jaws. Originally, the producers were dubious about whether the audience would accept the height difference between them, and only made their decision once they were informed by Richard Kiel that his real-life wife was of the same height. Lois Maxwell's 22-year-old daughter, Melinda Maxwell, was also cast as one of the "perfect" human specimens from Drax's master race.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Production began on 14 August 1978. The main shooting was switched from the usual 007 Stage at the Pinewood Studios to France, because of the high taxation in Britain at the time. Only the cable car interiors and space battle exteriors were filmed at Pinewood. The massive sets designed by Ken Adam were the largest ever constructed in France and required more than 222,000 man-hours to construct (roughly 1,000 hours by each of the crew, on average).


title: Moonraker (film)

text: During filming, Moore was diagnosed with kidney stones having previously suffered this while filming Live and Let Die in 1973.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Drax's mansion, set in California, was actually filmed at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, about southeast of Paris, for the exteriors and Grand Salon. The remaining interiors, including some of the scenes with Corinne Defour and the drawing room, were filmed at the Château de Guermantes.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Much of the film was shot in the cities of London, Paris, Venice, Palmdale, California, Port St. Lucie, Florida, and Rio de Janeiro. The production team had considered India and Nepal as locations, but after scouting trips these were rejected as impractical to work into the script, particularly considering the time constraints. They decided on Rio de Janeiro relatively early on, a city that producer Albert R. Broccoli had visited on holiday, and a team was sent there in early 1978 to capture initial footage from the Carnival, which featured in the film.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: At the Rio de Janeiro location, many months later, Roger Moore arrived several days later than scheduled for shooting, owing to recurrent health problems and an attack of kidney stones that he had suffered while in France. Upon arrival, Moore was immediately whisked off the plane for hair and make-up work before reboarding the plane to film the sequence with him arriving as James Bond in the film. Sugarloaf Mountain was a prominent location in the film, and during filming of the midair cable car sequence in which Bond and Goodhead are attacked by Jaws, stuntman Richard Graydon slipped and narrowly avoided falling to his death. For the scene in which Jaws bites into the steel cable-car cable with his teeth, the cable was actually made of liquorice, although Kiel was still required to use his steel dentures.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The Iguaçu Falls, in the south of Brazil, was used in the film, although as Q notes, the falls were supposedly somewhere in the upper basin of the River Amazon. The second unit had originally planned on sending an actual boat over the falls. However, on attempting to release it, the boat became firmly embedded on rocks near the edge. Despite a dangerous attempt by helicopter and rope ladder to retrieve it, the plan had to be abandoned, forcing the second unit to use a miniature at Pinewood instead. The exterior of Drax's pyramid headquarters in the Amazon rain forest near the falls was actually filmed at the Tikal Mayan ruins in Guatemala. The interior of the pyramid, however, was designed by Ken Adam at a French studio, in which he deliberately used a shiny coating to make the walls look plastic and false. All of the space centre scenes were shot at the Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, although some of the earlier scenes of the Moonraker assembly plant had been filmed on location at the Rockwell International manufacturing plant in Palmdale, California.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The early scene in which Jaws pushes Bond out of the aircraft without a parachute took weeks of planning and preparation. The skydiving sequence was coordinated by Don Calvedt under the supervision of second unit director John Glen and was shot above Lake Berryessa in northern California. As Calvedt and skydiving champion B.J. Worth developed the equipment for the scene, which included a parachute pack that could be concealed beneath the suit to give the impression of the missing parachute, and equipment to prevent the freefalling cameraman from suffering whiplash while opening his parachute, they brought in stuntman Jake Lombard to test it all. Lombard eventually played Bond in the scene, with Worth as the pilot from whom Bond takes a parachute, and Ron Luginbill as Jaws. Both Lombard and Worth became regular members of the stunt team for aerial sequences in later Bond films. When the stuntmen opened their parachutes at the end of every shoot, custom-sewn velcro costume seams separated to allow the hidden parachutes to open. The skydiver cinematographer used a lightweight Panavision experimental plastic anamorphic lens, bought from an old pawn shop in Paris, which he had adapted, and attached to his helmet to shoot the entire sequence. The scene took a total of 88 skydives by the stuntmen to be completed. The only scenes shot in studio were close-ups of Roger Moore and Richard Kiel.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Since NASA's Space Shuttle program had not been launched, Derek Meddings and his miniatures team had to create the rocket launch footage without any reference. Shuttle models attached to bottle rockets and signal flares were used for take-off, and the smoke trail was created with salt that fell from the models. The space scenes were done by rewinding the camera after an element was shot, enabling other elements to be superimposed in the film stock, with the space battle needing up to forty rewinds to incorporate everything. The climactic scenes of the space station disintegrating were created by Meddings and other members of the special effects team shooting the miniature model with shotguns.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: As James Bond is arriving at the scene of the pheasant shoot, a trumpet is sounded playing the first three brass notes from "Also sprach Zarathustra", referencing the film "" (1968).


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "Moonraker" was the third of three Bond films for which the theme song was performed by Shirley Bassey (following "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever"). Frank Sinatra was originally considered for the vocals, and Kate Bush was asked, but she declined. Johnny Mathis was approached and offered the opportunity. However, Mathis—despite having started recording with Barry—was unable to complete the project, leaving producers to offer the song to Bassey just weeks before the premiere date in England. Bassey made the recordings with very short notice and as a result, she never regarded the song 'as her own' as she had never had the chance to perform it in full or promote it first. The film uses two versions of the title theme song, a ballad version heard over the main titles, and a disco version over the closing titles. The song made little impact on the charts, reaching #159, partly attributed to Bassey's failure to promote the single, given the last-minute decision to quickly record it to meet the schedule and also confusion regarding the two versions of the track, when the United Artists single release labelled the tracks on the 7" single as "Moonraker (Main Title)" for the version used to close the film and "Moonraker (End Title)" for the track that opened the film.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In 2005, Bassey sang the song for the first time outside James Bond on stage as part of a medley of her three Bond title songs. An instrumental strings version of the title theme was used in 2007 tourism commercials for the Dominican Republic.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The soundtrack of "Moonraker" was composed by John Barry and recorded in Paris, again, as with production, marking a turning point away from the prior studio, CTS Studios in London. The score also marked a turning point in John Barry's output, abandoning the Kentonesque brass of his earlier Bond scores in favor of slow, rich string passages – a trend which Barry would continue in the 1980s with scores such as "Out of Africa" and "Somewhere in Time". For "Moonraker", for the first time since "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971), Barry used a piece of music called "007" (on track 7), and "Bond smells a rat", the secondary Bond theme composed by Barry and introduced in "From Russia with Love" during Bond's escape with the Lektor; some classical music pieces were also included in the film.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "Moonraker" premiered on 26 June 1979 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. It grossed an opening record for the cinema of £67,139 in its first week and was the number one film in London and went on to gross £10.7 million in the UK. Three days after the London opening, it went on general release in the US, opening in 788 theatres with 900 prints struck; it was United Artists' widest opening at the time. It grossed $14,744,718 in its first week from 900 bookings. On the mainland of Europe, the most common month of release was in August 1979, opening in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden between 13 and 18 August. Given that the film was produced largely in France, and it involved some notable French actors, the French premiere for the film was relatively late, released in that country on 10 October 1979. It saw a record attendance of 413,314 in its first week in France. "Moonraker" grossed a worldwide total of $210,300,000, making it United Artists' highest-grossing film at the time, surpassing "The Spy Who Loved Me".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "Moonraker" received a mixed reception by critics. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 59% approval rating based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 5.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Featuring one of the series' more ludicrous plots but outfitted with primo gadgets and spectacular sets, "Moonraker" is both silly and entertaining." On Metacritic the film has a score of 66% based on reviews from 13 critics.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "The New York Times" film critic Vincent Canby called "Moonraker" "one of the most buoyant Bond films of all. Almost everyone connected with the movie is in top form, even Mr. Moore. Here he's as ageless, resourceful, and graceful as the character he inhabits." Canby subsequently said the film was, alongside "Goldfinger", the best of the series.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: "The Globe and Mail" critic Jay Scott said "Moonraker" was second only to "Goldfinger". "In the first few minutes – before the credits – it offers more thrills than most escapist movies provide in two hours." During the title sequence, "the excitement has gone all the way up to giddy and never comes down". Scott admired the film's theme song and cited with approval the film's location work. He also singled out Ken Adam's sets, dubbing them "high-tech Piranesi".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Frank Rich of "Time" felt "The result is a film that is irresistibly entertaining as only truly mindless spectacle can be. Those who have held out on Bond movies over 17 years may not be convinced by "Moonraker", but everyone else will be."


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Reviewers such as James Berardinelli praised the visual effects and stunts, and film scholar James Monaco designated the film a "minor masterpiece" and declared it the best Bond film of them all.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: However, other critics consider "Moonraker" one of the lesser films in the series, largely because of the extent and absurdity of the plot which takes James Bond into space, some of the ploys used in the film for comedic effect, and its extended dialogue. In November 2006, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Moonraker" fourteenth among the Bond films, describing it as "by far the campiest of all 007 movies" with "one of the worst theme songs". IGN listed it eleventh, calling it outlandish and saying that despite the actors "trying what they can to ground the film in reality, the laser gun/space station finale pretty much undercuts their efforts". Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the fourth worst film of the series, considering that the film "just flat-out sucks".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Critic Nicholas Sylvain said ""Moonraker" seems to have more than its share of little flaws and annoyances which begin right from the opening pre-credit sequence. The sheer idiocy (and impossibility) of having a fully fueled shuttle on the back of the Boeing during the trans-Atlantic crossing should be evident, and later in the film, the whole Jaws-falls-in-love and becomes a 'good guy' routine leaves me rather cold, and provides far too much cheesy comedy moments, as does the gondola driving through the square scene."


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In a review of the film from 1979, Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" took a critical view of its amount of product placement, and observed:


title: Moonraker (film)

text: In a review of the film from the same year, the "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert, while clearly expressing his approval of the advanced special effects and Ken Adam's extravagant production sets, criticised the pace in which the locations of the film evolved, remarking, "it's so jammed with faraway places and science fiction special effects that Bond has to move at a trot just to make it into all the scenes".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com said of the film: "Most rational observers agree that "Moonraker" is without a doubt the most absurd James Bond movie, definitely of the Roger Moore era and possibly of all time". However, while he criticised the extravagance of the plot and action sequences, he believed that this added to the enjoyment of the film, and particularly approved of the remark "I think he's attempting re-entry!" by "Q" during Bond and Goodhead's orbiting of the Earth which he described as "featuring what might be the best double entendre ever".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Reviewing "Moonraker", film critic Danny Peary wrote, "The worst James Bond film to date has Roger Moore walking through the paces for his hefty paycheck and giving way to his double for a series of unimaginative action scenes and 'humorous' chases. There's little suspense and the humor falls flat. Not only is Jaws so pacified by love that he becomes a good guy, but the filmmakers also have the gall to set the finale in outer space and stage a battle right out of "Star Wars"."


title: Moonraker (film)

text: The exaggerated nature of the plot and space station sequence has seen the film parodied on numerous occasions. Of note is the Austin Powers spoof film "" (1999) which while a parody of other James Bond films, makes reference to "Moonraker" by Dr. Evil's lair in space. The scene in which Drax is shot by the cyanide dart and ousted into space is parodied by Powers' ejection of Dr. Evil's clone Mini-Me into outer space in the same way.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Sean Connery, who had played James Bond in six of the first seven films in the series, stated in an interview that: "I went in London to see "Moonraker" with Roger and I think it's departed so much from any sort of credence from the reality that we had [in my six films]." He also criticized the film for: "such a dependence on the effects and there's no substance".


title: Moonraker (film)

text: However, the opening skydiving sequence, in which Bond is pushed out of an aeroplane by Jaws, and must obtain a parachute from the pilot skydiving below him, has come to be considered one of the series best pre-title sequences. It is frequently lauded by critics and fans as one of the most spectacular action sequences in the Bond series.


title: Moonraker (film)

text: Derek Meddings, Paul Wilson and John Evans were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and the film was nominated for three Saturn Awards, Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Supporting Actor (Richard Kiel).


title: The L Word

text: The L Word is a television drama that aired on Showtime from January 18, 2004 to March 8, 2009. The series follows the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women who live in West Hollywood, California. The premise originated with Ilene Chaiken, Michele Abbot and Kathy Greenberg; Chaiken is credited as the primary creator of the series and also served as its executive producer.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" featured television's first ensemble cast of lesbian and bisexual female characters, and its portrayal of lesbianism was groundbreaking at the time. One of the series' pioneering hallmarks was its explicit depiction of lesbian sex from the female gaze, at a time when lesbian sex was "virtually invisible elsewhere on television." It was also the first television series written and directed by predominantly queer women.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" franchise led to the spin-off reality show "The Real L Word" (2010–2012) as well as the documentary film "" (2014), both of which aired on Showtime. A sequel television series, "", debuted in December 2019.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" was co-created by Ilene Chaiken, Michele Abbot, and Kathy Greenberg; Chaiken served as the primary creator and executive director of the series, as well as a writer and director. Steve Golin and Larry Kennar served as additional executive producers, while Guinevere Turner, Susan Miller, Cherien Dabis, and Rose Troche were among the series' writers.


title: The L Word

text: The series premiered on Showtime on January 18, 2004 and ran for a total of six seasons, airing its finale on March 8, 2009. "The L Word" was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia at Coast Mountain Films Studio, as well as on location in Los Angeles, California.


title: The L Word

text: Contemporary use of the phrase "the L word" as an alias for "lesbian" dates to at least the 1981 play "My Blue Heaven" by Jane Chambers, in which a character stammers out: "You're really...? The L-word? Lord God, I never met one before."


title: The L Word

text: "The Chart", an undirected labeled graph in which nodes represent individuals and lines represent affairs or hookups, is a recurring plot element throughout the series. Originally, "The L Word" was to be based around a gay woman, Kit Porter, and "The Chart" was tattooed on her back.


title: The L Word

text: The idea for the chart was formed in the L word's writers room. The creators of the show were discussing their own mutual friends and who had had romantic entanglements with whom. This led to them creating a beta version of what the chart comes to be on a piece of paper. The writers eventually decide to incorporate this chart into the show.


title: The L Word

text: In season 4, Alice launches The Chart as a social networking service. Concurrently, a real-world parallel project OurChart.com was created. The website, which allowed registered members to create their own profiles and hosted several blogs on the show, operated from the beginning of season four until the end of season six, after which the site was discontinued and redirected to Showtime's official website.


title: The L Word

text: The first season of "The L Word" premiered on January 18, 2004 and ended on April 11, 2004. The season introduces Bette Porter and Tina Kennard, a couple in a seven-year relationship attempting to have a child; Marina Ferrer, owner of the local cafe The Planet; Jenny Schecter, who has recently moved to Los Angeles to live with her boyfriend Tim Haspell; Shane McCutcheon, an androgynous, highly sexual hairstylist; Alice Pieszecki, a bisexual journalist who maintains The Chart; Dana Fairbanks, a closeted professional tennis player; and Kit Porter, Bette's straight half-sister.


title: The L Word

text: The second season of "The L Word" premiered on February 20, 2005 and ended on May 15, 2005. The season introduces Carmen de la Pica Morales, a DJ who becomes part of a love triangle with Shane and Jenny; Helena Peabody, a wealthy art patron who becomes a rival to Bette and love interest to Tina (while she and Bette are separated).


title: The L Word

text: Major storylines in the season include Tina's pregnancy following a second insemination, culminating in Tina and Bette's reconciliation at the end of the season; the introduction of Mark Wayland, a documentary filmmaker who moves in with Shane and Jenny and Kit's acquisition of The Planet following Marina's departure from Los Angeles; Shane and Jenny becoming the unknowing subjects of Mark's documentary after he places hidden cameras in their home; a developing relationship between Alice and Dana; and insights into Jenny's past as an abused child.


title: The L Word

text: The third season of "The L Word" premiered on January 8, 2006 and ended on March 26, 2006. The season introduces Max Sweeney, a working-class trans man initially introduced presenting as a butch; and Angus Partridge, a male nanny who becomes Kit's lover.


title: The L Word

text: The season is set six months after the birth of Tina and Bette's daughter Angelica. Major storylines include Bette and Tina's relationship deteriorating once again, which leads Tina to start a fake relationship with a man in order to win a possible custody battle with Bette; Max coming out as a trans man; Dana's diagnosis with and ultimate death from breast cancer; and Shane and Carmen's engagement and wedding, which ends when Shane abandons Carmen at the altar. Helena is integrated into the primary group of characters as a friend rather than a rival; she acquires a movie studio, where she is entangled in a sexual harassment lawsuit that leads her mother to cut her off financially.


title: The L Word

text: In the lead-up to the third season, the fan fiction website FanLib.com launched a contest where individuals could submit a piece of "L Word" fanfiction, with the winner's story incorporated into a scene in third-season episode.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" was renewed for a fourth season on February 2, 2006, and began filming on May 29, 2006. The season aired from January 7, 2007 to March 25, 2007, and introduces Jodi Lerner, a love interest for Bette; Phyllis Kroll, Bette's closeted new boss at California Art College; Paige Sobel, a love interest for Shane; Tasha Williams, a former Captain in the Army National Guard and love interest for Alice; and Papi, who has slept with the most women on The Chart. Karina Lombard reprises her role for two episodes.


title: The L Word

text: Major storylines in the season include the adaptation of "Lez Girls", an article written by Jenny for "The New Yorker", into a film; Bette taking a job as a dean at California Art College; and Tasha's struggle to reconcile her military service with her sexuality under don't ask, don't tell.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" was renewed for a fifth season on March 8, 2007, and began filming in summer 2007. The season aired from January 6, 2008 to March 23, 2008 and introduces Nikki Stevens, a closeted gay actress who portrays the lead role in "Lez Girls." Adele Channing is also introduced, potentially by chance meeting Jenny at the Planet, and soon becoming her personal assistant. Papi and Angus were written out of the series.


title: The L Word

text: Major storylines in the season include Bette and Tina reconciling their relationship, Jenny being ousted from the production of "Lez Girls", and Tasha's dishonorable discharge from the military.


title: The L Word

text: The sixth and final season of "The L Word" aired from January 18, 2009 to March 8, 2009. The season introduces Kelly Wentworth, Bette's college roommate, who attempts to open a gallery with her; Jamie Chen, a social worker who becomes involved in a love triangle with Alice and Tasha; and Marybeth Duffy and Sean Holden, detectives with the LAPD.


title: The L Word

text: The season is a whodunit storyline focused on the murder of Jenny. The events of the season are depicted as a flashback leading up to the night of the crime, with each episode focused around what could have potentially motivated each character to have killed Jenny. The series concludes without revealing the identity of her murderer.


title: The L Word

text: Following the series finale of "The L Word", Showtime released a series of seven short videos depicting Bette, Alice, Tina, Nikki Shane being questioned by the police over Jenny's murder. The episodes were posted weekly on Showtime's website. Showtime additionally released an interview with "L Word" series creator Ilene Chaiken, released in two weekly installments. In the interview, Chaiken stated that Alice went to jail for Jenny's murder, but was not necessarily guilty of the crime.


title: The L Word

text: On July 11, 2017, it was announced a sequel series was in the works with Showtime. Marja-Lewis Ryan has been selected to serve as executive producer and showrunner. On January 31, 2019, "Entertainment Weekly" reported Showtime had picked up the sequel series for a premiere later in the year, in which Jennifer Beals, Katherine Moennig, and Leisha Hailey would reprise their roles. Other sources, such as "TVLine", call the eight-episode order a revival, so the nature of the follow-up is unclear. The new series, titled "", premiered in the fall of 2019.


title: The L Word

text: In July 2008, Showtime CEO Matthew Blank announced that the network would shoot a pilot for "The Farm", an "L Word" spin-off series based on a pitch from "L Word" series creator Ilene Chaiken. Set in a women's prison, the series was slated to star Famke Janssen, Melissa Leo, Laurie Metcalf, and Leisha Hailey, the lattermost of whom would reprise her role as Alice Pieszecki. The pilot was shot in December 2008. In April 2009, Showtime declined to pick up "The Farm" for a full series order.


title: The L Word

text: "The Real L Word", a reality television series produced by Chaiken, aired on Showtime from June 20, 2010 to September 6, 2012. The series, initially set in Los Angeles and later in Brooklyn, New York City, followed a group of real-life gay women.


title: The L Word

text: "L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin", a documentary directed by Lauren Lazin and produced by Chaiken, premiered on Showtime on August 8, 2014. The documentary, which follows a group of LGBT women in rural Mississippi, won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary in 2015.


title: The L Word

text: EZgirl served as "The L Word"'s music composer, while Natasha Duprey served as music supervisor. A total of five soundtracks were produced.


title: The L Word

text: All three of Leisha Hailey's bands were referenced in the series: a song by The Murmurs was used in the first season, Shane wears a shirt for Gush in the second season. Songs by Uh Huh Her were featured in the show's fifth and sixth seasons; Tasha is seen wearing an Uh Huh Her t-shirt during the sixth season.


title: The L Word

text: The band Betty wrote and performed the theme song, which is first introduced in season two. Betty makes numerous appearances in the show, and their music is featured throughout the series from season two


title: The L Word

text: The show's first season was "broadcast to critical acclaim and instant popularity"; as an article from "The New York Times" pointed out:


title: The L Word

text: While the show was seen as fulfilling gay characters' "obvious and modest representational need" or even the "ferocious desire not only to be seen in some literal sense... but to be seen with all the blood and angst and magic that you possess", the show was criticized for various scenes which served to "reify heteronormativity". The show was also praised for its nuanced consideration (in the first season) of how and in what ways gay women should stand up to the religious right, with the "Provocations" art show storyline being "a fictionalized version of what happened when Cincinnati's Contemporary Art Center booked a controversial exhibition of Mapplethorpe photographs in 1990".


title: The L Word

text: As the series progressed, however, reviews became far more negative. By the time the sixth and final season began, "The New York Times" called the show a "Sapphic "Playboy" fantasia" that has "shown little interest in variegating portrayals of gay experience. Instead it has seemed to work almost single-mindedly to counter the notion of "lesbian bed death" and repeatedly remind the viewer of the "limits and tortures of monogamy" while "never align[ing] itself with the traditionalist ambitions [for same-sex marriage] of a large faction of the gay rights movement". The decision to make the final season into a murder mystery which was ultimately left unresolved was also met with negative response.


title: The L Word

text: "The L Word" broke new ground as the first television series to feature an ensemble cast made up of lesbian and bisexual female characters. Similarly, it was also the first television series to be written and directed predominantly by queer women. The series has been lauded for revolutionizing the depiction of queer women on television, particularly for its portrayal of a queer community at a time when lesbian representation was often relegated to a single lesbian character amid an otherwise heterosexual cast. One of the pioneering hallmarks of the series was its graphic lesbian sex scenes from the female gaze, at a time when lesbian sex was "virtually invisible elsewhere on television."


title: The L Word

text: Several shows have referenced "The L Word", including "South of Nowhere"'s first season episode "Girls Guide to Dating"; "According to Jim"; the medical drama "House"; the first season finale of "Weeds", Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" (July 24, 2006); "Chappelle's Show: The "Lost Episodes""; "The Sopranos" episode "Live Free or Die"; the US version of "The Office"; "Gilmore Girls" fourth season episode "Scene in a Mall"; "The Big Gay Sketch Show"; "The Simpsons" episode "You Kent Always Say What You Want"; and "Family Guy" episode "Brian Sings and Swings". Also, movies such as "Puccini for Beginners" and "I Can't Think Straight" have made mention of "The L Word" as to reference lesbians but considers the term is sometimes used as slander.


title: The L Word

text: In 2004, Laurel Holloman won a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. The show was also for a Satellite Award for Best Television Series – Drama in the same year. In the second season, Ossie Davis received a posthumous Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in recognition of his portrayal of Bette and Kit Porter's father, Melvin. The show received multiple nominations for GLAAD Media Awards, and both Pam Grier and Jennifer Beals were repeatedly nominated for NAACP Image Awards.


title: The L Word

text: In 2006, "The L Word" won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series. It was consequently honored with a Special Recognition Award in 2009 from the same organization.


title: The L Word

text: In 2008, "The L Word"'s companion website was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Advanced Media Technology for Best Use of Commercial Advertising on Personal Computers.


title: The Insider (film)

text: The Insider is a 1999 American drama film directed by Michael Mann, from a screenplay adapted by Eric Roth and Mann from Marie Brenner's 1996 "Vanity Fair" article "The Man Who Knew Too Much". It stars Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, with supporting actors including Christopher Plummer, Bruce McGill, Diane Venora and Michael Gambon.


title: The Insider (film)

text: A fictionalized account of a true story, it is based on the "60 Minutes" segment about Jeffrey Wigand, a whistleblower in the tobacco industry, covering his and CBS producer Lowell Bergman's struggles as they defend his testimony against efforts to discredit and suppress it by CBS and Wigand's former employer.


title: The Insider (film)

text: Though not a box office success, "The Insider" received acclaim from critics, who praised Crowe's portrayal of Wigand, and Mann's direction. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role (for Russell Crowe).


title: The Insider (film)

text: During a prologue, a CBS producer, Lowell Bergman, convinces the founder of Hezbollah, Sheikh Fadlallah, to grant an interview to Mike Wallace for "60 Minutes". While preparing for the interview, both Wallace and Bergman firmly stand their ground against the Sheikh's armed and hostile bodyguards' attempted intimidation and disruption.


title: The Insider (film)

text: Later, Bergman approaches Jeffrey Wigand—a former executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company—for help explaining technical documents. Wigand agrees, but intrigues Bergman when he adds that he won’t discuss anything else, citing a confidentiality agreement. B&W later coerce Wigand into a more restrictive agreement, leading Wigand to accuse Bergman of having betrayed him. Bergman subsequently visits Wigand to defend himself and investigate the potential story. Wigand, though apparently possessing very damaging information, is hesitant to jeopardize his severance package with B&W by revealing anything.


title: The Insider (film)

text: Wigand's family move into a more modest house, and Wigand begins working as a teacher. One night Wigand finds evidence of trespass, and receives a sinister phone call. Meanwhile, Bergman contacts Richard Scruggs, an attorney representing Mississippi in a lawsuit against the tobacco industry, suggesting that if they deposed Wigand, it could negate his confidentiality agreement and give CBS cover to broadcast the information; Scruggs expresses interest. Some time later, Wigand receives an emailed death threat and finds a bullet in his mailbox. He contacts the FBI, but the agents who visit him are hostile and confiscate his computer. A furious Wigand demands that Bergman arrange an interview, in which Wigand states that he was fired after he objected to B&W intentionally making their cigarettes more addictive.