title: Reichstag fire

text: The trial began at 8:45 on the morning of 21 September, with Van der Lubbe testifying. Van der Lubbe's testimony was very hard to follow as he spoke of losing his sight in one eye and wandering around Europe as a drifter and that he had been a member of the Dutch Communist Party, which he quit in 1931, but still considered himself a communist. Georgi Dimitrov began his testimony on the third day of the trial. He gave up his right to a court-appointed lawyer and defended himself successfully. When warned by Judge Bünger to behave himself in court, Dimitrov stated: "Herr President, if you were a man as innocent as myself and you had passed seven months in prison, five of them in chains night and day, you would understand it if one perhaps becomes a little strained." During the course of his defence, Dimitrov claimed that the organizers of the fire were senior members of the Nazi Party and frequently verbally clashed with Göring at the trial. The high point of the trial occurred on 4 November 1933, when Göring took the stand and was cross-examined by Dimitrov. The following exchange took place:


title: Reichstag fire

text: In his verdict, Judge Bünger was careful to underline his belief that there had in fact been a communist conspiracy to burn down the "Reichstag", but declared, with the exception of Van der Lubbe, there was insufficient evidence to connect the accused to the fire or the alleged conspiracy. The Bulgarians were acquitted and were expelled to the Soviet Union. Only Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. Torgler was also acquitted and survived the war.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The outcome of this trial caused Hitler to remove treason trials from the regular courts. He decreed that henceforth treasonamong many other offenseswould only be tried by a newly established People's Court ("Volksgerichtshof"). The People's Court later became associated with the number of death sentences it handed down, including those following the 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, which were presided over by then Judge-President Roland Freisler.


title: Reichstag fire

text: At his trial, Van der Lubbe was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was beheaded by guillotine (the customary form of execution in Saxony at the time) on 10 January 1934, three days before his 25th birthday. The Nazis alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of a communist conspiracy to burn down the "Reichstag" and seize power, while the communists alleged that Van der Lubbe was part of the Nazi conspiracy to blame the crime on them. Van der Lubbe, for his part, maintained that he acted alone to protest the condition of the German working class.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In 1967, a court in West Berlin allowed the 1933 conviction to stand, but overturned the death sentence and posthumously changed Van der Lubbe's sentence to eight years in prison. In 1980, another court overturned the verdict, but was overruled. In 1981, a West German court posthumously overturned Van der Lubbe's 1933 conviction and found him not guilty by reason of insanity. This ruling was overturned. However, in January 2008, he was pardoned under a 1998 law for the crime on the grounds that anyone convicted under Nazi Germany is officially not guilty. The law allows pardons for people convicted of crimes under the Nazis, based on the idea that the laws of Nazi Germany "went against the basic ideas of justice".


title: Reichstag fire

text: According to historian Ian Kershaw, by 1998, nearly all historians agreed that Van der Lubbe had set the "Reichstag" on fire, that he had acted alone, and that the incident was merely a stroke of good luck for the Nazis. However, in the days following the incident, major newspapers in the US and London were immediately sceptical of the good fortune of the Nazis in finding a communist scapegoat.


title: Reichstag fire

text: It has been alleged that the idea that Van der Lubbe was a "half-wit" or "mentally disturbed" was propaganda spread by the Dutch Communist Party, to distance itself from an insurrectionist antifascist, who had once been a member. John Gunther, who covered the trial, described Van der Lubbe as "an obvious victim of manic-depressive psychosis" and said that the Nazis would not have chosen "an agent so inept and witless". Citing a letter that was allegedly written by Karl Ernst before his death during the Night of Long Knives, Gunther believed that Nazis, who heard Van der Lubbe boast of planning to attack the Reichstag, started a second simultaneous fire they blamed on him. Hans Mommsen concluded that the Nazi leadership was in a state of panic on the night of the "Reichstag" fire, and seemed to regard the fire as confirmation that a communist revolution was as imminent as they had claimed.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The British reporter Sefton Delmer, criticised for being a Nazi sympathiser at the time, witnessed that night's events. He reported Hitler arriving at the "Reichstag", appearing uncertain how it began, and concerned that a communist coup was about to be launched. Delmer viewed Van der Lubbe as being solely responsible, but that the Nazis sought to make it appear to be a "communist gang" that set the fire. On the other hand, the communists sought to make it appear that Van der Lubbe was working for the Nazis, so each side constructed a conspiracy theory in which the other was the villain.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In private, according to "Hitler's Table Talk", Hitler said of the chairman of the Communist Party, Ernst Torgler: "I'm convinced he was responsible for the burning of the Reichstag, but I can't prove it".


title: Reichstag fire

text: In 1960, Fritz Tobias, a West German SPD public servant and part-time historian, published a series of articles in "Der Spiegel", later turned into a book, in which he argued that Vаn der Lubbe had acted alone. Tobias showed that Van der Lubbe was a pyromaniac, with a long history of burning down buildings or attempting to burn them down. Tobias established that Van der Lubbe had committed a number of arson attacks on buildings in the days prior to 27 February.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In March 1973, the Swiss historian Walter Hofer organized a conference intended to rebut the claims made by Tobias. At the conference, Hofer claimed to have found evidence that some of the detectives who investigated the fire had been Nazis. Mommsen commented on Hofer's claims by stating: "Professor Hofer's rather helpless statement that the accomplices of Van der Lubbe 'could only have been Nazis' is tacit admission that the committee did not actually obtain any positive evidence in regard to the alleged accomplices' identity". Mommsen also had a theory supporting Hofer, which was suppressed for political reasons, an act that he admitted was a serious breach of ethics.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In 2014, Richard J. Evans summarized: "the bulk of the historical profession [agrees] that Tobias was right, and that the sole author of the Reichstag fire was Marinus van der Lubbe".


title: Reichstag fire

text: More recently in 2019, mainstream German outlet Deutsche Welle (DW) reported that according to an SA officer's sworn testimony, Van Der Lubbe could not have started the fire because the Reichstag was already on fire when he arrived with Van Der Lubbe, leading credence to the theory that this was a false flag operation Hitler used to seize power. The Enabling Act of 1933 was passed less than one month later and was the cornerstone of Hitler's rise to power. In 2008 Germany posthumously pardoned van der Lubbe.


title: Reichstag fire

text: Historian Benjamin Carter Hett laments that "Today the overwhelming consensus among historians who specialize in Nazi Germany remains that Marinus van der Lubbe burned the Reichstag all by himself. Hett argues that Tobias’ analysis is fundamentally flawed. Tobias’ undertook his study when tasked to defend West German police officials who had investigated the initial fire as SS members. In doing so, Tobias disregarded any information from persons who had been targeted by the Nazi regime as biased while accepting the testimony of former SS members as objective, even though their post-war testimony is clearly contradicted by records from 1933. Furthermore, Hett shows that Tobias used his access to secret archives to coerce historians with opposing views by threatening to reveal compromising personal information. Hett argues that the most recent evidence makes clear that the fire could not have been the work of an individual and Hett feels there is far more evidence of Nazi collaboration than there is of a communist plot.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In July 2019, more than 80 years after the event, Germany's "Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung" and the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland published a 1955 affidavit, uncovered in some papers of Fritz Tobias, which were found in the archives of the Amtsgericht (court) in Hannover. The affidavit by Hans-Martin Lennings (1904–1962), a former member of the Nazis' paramilitary SA unit, stated that on the night of the fire, he and his SA group drove Van der Lubbe from an infirmary to the Reichstag, where they noticed "a strange smell of burning and there were clouds of smoke billowing through the rooms". The statement suggests the fire had already started when they arrived and that the SA played a role in the arson.


title: Reichstag fire

text: Lennings, who died in 1962, further stated in his account that he and other members of his squad had protested the arrest of Van der Lubbe, "because we were convinced that Van der Lubbe could not possibly have been the arsonist, because according to our observation, the Reichstag had already been burning when we dropped him off there". He claimed he and the other witnesses were detained and forced to sign a paper that denied any knowledge of the incident. Later, nearly all of those with knowledge of the Reichstag fire were executed. Lennings said that he had been warned and escaped to Czechoslovakia.


title: Reichstag fire

text: Lennings had asked that his account be certified in 1955, in the event the Reichstag fire case ever returned to trial.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The uncovering of Lennings's affidavit led to the speculation that Tobias had ignored it to protect his single perpetrator theory on the arson, and to protect the post-war career of former Nazis. It also led to more sober speculation about whether unknown or forgotten documents might still be hidden in German archives, and which might be valuable and revealing historical sources, especially on the Nazi regime.


title: Reichstag fire

text: In "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", William L. Shirer wrote that at the Nuremberg Trials, General Franz Halder stated in an affidavit that Hermann Göring had boasted about setting the fire: "On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer's birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: 'The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.' And saying this he slapped his thigh". Under cross-examination at the Nuremberg trial in 1945 and 1946, Halder's affidavit was read to Göring, who denied any involvement in the fire.


title: Reichstag fire

text: During the summer of 1933, a mock countertrial was organised in London by a group of lawyers, democrats and other anti-Nazis under the aegis of German communist émigrés. The chairman of the mock trial was British Labour Party barrister D. N. Pritt, and the chief organiser was the KPD propaganda chief Willi Münzenberg. The other "judges" were Piet Vermeylen of Belgium, George Branting of Sweden, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi and Gaston Bergery of France, Betsy Bakker-Nort, a lawyer and member of parliament of the Netherlands for the progressive liberal party Free-thinking Democratic League, Vald Hvidt of Denmark, and Arthur Garfield Hays of the United States.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The mock trial began 21 September 1933. It lasted one week and ended with the conclusion that the defendants were innocent and the true initiators of the fire were to be found amid the leading Nazi Party elite. The countertrial received much media attention, and Sir Stafford Cripps delivered the opening speech. Göring was found guilty at the mock trial, which served as a workshop that tested all possible scenarios, and all speeches of the defendants had been prepared. Most of the "judges", such as Hays and Moro-Giafferi, complained that the atmosphere at the "countertrial" was more like a show trial, with Münzenberg constantly applying pressure behind the scenes on the "judges" to deliver the "right" verdict, without any regard for the truth. One of the "witnesses", a supposed SA man, appeared in court wearing a mask and claimed that it was the SA that had really set the fire. In fact, the "SA man" was Albert Norden, the editor of the German communist newspaper "Rote Fahne". Another masked witness, whom Hays described as "not very reliable", claimed that Van der Lubbe was a drug addict and a homosexual, who was the lover of Ernst Röhm and a Nazi dupe. When the lawyer for Ernst Torgler asked the mock trial organisers to turn over the "evidence" that exonerated his client, Münzenberg refused the request because he lacked any "evidence" to exonerate or to convict anyone of the crime.


title: Reichstag fire

text: The countertrial was an enormously successful publicity stunt for the German communists. Münzenberg followed the triumph with another by writing, under his name, the bestselling "The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror", an exposé of what Münzenberg alleged to be the Nazi conspiracy to burn down the Reichstag and to blame the act on the communists. (As with all of Münzenberg's other books, the real author was one of his aides: in this case, the Czechoslovak communist Otto Katz.) The success of "The Brown Book" was followed by another, published in 1934, dealing with the trial.


title: Burl Ives

text: Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American musician, actor, and author with a career that spanned more than six decades.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives began his career as an itinerant singer and guitarist, eventually launching his own radio show, "The Wayfaring Stranger", which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942, he appeared in Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army" and became a major star of CBS Radio. In the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as "A Little Bitty Tear" and "Funny Way of Laughin'". Ives was also a popular film actor through the late 1940s and '50s. His film roles included parts in "So Dear to My Heart" (1948) and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958), as well as the role of Rufus Hannassey in "The Big Country" (1958), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives is often associated with the Christmas season. He did voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Ives also worked on the special's soundtrack, including the songs "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", both of which continue to chart annually on the "Billboard" holiday charts into the 2020s.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives was born in Hunt City, an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois, near Newton, to Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" (née White; 1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma. His father was first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day, Ives was singing in the garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers' reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad "Barbara Allen" and impressed both his uncle and the audience.


title: Burl Ives

text: From 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (now Eastern Illinois University) in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on "Beowulf," when he suddenly realized he was wasting his time. As he walked out of the door, the professor made a snide remark and Ives slammed the door behind him, shattering the window in the door. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout. Ives was a member of the Charleston Chapter of The Order of DeMolay and is listed in the DeMolay Hall of Fame. He was also initiated into Scottish Rite Freemasonry in 1927. He was elevated to the 33rd and highest degree in 1987, and was later elected the Grand Cross.


title: Burl Ives

text: On July 23, 1929, in Richmond, Indiana, Ives made a trial recording of "Behind the Clouds" for the Starr Piano Company's Gennett label, but the recording was rejected and destroyed a few weeks later. In later years Ives did not recall having made the record.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives traveled about the U.S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing "Foggy Dew" (an English folk song), which the authorities decided was a bawdy song. Around 1931, he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University). In 1933, Ives also attended the Juilliard School in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1938 with a small role in Rodgers and Hart's hit musical, "The Boys from Syracuse". In 1939, he joined his friend and fellow actor Eddie Albert, who had the starring role in "The Boys from Syracuse", in Los Angeles. The two shared an apartment for a while in the Beachwood Canyon community of Hollywood.


title: Burl Ives

text: In 1940, Ives named his own radio show, "The Wayfaring Stranger", after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as "Foggy Dew", "The Blue Tail Fly" (an old minstrel tune now better known as "Jimmy Crack Corn"), and "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (an old hobo song). He was also associated with the Almanacs, a folk-singing group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, Millard Lampell, and Pete Seeger. The Almanacs were active in the American Peace Mobilization (APM), a far left group initially opposed to American entry into World War II and Franklin Roosevelt's pro-Allied policies. They recorded such songs as "Get Out and Stay Out of War" and "Franklin, Oh Franklin".


title: Burl Ives

text: In June 1941, after the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the APM abandoned its pacifist stance and reorganized itself into the pro-war American People's Mobilization. Ives and the Almanacs rerecorded several of their songs to reflect the group's new stance in favor of US entry into the war. Among them were "Dear Mr. President" and "Reuben James" (the name of a US destroyer sunk by the Germans before the official US entry into the war).


title: Burl Ives

text: In early 1942, Ives was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent time first at Camp Dix, then at Camp Upton, where he joined the cast of Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army." He attained the rank of corporal. When the show went to Hollywood, he was transferred to the Army Air Forces. He was honorably discharged, apparently for medical reasons, in September 1943. Between September and December 1943, Ives lived in California with actor Harry Morgan. In December 1943, Ives went to New York City to work for CBS Radio for $100 a week. In 1944, he recorded "The Lonesome Train", a ballad about the life and death of Abraham Lincoln, written by Earl Robinson (music) and Lampell (lyrics).


title: Burl Ives

text: In 1947, Ives recorded one of many versions of "The Blue Tail Fly", but paired this time with the popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne). The flip side of the record was a fast-paced "I'm Goin' Down the Road". Ives hoped the trio's success would help the record sell well, which it did, becoming both a best-selling disc and a "Billboard" hit.


title: Burl Ives

text: His version of the song "Lavender Blue" became his first hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song after Ives introduced it in the 1949 film "So Dear to My Heart".


title: Burl Ives

text: Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives' voice ... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people".


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet "Red Channels" and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952, he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and agreed to testify, fearful of losing his source of income. Ives's statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies, but it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Pete Seeger, who accused Ives of naming names and betraying the cause of cultural and political freedom to save his own career. Seeger publicly ridiculed Ives for attempting to distance himself from many of the far left organizations he had supported. In 1993, Ives, by then using a wheelchair, reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City, having reconciled years earlier. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, California, in "East of Eden", Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", roles in "Desire Under the Elms", "Wind Across the Everglades", "The Big Country", for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, "Ensign Pulver", the sequel to "Mister Roberts", and "Our Man in Havana", based on the Graham Greene novel.


title: Burl Ives

text: Barred for a while from American employment, he frequently played on BBC Radio's "Children's Hour", with such favorites as "Big Rock Candy Mountain", "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", and "Lavender Blue".


title: Burl Ives

text: In the 1960s, Ives began singing country music with greater frequency. In 1962, he released three songs that were popular with both country music and popular music fans: "A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Me Mister In-Between", and "Funny Way of Laughin'".


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives had several film and television roles during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, he sang the folk song, "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" for a short film of the same name produced by the National Film Board of Canada. In 1962, he starred with Rock Hudson in "The Spiral Road," which was based on a novel of the same name by Jan de Hartog. He also starred in Disney's "Summer Magic" with Hayley Mills, Dorothy McGuire, and Eddie Hodges, and a score by Robert and Richard Sherman. In 1964, he played the genie in the movie "The Brass Bottle" with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives's "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold" became Christmas standards after they were first featured in the 1964 NBC-TV presentation of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated family special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Johnny Marks had composed the title song (originally an enormous hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry) in 1949, and producers Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass retained him to compose the TV special's soundtrack. Ives voiced Sam the Snowman, the banjo-playing "host" and narrator of the story, explaining how Rudolph used his "nonconformity", as Sam refers to it, to save Christmas from being cancelled due to an impassable blizzard. The following year, Ives rerecorded all three of the Johnny Marks hits which he had sung in the TV special, but with a more "pop" feel. He released them all as singles for the 1965 holiday season, capitalizing on their previous success.


title: Burl Ives

text: He starred in short-lived "O.K. Crackerby!" (1965–66), a comedy which costarred Hal Buckley, Joel Davison, and Brooke Adams, about the presumed richest man in the world, replaced Walter Brennan's somewhat similar "The Tycoon" on the ABC schedule from the preceding year.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives narrated the 1971 season highlight film for the Washington Redskins of the National Football League produced by NFL Films. The Executive Producer was NFL Films founder Ed Sabol, and chief producer was Ed's son, Steve Sabol. Ed and Steve Sabol are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives occasionally starred in macabre-themed productions. In 1970, for example, he played the title role in "The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever", in which his character attempts to harvest human organs from unwilling donors. In 1972, he appeared as old man Doubleday in the episode "The Other Way Out" of Rod Serling’s "Night Gallery", in which his character seeks a gruesome revenge for the murder of his granddaughter.


title: Burl Ives

text: In honor of Ives's influence on American vocal music, on October 25, 1975, he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. This award, initiated in 1964, was "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year who has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."


title: Burl Ives

text: When America Sings opened at Disneyland in 1974, Ives voiced the main host, Sam Eagle, an Audio-Animatronic.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives lent his name and image to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "This Land Is Your Land – Keep It Clean" campaign in the 1970s. He was portrayed with the program's fictional spokesman, Johnny Horizon.


title: Burl Ives

text: Burl Ives was seen regularly in television commercials for Luzianne tea for several years during the 1970s and 1980s, when he was the company's commercial spokesman.


title: Burl Ives

text: In 1982 he played Carruthers, a dog trainer, in Samuel Fuller's controversial and critically acclaimed film "White Dog".


title: Burl Ives

text: In 1989, Ives officially announced his retirement from show business on his 80th birthday. However, he continued to do occasional benefit concert performances of his own accord until 1993.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives's Broadway career included appearances in "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938–39), "Heavenly Express" (1940), "This Is the Army" (1942), "Sing Out, Sweet Land" (1944), "Paint Your Wagon" (1951–52), and "Dr. Cook's Garden" (1967). His most notable Broadway performance (later reprised in a 1958 movie) was as "Big Daddy" Pollitt in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955–56).


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives's autobiography, "The Wayfaring Stranger", was published in 1948. He also wrote or compiled several other books, including "Burl Ives' Songbook" (1953), "Tales of America" (1954), "Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling, and Fishing" (1956), and "The Wayfaring Stranger's Notebook" (1962).


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives had a long-standing relationship with the Boy Scouts of America. He was a Lone Scout before that group merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924. The organization "inducted" Ives in 1966. He received the Boy Scouts' Silver Buffalo Award, its highest honor. The certificate for the award is on display at the Scouting Museum in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Ives often performed at the quadrennial Boy Scouts of America jamboree, including the 1981 jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where he shared the stage with the Oak Ridge Boys. There is a 1977 sound recording of Ives being interviewed by Boy Scouts at the National Jamboree at Moraine State Park, Pennsylvania. Ives was also the narrator of a 28-minute film about the 1977 National Jamboree. In the film, which was produced by the Boy Scouts of America, Ives "shows the many ways in which Scouting provides opportunities for young people to develop character and expand their horizons."


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives was inducted as a laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the governor of Illinois in 1976 in the area of the performing arts.


title: Burl Ives

text: On December 6, 1945, Ives, then 36, married 29-year-old script writer Helen Peck Ehrlich. Their son Alexander was born in 1949.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives and Helen Peck Ehrlich were divorced in February 1971. Ives then married Dorothy Koster Paul in London two months later. In their later years, Ives and Paul lived in a waterfront home in Anacortes, Washington, in the Puget Sound area, and in Galisteo, New Mexico, near the Turquoise Trail. In the 1960s, he had another home just south of Hope Town on Elbow Cay, a barrier island of the Abacos in the Bahamas.


title: Burl Ives

text: Ives, a longtime smoker of pipes and cigars, was diagnosed with oral cancer in the summer of 1994. After several unsuccessful operations, he decided against further surgery. He fell into a coma and died from the disease on April 14, 1995, at his home in Anacortes, Washington, just two months before his 86th birthday. He was buried at Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In Greek mythology, Orion (; Ancient Greek: Ὠρίων or ; Latin: "Orion") was a giant huntsman whom Zeus (or perhaps Artemis) placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Ancient sources told several different stories about Orion; there are two major versions of his birth and several versions of his death. The most important recorded episodes are: his birth in Boeotia, his visit to Chios where he met Merope and raped her, being blinded by Merope's father, the recovery of his sight at Lemnos, his hunting with Artemis on Crete, his death by the bow of Artemis or the sting of the giant scorpion which became Scorpius, and his elevation to the heavens. Most ancient sources omit some of these episodes and several tell only one. These various incidents may originally have been independent, unrelated stories, and it is impossible to tell whether the omissions are simple brevity or represent a real disagreement.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In Greek literature he first appears as a great hunter in Homer's epic the "Odyssey", where Odysseus sees his shade in the underworld. The bare bones of Orion's story are told by the Hellenistic and Roman collectors of myths, but there is no extant literary version of his adventures comparable, for example, to that of Jason in Apollonius of Rhodes' "Argonautica" or Euripides' "Medea"; the entry in Ovid's "Fasti" for May 11 is a poem on the birth of Orion, but that is one version of a single story. The surviving fragments of legend have provided a fertile field for speculation about Greek prehistory and myth.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Orion served several roles in ancient Greek culture. The story of the adventures of Orion, the hunter, is the one for which there is the most evidence (and even for that, not very much); he is also the personification of the constellation of the same name; he was venerated as a hero, in the Greek sense, in the region of Boeotia; and there is one etiological passage which says that Orion was responsible for the present shape of the Strait of Sicily.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Orion is mentioned in the oldest surviving works of Greek literature, which probably date back to the 7th or 8th century BC, but which are the products of an oral tradition with origins several centuries earlier. In Homer's "Iliad" Orion is described as a constellation, and the star Sirius is mentioned as his dog. In the "Odyssey", Orion is essentially the pinnacle of human excellence in hunting: Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals. In some legends Orion claims to be able to hunt any animal in existence. He is also mentioned as a constellation, as the lover of the Goddess Dawn, as slain by Artemis, and as the most handsome of the earthborn. In the "Works and Days" of Hesiod, Orion is also a constellation, one whose rising and setting with the sun is used to reckon the year.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The legend of Orion was first told in full in a lost work by Hesiod, probably the "Astronomia" (simple references to "Hesiod" below will refer to the lost text from "Astronomia", unless otherwise stated). This version is known through the work of Eratosthenes on the constellations, who gives a fairly long summary of Hesiod's episode on Orion. According to this version, Orion was likely the son of the sea-god Poseidon and Euryale, daughter of Minos, King of Crete. Orion could walk on the waves because of his father; he walked to the island of Chios where he got drunk and raped Merope, daughter of Oenopion, the ruler there. In vengeance, Oenopion blinded Orion and drove him away. Orion stumbled to Lemnos where Hephaestus—the smith-god—had his forge. Hephaestus told his servant, Cedalion, to guide Orion to the uttermost East where Helios, the Sun, healed him; Orion carried Cedalion around on his shoulders. Orion returned to Chios to punish Oenopion, but the king hid away underground and escaped Orion's wrath. Orion's next journey took him to Crete where he hunted with the goddess Artemis and her mother Leto, and in the course of the hunt, threatened to kill every beast on Earth. Gaia (Apollo in some versions, disapproving of his sister's relationship with a male) objected and sent a giant scorpion to kill Orion. The creature succeeded, and after his death, the goddesses asked Zeus to place Orion among the constellations. Zeus consented and, as a memorial to the hero's death, added the Scorpion to the heavens as well.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Although Orion has a few lines in both Homeric poems and in the "Works and Days", most of the stories about him are recorded in incidental allusions and in fairly obscure later writings. No great poet standardized the legend. The ancient sources for Orion's legend are mostly notes in the margins of ancient poets (scholia) or compilations by later scholars, the equivalent of modern reference works or encyclopedias; even the legend from Hesiod's "Astronomy" survives only in one such compilation. In several cases, including the summary of the "Astronomy", although the surviving work bears the name of a famous scholar, such as Apollodorus of Athens, Eratosthenes, or Gaius Julius Hyginus, what survives is either an ancient forgery or an abridgement of the original compilation by a later writer of dubious competence; editors of these texts suggest that they may have borne the names of great scholars because they were abridgments, or even pupil's notes, based on the works of the scholars.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The margin of the Empress Eudocia's copy of the "Iliad" has a note summarizing a Hellenistic poet who tells a different story of Orion's birth. Here the gods Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon come to visit Hyrieus of Tanagra, who roasts a whole bull for them. When they offer him a favor, he asks for the birth of sons. The gods take the bull's hide and urinate into it and bury it in the earth, then tell him to dig it up ten months later. When he does, he finds Orion; this explains why Orion is earthborn.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: A second full telling (even shorter than the summary of Hesiod) is in a Roman-era collection of myths; the account of Orion is based largely on the mythologist and poet Pherecydes of Athens. Here Orion is described as earthborn and enormous in stature. This version also mentions Poseidon and Euryale as his parents. It adds a first marriage to Side before his marriage to Merope. All that is known about Side is that Hera threw her into Hades for rivalling her in beauty. It also gives a different version of Orion's death than the "Iliad": Eos, the Dawn, fell in love with Orion and took him to Delos where Artemis killed him.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Another narrative on the constellations, three paragraphs long, is from a Latin writer whose brief notes have come down to us under the name of Hyginus. It begins with the oxhide story of Orion's birth, which this source ascribes to Callimachus and Aristomachus, and sets the location at Thebes or Chios. Hyginus has two versions. In one of them he omits Poseidon; a modern critic suggests this is the original version.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The same source tells two stories of the death of Orion. The first says that because of his "living joined in too great a friendship" with Oenopion, he boasted to Artemis and Leto that he could kill anything which came from Earth. Gaia (the personification of Earth in Greek mythology) objected and created the Scorpion. In the second story, Apollo, being jealous of Orion's love for Artemis, arranged for Artemis to kill him. Seeing Orion swimming in the ocean, a long way off, he remarked that Artemis could not possibly hit that black thing in the water. Feeling challenged, she sent an arrow right through it and killed Orion; when his body washed up on shore, she wept copiously, and decided to place Orion among the stars. He connects Orion with several constellations, not just Scorpius. Orion chased Pleione, the mother of the Pleiades, for seven years, until Zeus intervened and raised all of them to the stars. In "Works and Days", Orion chases the Pleiades themselves. Canis Minor and Canis Major are his dogs, the one in front is called Procyon. They chase Lepus, the hare, although Hyginus says some critics thought this too base a prey for the noble Orion and have him pursuing Taurus, the bull, instead. A Renaissance mythographer adds other names for Orion's dogs: Leucomelaena, Maera, Dromis, Cisseta, Lampuris, Lycoctonus, Ptoophagus, Arctophonus.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: There are numerous variants in other authors. Most of these are incidental references in poems and scholiasts. The Roman poet Virgil shows Orion as a giant wading through the Aegean Sea with the waves breaking against his shoulders; rather than, as the mythographers have it, walking on the water. There are several references to Hyrieus as the father of Orion that connect him to various places in Boeotia, including Hyria; this may well be the original story (although not the first attested), since Hyrieus is presumably the eponym of Hyria. He is also called Oeneus, although he is not the Calydonian Oeneus. Other ancient scholia say, as Hesiod does, that Orion was the son of Poseidon and his mother was a daughter of Minos; but they call the daughter Brylle or Hyeles. There are two versions where Artemis killed Orion, either with her arrows or by producing the Scorpion. In the second variant, Orion died of the Scorpion's sting as he does in Hesiod. Although Orion does not defeat the Scorpion in any version, several variants have it die from its wounds. Artemis is given various motives. One is that Orion boasted of his beast-killing and challenged her to a contest with the discus. Another is that he assaulted either Artemis herself or Opis, a Hyperborean maiden in her band of huntresses. Aratus's brief description, in his "Astronomy", conflates the elements of the myth: according to Aratus, Orion attacks Artemis while hunting on "Chios", and the Scorpion kills him there. Nicander, in his "Theriaca", has the scorpion of ordinary size and hiding under a small ("oligos") stone. Most versions of the story that continue after Orion's death tell of the gods raising Orion and the Scorpion to the stars, but even here a variant exists: Ancient poets differed greatly on whom Aesculapius brought back from the dead; the Argive epic poet Telesarchus is quoted as saying in a scholion that Aesculapius resurrected Orion. Other ancient authorities are quoted anonymously that Aesculapius healed Orion after he was blinded by Oenopion.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The story of Orion and Oenopion also varies. One source refers to Merope as Oenopion's wife, not his daughter. Another refers to Merope as the daughter of Minos and not of Oenopion. The longest version (a page in the Loeb) is from a collection of melodramatic plots drawn up by an Alexandrian poet for the Roman Cornelius Gallus to make into Latin verse. It describes Orion as slaying the wild beasts of Chios and looting the other inhabitants to make a bride-price for Oenopion's daughter, who is called Aëro or Leiro. Oenopion does not want to marry her to someone like Orion, and eventually Orion, in frustration, breaks into her bedchamber and rapes her. The text implies that Oenopion blinds him on the spot.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Latin sources add that Oenopion was the son of Dionysus. Dionysus sent satyrs to put Orion into a deep sleep so he could be blinded. One source tells the same story but converts Oenopion into Minos of Crete. It adds that an oracle told Orion that his sight could be restored by walking eastward and that he found his way by hearing the Cyclops' hammer, placing a Cyclops as a guide on his shoulder; it does not mention Cabeiri or Lemnos—this is presumably the story of Cedalion recast. Both Hephaestus and the Cyclopes were said to make thunderbolts; they are combined in other sources. One scholion, on a Latin poem, explains that Hephaestus gave Orion a horse.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Giovanni Boccaccio cites a lost Latin writer for the story that Orion and Candiope were son and daughter of Oenopion, king of Sicily. While the virgin huntsman Orion was sleeping in a cave, Venus seduced him; as he left the cave, he saw his sister shining as she crossed in front of it. He ravished her; when his father heard of this, he banished Orion. Orion consulted an oracle, which told him that if he went east, he would regain the glory of kingship. Orion, Candiope, and their son Hippologus sailed to Thrace, "a province eastward from Sicily". There he conquered the inhabitants, and became known as the son of Neptune. His son begat the Dryas mentioned in Statius.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In Ancient Greece, Orion had a hero cult in the region of Boeotia. The number of places associated with his birth suggest that it was widespread. Hyria, the most frequently mentioned, was in the territory of Tanagra. A feast of Orion was held at Tanagra as late as the Roman Empire. They had a tomb of Orion most likely at the foot of Mount Cerycius (now Mount Tanagra). Maurice Bowra argues that Orion was a national hero of the Boeotians, much as Castor and Pollux were for the Dorians. He bases this claim on the Athenian epigram on the Battle of Coronea in which a hero gave the Boeotian army an oracle, then fought on their side and defeated the Athenians.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The Boeotian school of epic poetry was chiefly concerned with the genealogies of the gods and heroes; later writers elaborated this web. Several other myths are attached to Orion in this way: A papyrus fragment of the Boeotian poet Corinna gives Orion fifty sons (a traditional number). This included the oracular hero Acraephen, who, she sings, gave a response to Asopus regarding Asopus' daughters who were abducted by the gods. Corinna sang of Orion conquering and naming all the land of the dawn. Bowra argues that Orion was believed to have delivered oracles as well, probably at a different shrine. Hyginus says that Hylas's mother was Menodice, daughter of Orion. Another mythographer, Liberalis, tells of Menippe and Metioche, daughters of Orion, who sacrificed themselves for their country's good and were transformed into comets.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Orion also has etiological connection to the city of Messina in Sicily. Diodorus of Sicily wrote a history of the world up to his own time (the beginning of the reign of Augustus). He starts with the gods and the heroes. At the end of this part of the work, he tells the story of Orion and two wonder-stories of his mighty earth-works in Sicily. One tells how he aided Zanclus, the founder of Zancle (the former name for Messina), by building the promontory which forms the harbor. The other, which Diodorus ascribes to Hesiod, relates that there was once a broad sea between Sicily and the mainland. Orion built the whole Peloris, the Punta del Faro, and the temple to Poseidon at the tip, after which he settled in Euboea. He was then "numbered among the stars of heaven and thus won for himself immortal remembrance". The Renaissance historian and mathematician Francesco Maurolico, who came from Messina, identified the remains of a temple of Orion near the present Messina Cathedral. Maurolico also designed an ornate fountain, built by the sculptor Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli in 1547, in which Orion is a central figure, symbolizing the Emperor Charles V, also a master of the sea and restorer of Messina; Orion is still a popular symbol of the city.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Images of Orion in classical art are difficult to recognize, and clear examples are rare. There are several ancient Greek images of club-carrying hunters that could represent Orion, but such generic examples could equally represent an archetypal "hunter", or indeed Heracles. Some claims have been made that other Greek art represents specific aspects of the Orion myth. A tradition of this type has been discerned in 5th century BC Greek pottery—John Beazley identified a scene of Apollo, Delian palm in hand, revenging Orion for the attempted rape of Artemis, while another scholar has identified a scene of Orion attacking Artemis as she is revenged by a snake (a counterpart to the scorpion) in a funerary group—supposedly symbolizing the hope that even the criminal Orion could be made immortal, as well as an astronomical scene in which Cephalus is thought to stand in for Orion and his constellation, also reflecting this system of iconography. Also, a tomb frieze in Taranto (c. 300 BC) may show Orion attacking Opis. But the earliest surviving clear depiction of Orion in classical art is Roman, from the depictions of the Underworld scenes of the Odyssey discovered at the Esquiline Hill (50–40 BC). Orion is also seen on a 4th-century bas-relief, currently affixed to a wall in the Porto neighborhood of Naples. The constellation Orion rises in November, the end of the sailing season, and was associated with stormy weather, and this characterization extended to the mythical Orion—the bas-relief may be associated with the sailors of the city.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Mythographers have discussed Orion at least since the Renaissance of classical learning; the Renaissance interpretations were allegorical. In the 14th century, Boccaccio interpreted the oxhide story as representing human conception; the hide is the womb, Neptune the moisture of semen, Jupiter its heat, and Mercury the female coldness; he also explained Orion's death at the hands of the moon-goddess as the Moon producing winter storms. The 16th-century Italian mythographer Natalis Comes interpreted the whole story of Orion as an allegory of the evolution of a storm cloud: Begotten by air (Zeus), water (Poseidon), and the sun (Apollo), a storm cloud is diffused (Chios, which Comes derives from χέω, "pour out"), rises though the upper air (Aërope, as Comes spells Merope), chills (is blinded), and is turned into rain by the moon (Artemis). He also explains how Orion walked on the sea: "Since the subtler part of the water which is rarefied rests on the surface, it is said that Orion learned from his father how to walk on water." Similarly, Orion's conception made him a symbol of the philosophical child, an allegory of philosophy springing from multiple sources, in the Renaissance as in alchemical works, with some variations. The 16th-century German alchemist Michael Maier lists the fathers as Apollo, Vulcan and Mercury, and the 18th-century French alchemist Antoine-Joseph Pernety gave them as Jupiter, Neptune and Mercury.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Modern mythographers have seen the story of Orion as a way to access local folk tales and cultic practices directly without the interference of ancient high culture; several of them have explained Orion, each through his own interpretation of Greek prehistory and of how Greek mythology represents it. There are some points of general agreement between them: for example, that the attack on Opis is an attack on Artemis, for Opis is one of the names of Artemis.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: There was a movement in the late nineteenth century to interpret all the Boeotian heroes as merely personifications of the constellations; there has since come to be wide agreement that the myth of Orion existed before there was a constellation named for him. Homer, for example, mentions Orion, the Hunter, and Orion, the constellation, but never confuses the two. Once Orion was recognized as a constellation, astronomy in turn affected the myth. The story of Side may well be a piece of astronomical mythology. The Greek word "side" means pomegranate, which bears fruit while Orion, the constellation, can be seen in the night sky. Rose suggests she is connected with Sidae in Boeotia, and that the pomegranate, as a sign of the Underworld, is connected with her descent there.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The 19th-century German classical scholar Erwin Rohde viewed Orion as an example of the Greeks erasing the line between the gods and mankind. That is, if Orion was in the heavens, other mortals could hope to be also.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The Hungarian mythographer Karl Kerényi, one of the founders of the modern study of Greek mythology, wrote about Orion in "Gods of the Greeks" (1951). Kerényi portrays Orion as a giant of Titanic vigor and criminality, born outside his mother as were Tityos or Dionysus. Kerényi places great stress on the variant in which Merope is the wife of Oenopion. He sees this as the remnant of a lost form of the myth in which Merope was Orion's mother (converted by later generations to his stepmother and then to the present forms). Orion's blinding is therefore parallel to that of Aegypius and Oedipus.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In "Dionysus" (1976), Kerényi portrays Orion as a shamanic hunting hero, surviving from Minoan times (hence his association with Crete). Kerényi derives Hyrieus (and Hyria) from the Cretan dialect word , meaning "beehive", which survives only in ancient dictionaries. From this association he turns Orion into a representative of the old mead-drinking cultures, overcome by the wine masters Oenopion and Oeneus. (The Greek for "wine" is "oinos".) Fontenrose cites a source stating that Oenopion taught the Chians how to make wine before anybody else knew how.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Joseph Fontenrose wrote "Orion: the Myth of the Hunter and the Huntress" (1981) to show Orion as the type specimen of a variety of grotesque hero. Fontenrose views him as similar to Cúchulainn, that is, stronger, larger, and more potent than ordinary men and the violent lover of the Divine Huntress; other heroes of the same type are Actaeon, Leucippus (son of Oenomaus), Cephalus, Teiresias, and Zeus as the lover of Callisto. Fontenrose also sees Eastern parallels in the figures of Aqhat, Attis, Dumuzi, Gilgamesh, Dushyanta, and Prajapati (as pursuer of Ushas).


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In "The Greek Myths" (1955), Robert Graves views Oenopion as his perennial Year-King, at the stage where the king pretends to die at the end of his term and appoints a substitute, in this case Orion, who actually dies in his place. His blindness is iconotropy from a picture of Odysseus blinding the Cyclops, mixed with a purely Hellenic solar legend: the Sun-hero is captured and blinded by his enemies at dusk, but escapes and regains his sight at dawn, when all beasts flee him. Graves sees the rest of the myth as a syncretism of diverse stories. These include Gilgamesh and the Scorpion-Men, Set becoming a scorpion to kill Horus and the story of Aqhat and Yatpan from Ras Shamra, as well as a conjectural story of how the priestesses of Artemis Opis killed a visitor to their island of Ortygia. He compares Orion's birth from the bull's hide to a West African rainmaking charm and claims that the son of Poseidon should be a rainmaker.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The ancient Greek and Roman sources which tell more about Orion than his being a gigantic huntsman are mostly both dry and obscure, but poets do write of him: The brief passages in Aratus and Virgil are mentioned above. Pindar celebrates the pancratist Melissus of Thebes "who was not granted the build of an Orion", but whose strength was still great.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Cicero translated Aratus in his youth; he made the Orion episode half again longer than it was in the Greek, adding the traditional Latin topos of madness to Aratus's text. Cicero's "Aratea" is one of the oldest Latin poems to come down to us as more than isolated lines; this episode may have established the technique of including epyllia in non-epic poems.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Orion is used by Horace, who tells of his death at the hands of Diana/Artemis, and by Ovid, in his Fasti for May 11, the middle day of the Lemuria, when (in Ovid's time) the constellation Orion set with the sun. Ovid's episode tells the story of Hyrieus and two gods, Jupiter and Neptune, although Ovid is bashful about the climax; Ovid makes Hyrieus a poor man, which means the sacrifice of an entire ox is more generous. There is also a single mention of Orion in his "Art of Love", as a sufferer from unrequited love: "Pale Orion wandered in the forest for Side."


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Statius mentions Orion four times in his "Thebaïd"; twice as the constellation, a personification of storm, but twice as the ancestor of Dryas of Tanagra, one of the defenders of Thebes. The very late Greek epic poet Nonnus mentions the oxhide story in brief, while listing the Hyrians in his Catalogue of the Boeotian army of Dionysius.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: References since antiquity are fairly rare. At the beginning of the 17th century, French sculptor Barthélemy Prieur cast a bronze statue "Orion et Cédalion", some time between 1600 and 1611. This featured Orion with Cedalion on his shoulder, in a depiction of the ancient legend of Orion recovering his sight; the sculpture is now displayed at the Louvre.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Nicolas Poussin painted "Paysage avec Orion aveugle cherchant le soleil" (1658) ("Landscape with blind Orion seeking the sun"), after learning of the description by the 2nd-century Greek author Lucian, of a picture of Orion recovering his sight; Poussin included a storm-cloud, which both suggests the transient nature of Orion's blindness, soon to be removed like a cloud exposing the sun, and includes Natalis Comes' esoteric interpretation of Orion "as" a storm-cloud. Poussin need not have consulted Lucian directly; the passage is in the notes of the illustrated French translation of Philostratus' "Imagines" which Poussin is known to have consulted. The Austrian Daniel Seiter (active in Turin, Italy), painted "Diane auprès du cadavre d'Orion" (c. 1685) ("Diana next to Orion's corpse"), pictured above.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: In Endymion (1818), John Keats includes the line "Or blind Orion hungry for the morn", thought to be inspired by Poussin. William Hazlitt may have introduced Keats to the painting—he later wrote the essay "On Landscape of Nicholas Poussin", published in "Table Talk, Essays on Men and Manners" (1821-2). Richard Henry Horne, writing in the generation after Keats and Hazlitt, penned the three volume epic poem "Orion" in 1843. It went into at least ten editions and was reprinted by the Scholartis Press in 1928.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Science fiction author Ben Bova re-invented Orion as a time-traveling servant of various gods in a series of five novels. In "The Blood of Olympus", the final volume of a series, Rick Riordan depicts Orion as one of the giant sons of the earth goddess Gaea.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: Italian composer Francesco Cavalli wrote the opera, "L'Orione" in 1653. The story is set on the Greek island of Delos and focuses on Diana's love for Orion as well as on her rival, Aurora. Diana shoots Orion only after being tricked by Apollo into thinking him a sea monster—she then laments his death and searches for Orion in the underworld until he is elevated to the heavens. French composer Louis de La Coste composed in 1728 the tragédie lyrique "Orion". This time, it is Diana who is in love with Orion and is rejected by him. Johann Christian Bach ('the English Bach') wrote an opera, "Orion, or Diana Reveng'd", first presented at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1763. Orion, sung by a castrato, is in love with Candiope, the daughter of Oenopion, King of Arcadia but his arrogance has offended Diana. Diana's oracle forbids him to marry Candiope and foretells his glory and death. He bids a touching farewell to Candiope and marches off to his destiny. Diana allows him his victory and then kills him, offstage, with her arrow. In another aria, his mother Retrea (Queen of Thebes), laments his death but ultimately sees his elevation to the heavens. The 2002 opera "Galileo Galilei" by American composer Philip Glass includes an opera within an opera piece between Orion and Merope. The sunlight, which heals Orion's blindness, is an allegory of modern science. Philip Glass has also written a shorter work on Orion, as have Tōru Takemitsu, Kaija Saariaho, and John Casken. David Bedford's late-twentieth-century works are about the constellation rather than the mythical figure; he is an amateur astronomer.


title: Orion (mythology)

text: The twentieth-century French poet René Char found the blind, lustful huntsman, both pursuer and pursued, a central symbol, as James Lawler has explained at some length in his 1978 work "René Char: the Myth and the Poem." French novelist Claude Simon likewise found Orion an apt symbol, in this case of the writer, as he explained in his "Orion aveugle" of 1970. Marion Perret argues that Orion is a silent link in T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (1922), connecting the lustful Actaeon/Sweeney to the blind Teiresias and, through Sirius, to the Dog "that's friend to men".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: Spinal Tap (stylized as Spın̈al Tap, with a dotless letter "i" and a metal umlaut over the "n") is a fictional English heavy metal band created by American comedians and musicians Michael McKean (as lead singer and co-lead guitarist David St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (as lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel) and Harry Shearer (as bassist Derek Smalls). They are characterized as "one of England's loudest bands". McKean, Guest and Shearer wrote and performed original songs for the band.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band first appeared on a 1979 ABC television sketch comedy pilot called "The T.V. Show", starring Rob Reiner. The sketch, actually a mock promotional video for the song "Rock and Roll Nightmare", was written by Reiner and the band, and included songwriter-performer Loudon Wainwright III on keyboards. Later the band became the fictional subject of the 1984 rockumentary / mockumentary film "This Is Spinal Tap".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: "This Is Spinal Tap" was accompanied by a soundtrack album of the same name. In the years following the film's release, the actors have portrayed the band members at concerts and released music under the Spinal Tap name. Guest, McKean and Shearer toured in the United States in and performed as Spinal Tap in a "One Night Only World Tour" on June 30, 2009, at Wembley Arena in London, three days after playing the Glastonbury Festival.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The trio also portray the fictional American folk music revival band the Folksmen; some Spinal Tap concert appearances have featured Guest, McKean and Shearer opening for "Tap" as the Folksmen.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: Although the 1984 film portrays the band hailing from the United Kingdom, the three actors who play the principal band members—Guest, McKean and Shearer—were born in the United States. Guest was however raised in both the U.S. and Britain, and would later be granted dual citizenship and an inherited title of nobility as the 5th Baron Haden-Guest. David Kaff (as keyboardist "Viv Savage") and R. J. Parnell (as drummer "Mick Shrimpton"), who have smaller roles in the film, are both British.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: Fans of Spinal Tap have assembled details about the band based on fictional film, albums, concerts and related promotional material, including a discography and a list of the band's former members. Within the context of the band's fictional history, Spinal Tap began as a skiffle band called the Thamesmen in the early 1960s, before changing their name to Spinal Tap. In the late 60s, Spinal Tap was a psychedelic pop band, and has also performed progressive rock, jazz fusion, funk and reggae, but is best known as a heavy metal band. Spinal Tap has also been classified as hard rock, glam metal and rock and roll.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: Spinal Tap's fictional history includes a succession of drummers, all of whom are said to have died in strange circumstances: one in a "bizarre gardening accident"; another who "choked on vomit", but possibly not his own vomit; and two from "spontaneous human combustion" onstage. Additionally, it is claimed that police described one of the deaths as a mystery "best left unsolved".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band Spinal Tap first appeared in a video aired as part of a 1979 sketch comedy special called "The T.V. Show", a project spearheaded by Rob Reiner and Michael McKean. The video was for the song "Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare", in a sequence that was intended as a spoof of "The Midnight Special". Participating in the video (and playing the music) were Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Loudon Wainwright III, and Russ Kunkel; the segment was introduced by Reiner in character as Wolfman Jack. The Spinal Tap band members were at this point unnamed. McKean and Shearer had previously been members of the Credibility Gap, a comedy troupe that did both spoken word and musical comedy, and had released a mini rock opera and at least one musical 7-inch single.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: Also in 1979, Guest and McKean were members of Lenny and the Squigtones, a band that was fronted by characters from the hit television series "Laverne and Shirley". Guest, on guitar and clarinet, was credited as "Nigel Tufnel", the name he would eventually use as a member of Spinal Tap.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The appearance on "The T.V. Show" eventually led to the creation of a film, tracing a disastrous tour undertaken by the aging British metal band Spinal Tap. Reiner hosted the film in the character of filmmaker "Marty DiBergi", while Guest, McKean and Shearer took on character names for the project, and further developed their Spinal Tap personas. (Respectively, Guest was guitarist "Nigel Tufnel"; McKean was vocalist "David St. Hubbins"; and Shearer was bassist "Derek Smalls".) Also added to the group were David Kaff (as keyboard player "Viv Savage") and R.J. Parnell (as drummer "Mick Shrimpton"). Parnell had previously been in the band Atomic Rooster, while Kaff had been a member of Rare Bird. The quintet played their own instruments throughout the film.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band Spinal Tap became a going concern, with the group (in character) playing gigs and appearing on a 1984 episode of "Saturday Night Live" to promote the film. The character of Mick Shrimpton having died in the film, Parnell played his "twin brother" drummer Ric Shrimpton for these and later appearances.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The group reformed on January 18, 1991, for a performance at the Disneyland Hotel that included new material. This featured on the 1992 release, "Break Like the Wind", an album produced in part by T-Bone Burnett. The album was accompanied by a promotional audition for a new drummer attended by Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction, Gina Schock of The Go-Go's, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, who auditioned in a fireproof suit. Despite the auditions, Parnell was retained as "Ric Shrimpton" and remained the band's drummer. Kaff did not return, and consequently the "reunited" band now consisted of Guest, McKean, Shearer and Parnell (all in character) and new keyboardist C. J. Vanston (under his own name). A promotional concert tour followed, which included an appearance at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, where they performed "The Majesty of Rock", a song they dedicated to Mercury.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band also released the single "Bitch School", which became a genuine chart single in the UK, as did follow-up single "The Majesty of Rock".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band also appeared on "The Simpsons" in the episode “The Otto Show”, which aired in the United States on April 23, 1992. The episode was written by Jeff Martin and directed by Wes Archer. Harry Shearer, who is a regular Simpsons cast member, reprised his role as Derek Smalls.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On July 1, 1992, Tap crossed five time zones for three performances in St. John's, Newfoundland; Barrie, Ontario; and Vancouver, British Columbia, for MuchMusic and Molson's Great Canadian Party. For each performance of "Stonehenge", the miniature monument prop was delivered on stage in a courier envelope.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2000, the band launched a web site named "Tapster", where their song "Back from the Dead" was made available for download. Tapster was a parody of Napster, a peer-to-peer file sharing network.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2001, the band "reunited" for the nine-city "Back from the Dead Tour" that began on June 1, 2001, at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The tour included a show at Carnegie Hall in New York City and ended in Montreal in mid-July at the Just for Laughs festival. The opening act for some of these shows were the Folksmen, the folk trio seen in the film "A Mighty Wind", and also performed by Guest, McKean, and Shearer.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2007, Tap reunited again, this time to help combat global warming. "They're not that environmentally conscious, but they've heard of global warming," said Marty DeBergi (portrayed by Reiner). "Nigel thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing – that if he just took his jacket off it would be cooler." This reunion also included the release of a new song called "Warmer Than Hell". The band played on the London leg of the SOS/Live Earth concert series, and Rob Reiner has directed a short film (entitled "Spinal Tap") which was released on the Live Earth website on April 27. The film reveals that Nigel Tufnel is now working as a farmhand looking after miniature horses. He plans to race them. David St. Hubbins is currently working as a hip-hop producer, and Derek Smalls is in rehab for being addicted to the Internet.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: A new album, "Back from the Dead", was released on June 16, 2009. The album consists mostly of re-recordings of songs from the original film's soundtrack, as they would have sounded had they really existed and been recorded in a studio.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On April 6, 2009, the band announced a one-date "world tour", performing at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. Support on this night came from the Folksmen. The band unexpectedly also self-confirmed for Glastonbury Festival 2009 during an online interview on May 8, 2009, in the "Philadelphia Daily News" following a "Unwigged and Unplugged" show in the city.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: It has been announced that they will reunite at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival for the 35th anniversary of the film.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The band appeared as the musical guests on an episode of "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) in the spring of 1984. Barry Bostwick was the host. At this time, producer Dick Ebersol approached Shearer, Guest and McKean to join the cast. Shearer and Guest accepted (McKean would not join until ten years later, by which time original producer Lorne Michaels was back at the show's helm). Shearer's stint on "SNL" the following season—his second, the first having been the 1979–80 season—was to be short-lived, following creative disputes with the show's management.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 1985, at the invitation of Ronnie James Dio, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer took part in the heavy metal benefit project Hear 'n Aid, to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia. McKean and Shearer attended the event in character as David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls, appearing in the behind-the-scenes videos and interacting in character with many real-life metal stars, many of whom were huge fans of Spinal Tap. "David St. Hubbins" and "Derek Smalls" are part of the vocal chorus heard on the record (and seen in the video), and are credited under those names on the Hear 'n Aid single's front cover (alongside many real-life heavy metal stars). The ad hoc supergroup's single "Stars" rose to No. 26 on the UK charts in May 1986.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: As part of the promotion surrounding "Break Like the Wind", Spinal Tap was portrayed in "The Otto Show" episode of the animated series "The Simpsons", for which Shearer is a principal voice actor. "The Simpsons" follows the approach of the original film by presenting the group as if they were a real group. During the disastrous performance, a massive devil balloon on the stage does not inflate properly, and Nigel is temporarily blinded by lasers. Later in the episode, their tour bus is accidentally pushed off a cliff due to Otto's reckless driving. In a 2016 interview Shearer said this was the only time Spinal Tap had worked to a script, all other movie, television and live appearances being improvised.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On July 1, 1992, as part of MuchMusic's Canada Day "Great Canadian Party" festival, Spinal Tap completed an unprecedented tour of Canada in less than 24 hours. Jetting across five time-zones, the band played St. John's, Newfoundland, Barrie, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia. That evening, during a performance of "Stonehenge", Tap received their signature, triptych set-piece via Canada Post in a small, bubble-wrap envelope that Derek Smalls signed for onstage. Bemused, Smalls tore open the packaging, and revealed to the cheering crowd the prop which looked to be half the size of the original 18 inch Stonehenge rock from the film.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 1994, "The Return of Spinal Tap" was released on video; most of this was live material from a 1992 performance at the Royal Albert Hall where the Stonehenge set was shown to the audience on video as being too big to fit through the stage doors, but it also included some interviews and follow-up on the band members.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2000, while promoting Tapster.com, Spinal Tap appeared and performed on the short-lived series VH1 "The List" (with Mick Fleetwood on drums) and appeared on the "Late Show".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2006, Nigel Tufnel appeared in a Volkswagen TV commercial highlighting their offer of a free, exclusive First Act guitar with the purchase of qualifying automobiles. The guitar features knobs and inlays with the Volkswagen logo and pre-amps that allow it to be played through the car's stereo system. Also in 2006, the song "Gimme Some Money" was used in a TV commercial for Open from American Express, "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" appeared in Harmonix's video game "Guitar Hero 2" and "Christmas with the Devil" appeared in BBC One promo spots for the network's Christmas program.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In 2007, while accepting an award from the BBC Two program "The Culture Show", Christopher Guest broke into Nigel Tufnel, and considered what his wife and kids would make of the Mark Kermode-shaped award.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On July 7, 2007, Spinal Tap played at Wembley Stadium in London along with many major bands and groups as part of Live Earth, a Climate Change awareness concert. Their set included a new song written for the occasion, "Warmer Than Hell". During their final number, the song "Big Bottom", St. Hubbins and Tufnel both picked up basses. Spinal Tap was also joined by "every bass player in the known universe", including Nate Mendel (of the Foo Fighters); Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, and James Hetfield (Metallica); Gordon Moakes (Bloc Party); and Adam Yauch (a.k.a. MCA), of Beastie Boys. They were also joined on back-up vocals by Annette O'Toole, Michael McKean's wife.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: In May 2008, Nigel Tufnel appeared in the National Geographic show "Stonehenge Decoded", expounding his nonsensical theories about Stonehenge and who was responsible for building it. His claims to have invented "decoder" experiments capable of unveiling the true purpose of the monument are, as yet, unproven.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: McKean, Guest and Shearer have made several appearances as their alter egos the Folksmen, including the television shows "Saturday Night Live" and "Mad TV" and the film "The Return of Spinal Tap".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On March 2, 2009, Guest, McKean and Shearer held a press conference at the House of Blues in Los Angeles to announce their forthcoming album of new and old Spinal Tap songs, plus a 2009 "Unwigged & Unplugged" tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film, "This Is Spinal Tap". According to an "L.A. Weekly" report, when MTV News' Kurt Loder asked the trio "if they had plans beyond an album and tour, Shearer answered, 'We're gonna bomb Iran.'" The tour also features songs from the Folksmen and others from throughout the trio's career.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On April 1, 2009, Guest, McKean, and Shearer played on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" as the musical guest.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On June 15, 2009, Spinal Tap performed on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" as the musical guest.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On Saturday, June 27, 2009, Spinal Tap performed on the main stage at the Glastonbury Festival with Jarvis Cocker guesting on bass during "Big Bottom," and also inviting Jamie Cullum on stage to play keyboards. One of the unexpected highlights for Tap fans was a rendition of the newly written overture from the mythical Jack the Ripper musical "Saucy Jack". Also on the bill were Kasabian, Crosby Stills & Nash, and Bruce Springsteen.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On Tuesday, June 30, 2009, Spinal Tap performed at Wembley Arena with the Folksmen as support. A variety of special guests featured including Keith Emerson (joined them on organ/keyboards – which he later destroyed during the show), Justin Hawkins from the Darkness and others.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On July 27, 2009, the band performed on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" as the musical guest announcing their retirement and shortly thereafter their comeback.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: The next day, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, they were the musical guest on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart".


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On August 25, 2009, Spinal Tap released a seven-minute short film titled "Stonehenge: 'Tis a Magical Place" celebrating their 25th anniversary. The video is distributed through INgrooves and is available only on iTunes. The short film depicts the founding members of Spinal Tap making a pilgrimage to Stonehenge for the first time.


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: On October 18, 2022, Spinal Tap star Michael McKean deleted scene from the movie on his Twitter account and added: "Wow, thanks. Unseen by me, anyway, Lo these many years."


title: Spinal Tap (band)

text: This list contains both fictional former members of Spinal Tap and celebrities that have played with the band.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Sasaki Kojirō went by the fighting name of , which was also the name of the "kenjutsu" school he had founded. It is said that Sasaki studied the Chūjō-ryu of sword fighting from either Kanemaki Jisai or Toda Seigen. Toda Seigen was a master of the "kodachi". If Sasaki had indeed learned Chūjō-ryu from Seigen, he would have been his master's sparring partner. Due to his master's use of the kodachi, Sasaki used a "nodachi", or a long "katana", against him, therefore eventually excelling in its use. It was after defeating his master's younger brother that he left and founded the Ganryū. The first reliable account of his life states that in 1610, because of the fame of his school and his many successful duels, including once in the late 1500s when he fended off three opponents with a "tessen", Sasaki was honored by Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki as the chief weapons master of the Hosokawa fief in the north of Kyūshū. Sasaki later became skilled in wielding a "nodachi", and used one he called "monohoshizao" ("The Laundry-Drying Pole") as his strongest main weapon.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Sasaki was a long-time rival of Miyamoto Musashi, and is considered the most challenging opponent Musashi ever faced. There are a number of accounts of the duel, varying in most details except the essentials, such as Kojirō's defeat. The age of Kojirō is especially uncertain – the "Nitenki" says that during his childhood, he


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: The "Nitenki"s account initially seems trustworthy, until it goes on to give the age of Sasaki at the time of the duel as 18 years old; it is known that two years earlier he had been a head weapons master for a fief – but then that would imply he had reached such a position at the age of 16, which is extremely improbable. A further complication is that Toda Seigen died in the 1590s. This unreliability of the sources means Sasaki's age could have varied anywhere from his 20s to as late as his 50s. Even worse, a number of scholars contend that identifying Seigen as Kojirō's teacher is a mistake and that he was actually trained by a student of Seigen's, Kanemaki Jisai. The reason for this was that the person interviewed for the "Nitenki" (the last known witness to the duel) said Kojirō's age but the author missed the first part, and only got the last part which was 18 (十八), pronounced as "jyu hachi" - however, numbers in Japanese are spoken as tens and ones, such as 48 (四十八) "yonjyuhachi". The reason his last name is Sasaki can be because of two reasons:


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Like his adversary Musashi, he was also very tall (about 5  ft. 10 in. or 1.78 m), a giant compared to the average Japanese at that time.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Apparently, the young Musashi, at the time, around 29 years old, heard of Sasaki's fame and asked Lord Hosokawa Tadaoki, through an intermediary, Nagaoka Sado Okinaga, a principal vassal of Tadaoki, to arrange a duel. Tadaoki assented and set the time and place as 13 April 1612 on the comparatively remote island of Ganryujima of Funashima, the strait between Honshū and Kyūshū. The match was probably set in such a remote place because by this time Sasaki had acquired many students and disciples, and was Sasaki lost, they would probably have attempted to kill Musashi.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: According to the legend, Musashi arrived more than three hours late and goaded Sasaki by taunting him. When Sasaki attacked, his blow came so close as to sever Musashi's "chonmage". He came close to victory several times until, supposedly, he was blinded by the sunset behind Musashi, who struck him on the skull with his oversized "bokken", or wooden sword, which was long. Musashi had supposedly fashioned the long "bokken", a type called a "suburitō" due to its above-average length, by shaving down the spare oar of the boat in which he arrived at the duel with his "wakizashi". Musashi came late on purpose in order to psychologically unnerve his opponent, a tactic he had used on previous occasions, such as during his series of duels with the Yoshioka swordsmen.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Another version of the legend recounts that when Musashi finally arrived, Sasaki shouted insults at him, but Musashi just smiled. Angered even further, Sasaki leapt into combat, blind with rage. Sasaki attempted his famous "swallow's blade" or "swallow cut", but Musashi's oversized "bokken" hit Sasaki first, causing him to fall down; before Sasaki could finish his swallow cut, Musashi smashed Sasaki's left rib, puncturing his lungs and killing him. Musashi then hastily retreated to his boat and sailed away. This was Musashi's last fatal duel.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Among other things, this conventional account, drawn from the "Nitenki", "Kensetsu", and Yoshida Seiken's account, has some problems. Kenji Tokitsu discusses a number of obscurities and counterintuitive claims that have been identified in the account by him and previous scholars. Would Musashi only prepare his "bokuto" "while" going to the duel site? Could he even have prepared it in time, working the hard wood with his "wakizashi"? Would that work not have tired him as well? Further, why was the island then renamed after Sasaki, and not Musashi? Other texts completely omit the "late arrival" portion of the story or change the sequence of actions altogether. Harada Mukashi and a few other scholars believe that Sasaki was actually assassinated by Musashi and his students – the Sasaki clan apparently was a political obstacle to Lord Hosokawa, and defeating Sasaki would have been a political setback to his religious and political foes.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: The debate still rages today as to whether or not Musashi cheated in order to win that fateful duel or merely used the environment to his advantage. Another theory is that Musashi timed the hour of his arrival to match the turning of the tide. He expected to be pursued by Sasaki's supporters in the event of a victory. The tide carried him to the island, then it turned by the time the fight ended. Musashi immediately jumped back in his boat and his flight was thus helped by the tide.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: Sasaki's favored weapon during combat was a straight-edged "nodachi" with a blade-length of over 90 cm (2 feet, 11.5 inches). As a comparison, the average blade length of the regular "katana" is usually 70  cm (2 feet, 3 inches) but rarely longer. It was called "monohoshizao" (Clothes/Laundry-Drying Pole, 物干し竿, often translated into English as "The Drying Pole"). Despite the sword's length and weight, Kojirō's strikes with the weapon were unusually quick and precise.


title: Sasaki Kojirō

text: His favourite technique was both respected and feared throughout feudal Japan. It was called the "Turning Swallow Cut" or "Tsubame Gaeshi" (燕返し, "Swallow Reversal / Return"), and was so named because it mimicked the motion of a swallow's tail during flight as observed at Kintaibashi Bridge in Iwakuni. This cut was reputedly so quick and precise that it could strike down a bird in mid-flight. There are no direct descriptions of the technique, but it "was" compared to two other techniques current at the time: the Ittō-ryū's "Kinshi Cho Ōken" and the Ganryū "Kosetsu To"; respectively the two involved fierce and swift cuts downward and then immediately upwards. Hence, the "Turning Swallow Cut" has been reconstructed as a technique involving striking downward from above and then instantly striking again in an upward motion from below. The strike's second phase could be from below toward the rear and then upward at an angle, like an eagle climbing again after swooping down on its prey. Sasaki created this technique around 1605.


title: Sandara Park

text: Sandara Park ( English pronunciation: ; born November 12, 1984), also known by her stage name Dara (Korean: 다라 English pronunciation: ), is a South Korean singer, actress and television presenter. She rose to fame in the Philippines as a contestant on the talent show "Star Circle Quest" in 2004, after which she had a successful acting and singing career before returning to South Korea in 2007. She made her South Korean debut in 2009 as a member of the K-pop group 2NE1, which went on to become one of the best-selling girl groups of all time before their disbandment in 2016.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park is one of the most popular South Korean celebrities in the Philippines, where she is known by fans as the "Pambansang Krung-Krung" ("National Crazy Personality"). She is considered an influential figure in the Korean wave, and has been called the "BoA of the Philippines" in reference to South Korean singer BoA who also experienced great success abroad.


title: Sandara Park

text: In 2004, Park released her first EP, "Sandara", which sold over 100,000 physical copies, making it the only album by a South Korean artist to be certified platinum by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI). She acted in several Philippine films between 2004 and 2007, including "Bcuz of U", for which she won the award for Best New Actress the 21st PMPC Star Award for Movies. In 2009, Park debuted as a member of 2NE1 with the single "Fire", which immediately catapulted the group to fame. She also released her first Korean single, "Kiss", featuring fellow 2NE1 member CL, in 2009. The group's hiatus beginning in 2015 allowed Park to focus on her television career, co-hosting the South Korean variety show "Two Yoo Project Sugar Man", and appearing as a judge on the Philippine talent show "Pinoy Boyband Superstar". She also acted in several web series, including "Dr. Ian" (2016), for which she won Best Actress at a Korean web festival.


title: Sandara Park

text: Following 2NE1's disbandment at the end of 2016, Park renewed her contract with YG Entertainment. She would later leave YG following her contract expiration in May 2021. Abyss Company announced in September that Park would be joining the agency.


title: Sandara Park

text: Sandara Park was born on November 12, 1984, in Busan, South Korea. Her unusual three-syllable given name means "wise and clever" and is based on the childhood nickname of 7th century general Gim Yu-sin. She has two siblings: Thunder, who is a former member of K-pop boy group MBLAQ, and a younger sister named Durami.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park's family moved to Daegu in 1993. However, Park's father was unable to make ends meet, and the family moved to the Philippines in hopes of rebuilding his career in 1994. According to Park, she was initially lonely in the Philippines because she wasn't fluent in Filipino, the national language, and her pronunciation of the language was not good. She later said she worked hard to correct her pronunciation in hopes of one day becoming a celebrity, which was a dream she had harbored since hearing K-pop boy band Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992.


title: Sandara Park

text: In 2004, Park met Filipina actress Pauleen Luna, who encouraged Park to audition for "Star Circle Quest", a talent search television program on ABS-CBN. Over the course of the season, Park escaped elimination several times, and reached the final ten contestants. During the last elimination round, Park received approximately half a million text votes and finished in second place, behind Hero Angeles.


title: Sandara Park

text: After the show, Park signed a contract with ABS-CBN subsidiary, Star Magic. In 2004, she starred in her first film, the romantic comedy "Bcuz of U", opposite Hero Angeles. For her performance, Park won Best New Actress at the 21st PMPC Star Award for Movies. Park and Hero Angeles collaborated again for the 2005 movie "Can This Be Love", which reportedly grossed almost 100 million pesos. Her third movie was 2006's "D' Lucky Ones", in which she was paired with "Star Circle Quest" alumnus, Joseph Bitangcol. In the same year, her fourth, "Super Noypi", was shown in December and was an official entry in the 32nd Metro Manila Film Festival.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park also embarked on a music career in the Philippines that led to the release of her self-titled six-track album, "Sandara", which included the novelty dance hit "In or Out", a song that parodied her experiences on "Star Circle Quest". The album ultimately sold over 100,000 physical copies, making it the only album by a South Korean artist to be certified platinum by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park left the Filipino show business and returned to South Korea with her family in 2007, as she was not offered to renew her contract with Star Magic. Shortly after, she signed a contract with YG Entertainment, whose CEO Yang Hyun-suk had scouted her back in 2004 after she appeared on a KBS documentary.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park took on the stage name Dara, and together with Bom, CL and Minzy, debuted as K-pop girl group 2NE1 in 2009. The group collaborated with label-mates Big Bang for the promotional single "Lollipop", before officially debuting with their first single "Fire". That same year, the group released their first EP, "2NE1," and achieved significant success with the hit single "I Don't Care", which won the Song of the Year award at the 2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park also made her solo Korean debut in 2009. She was featured on the single "Hello" from Big Bang member G-Dragon's album "Heartbreaker", and later released her first solo single, "Kiss", which featured fellow 2NE1 member CL as a rapper. The song was used in a video promoting Cass Beer, which Park starred in alongside actor Lee Min-ho. The video became popular for a kissing scene between the two performers, and the single topped South Korean music charts. Park again teamed up with a Big Bang member in 2010, when she made an appearance as the female lead in Taeyang's "I Need A Girl" music video.


title: Sandara Park

text: During this era, 2NE1 continued to release hit albums and songs, including "I Am the Best" (2011), "I Love You" (2012) and "Falling in Love" (2013), which topped the charts in South Korea and made the group the second South Korean artists after Psy to top the U.S. Billboard World Digital Songs chart.


title: Sandara Park

text: As a result of 2NE1's growing fame, Park's earlier Philippine movies "Bcuz of U", "Can This Be Love", and "D' Lucky Ones" were screened in South Korea in 2012.


title: Sandara Park

text: In May 2014, ABS-CBN announced that Park would be a guest on "Pinoy Big Brother", which set off a social media frenzy, dominating both the Philippines and worldwide Twitter trending topics. She guest-starred on the show on May 15, and later appeared as a celebrity house-guest in the telecast, "All In Über," during its live episode. Park also appeared on "Gandang Gabi, Vice!", a Philippine talk show hosted by Vice Ganda.


title: Sandara Park

text: Back in South Korea, Park replaced close friend Yoo In-na as a DJ for her "Let's Crank Up the Volume" radio program from May to June due to scheduling clashes. Later in the year, Park made a surprise cameo appearance as a top actress in the last episode of the highly rated Korean drama "My Love from the Star".


title: Sandara Park

text: On November 12, 2014, BeFunny Studios made an unannounced release of a three-part mini web series starring "The Walking Dead"'s Steven Yeun and Park, titled "What's eating Steven Yeun". Park played the role of Steven Yeun's American girlfriend who is left behind as her boyfriend pursues a career in "Mokbang", a popular Korean internet broadcast where generally attractive people paid to eat in front of a webcam. The comedy sketch went viral, and reached over a million views in the few days after release.


title: Sandara Park

text: In 2015, seven years after her last acting role, Park returned to the small screen through the web-drama "Dr. Ian", starring alongside Kim Young-kwang. Expectations were high as the series featured Park in her first leading role since returning to South Korea, coupled with the involvement of director Kwon Hyeok-chan ("Secret Garden", "Master's Sun"). The series enjoyed global popularity, not only in Korea but also in the United States, Taiwan, and Thailand, surpassing 500,000 views within three days of its broadcasting. Park became the first actress to win the "Best Actress" award at the K-web festival for her performance.


title: Sandara Park

text: The same month, Park featured in label-mate Jinusean's stage for their single "Tell Me", on "You Hee-yeol's Sketchbook". Her natural performance impressed the group which led to a second collaboration, where Park featured on their "Tell Me One More Time" comeback stage in place of the original singer, Jang Hana, on KBS2's "Music Bank" on May 1.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park then took on her second leading role in "We Broke Up", a web-drama based upon a web-toon of the same name. She played the role of Noh Woo-ri, an optimistic and bright girl preparing to get a job. Premiering in June, the series was a success, becoming the fourth most watched web-drama on Naver with 16 million views. Due to the positive reception, the cast held a personal 'mini concert' on August 17. Park also made cameo appearances in the television series "The Producers", playing a fictional "2 Days & 1 Night" variety program cast member alongside her "We Broke Up" co-star Kang Seung-yoon.


title: Sandara Park

text: On September 15, 2015, Park was cast opposite "Goong" star Kim Jeong-hoon in "Missing Korea", a romantic-comedy set in the fictional year of 2020, in which the North and South are working towards unification through non-governmental exchanges and economic cooperation, leading to the first-ever 'North-South Joint Miss Korea Pageant'. Though not as successful on the global market as her previous web-dramas, Park received acting recognition and earned her another nomination for "Best Actress" in the 2016 K-web festival, making her the first idol-turned-actress to be nominated for the award in succeeding years.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park later joined JTBC variety show "Sugar Man" from 2015 to 2016, alongside Yoo Jae-suk, You Hee-yeol, and Kim Eana as a co-host. The first episode was broadcast on October 20. The production team stated, "We think that Sandara Park has a unique strength that encompasses the emotions of the younger generation and the memories of the older generation. We predict she will actively radiate new, never-before-seen charms." Through her involvement as YG Entertainment's public relations director, artists such as Akmu, Winner, iKon, and Lee Hi were able to perform on the show, and during an episode for which she wasn't present, friend and fellow actress Yoo In-na replaced her.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park started the year 2016 with a special appearance in the MBC drama "One More Happy Ending", as a beloved but spoiled star of a popular girl group. The producer of the drama expressed the difficulty of casting an actress who could play the role, as the character's beauty was meant to overshadow characters played by actresses like Yoo In-na, Jang Na-ra, Yoo Da-in, and Seo In-young. It was because of Yoo In-na that they came in contact and the matter was resolved. Park also participated in the promotional single "Loving U" as part of the drama's soundtrack. Park was officially promoted from being YG Entertainment's public relations head to director. Park then joined the judging panel of ABS-CBN's reality singing competition show "Pinoy Boyband Superstar", alongside Filipino top stars Yeng Constantino, Vice Ganda, and Aga Muhlach. The show is based on the format created by Simon Cowell and was first shown in U.S. through "La Banda". The show premiered on September 10, and became the most watched weekend program, and the second highest program in television viewership nationwide. As the show was still filming the day after 2NE1 announced their disbandment, Park became the first member to respond after the event by handing a handwritten letter in English to fans on November 26, 2016, and allowing them to upload the contents on her behalf. YG also revealed that Park and CL had signed solo contracts, hinting at the departure of Park Bom from the company.


title: Sandara Park

text: In 2017, Park became the host of OnStyle's beauty program "Get It Beauty", alongside Honey Lee and Gugudan's Kim Se-jeong. Park then starred alongside Han Jae-suk in her domestic debut film "One Step". Billed as the Korean remake of "Begin Again", she portrayed Si-hyun, a convenience store part-timer who seeks out a mysterious melody she hears every night in her dreams, and meets the producer of an Internet broadcasting program who tries to help her find out the music. The film premiered in South Korea on April 6, 2017, and opened on May 10, in the Philippines. She received acting praise from its director, Jeon Jae-hong, who noted that she only had one retake during the filming process due to her professionalism. Park participated in another OnStyle project titled "Relationship Appeal", where she reviewed trending topics and travel to popular tourist spots. Controversy arose when rude remarks directed at Park were made during MBC's "SeMoBang: All Broadcasting in the World" collaboration segment with Piki Pictures mobile variety team 'This is Real'. The concept was for the MCs to 'overhear' the constructive criticism of everyday netizens (picked by the 'This is Real' team) by separating the two groups with a thin wall. Viewers who watched the program criticized the teams selection and expressed discomfort with the remarks as they were believed to be personal attacks made in a subjective way. Piki Pictures issued an apology soon after and MBC deleted the video featuring the incident. Park closed the year by performing 2NE1's past hits in a solo headlining concert, one year after the band's disbandment.


title: Sandara Park

text: Park scored her first mainstream big screen role in the film adaption of the popular webtoon "Cheese in the Trap" as the heroine's best friend, Jang Bo-ra. The film premiered exclusively in CGV theatres on March 14, and placed among the top five at the weekend box office. This was followed by a leading role in an indie Vampire action film directed by Lee Won Jun, titled "107th Year of Night", which went on to win the category “Foreign Suspense Thriller Award” at the 2018 International Horror Hotel Festival for the Short Film Division at Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.. The year also continued Park's increased regular appearances on television with "Mimi Shop", "Borrowing Trouble", and MBC's "Real Man 300."