title: Tetrodotoxin

text: Poisoning from tetrodotoxin is of particular public health concern in Japan, where "fugu" is a traditional delicacy. It is prepared and sold in special restaurants where trained and licensed chefs carefully remove the viscera to reduce the danger of poisoning. There is potential for misidentification and mislabelling, particularly of prepared, frozen fish products.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: The mouse bioassay developed for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) can be used to monitor tetrodotoxin in pufferfish and is the current method of choice. An HPLC method with post-column reaction with alkali and fluorescence has been developed to determine tetrodotoxin and its associated toxins. The alkali degradation products can be confirmed as their trimethylsilyl derivatives by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: Tetrodotoxin may be quantified in serum, whole blood or urine to confirm a diagnosis of poisoning in hospitalized patients or to assist in the forensic investigation of a case of fatal overdosage. Most analytical techniques involve mass spectrometric detection following gas or liquid chromatographic separation.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: Tetrodotoxin has been investigated as a possible treatment for cancer-associated pain. Early clinical trials demonstrate significant pain relief in some patients.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: In addition to the cancer pain application mentioned, mutations in one particular TTX-sensitive Na channel are associated with some migraine headaches, although it is unclear as to whether this has any therapeutic relevance for most people with migraine.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: In the U.S., tetrodotoxin appears on the select agents list of the Department of Health and Human Services, and scientists must register with HHS to use tetrodotoxin in their research. However, investigators possessing less than 500 mg are exempt from regulation.


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: Tetrodotoxin serves as a plot device for characters to fake death, as in the films "Hello Again" (1987), "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (1988), "The A-Team" (2010) and "" (2014), War (2019), and in episodes of “Jane the Virgin”, "Miami Vice" (1985), "Nikita", "MacGyver" Season 7, Episode 6, where the antidote is "Datura stramonium" leaf, "" (Season 4, episode 9 "Boo") and "Chuck". In "Law Abiding Citizen" (2009) and "Alex Cross" (2012), its paralysis is presented as a method of assisting torture. The toxin was also referenced in "synthetic form" in the S1E2 of the series "FBI". The toxin is used as a weapon in both the second season of "Archer", in "Covert Affairs" and in the "Inside No. 9" episode "The Riddle of the Sphinx".


title: Tetrodotoxin

text: Based on the presumption that tetrodotoxin is not always fatal, but at near-lethal doses can leave a person extremely unwell with the person remaining conscious, tetrodotoxin has been alleged to result in zombieism, and has been suggested as an ingredient in Haitian Vodou preparations. This idea first appeared in the 1938 non-fiction book "Tell My Horse" by Zora Neale Hurston in which there were multiple accounts of purported tetrodotoxin poisoning in Haiti by a voodoo sorcerer called the Bokor. These stories were later popularized by Harvard-trained ethnobotanist Wade Davis in his 1985 book and Wes Craven's 1988 film, both titled "The Serpent and the Rainbow". James Ellroy includes "blowfish toxin" as an ingredient in Haitian Vodou preparations to produce zombieism and poisoning deaths in his dark, disturbing, violent novel "Blood's a Rover". But this theory has been questioned by the scientific community since the 1990s based on analytical chemistry-based tests of multiple preparations and review of earlier reports (see above).


title: Thompson Twins

text: Thompson Twins were a British pop band formed in 1977 in Sheffield. Initially a new wave group, they switched to a more mainstream pop sound and achieved considerable popularity during the mid-1980s, scoring a string of hits in the United Kingdom, the United States, and around the world. In 1993, they changed their name to Babble, to reflect their change in music from pop to dub-influenced chill-out. They continued as Babble until 1996, at which point the group permanently broke up.


title: Thompson Twins

text: The band's name was based on the two bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson (who are not twins) in the English language version of Hergé's comic strip "The Adventures of Tintin". At various stages they had up to seven members, but their best known line-up was as a trio between 1982 and 1986. The band became a prominent act in the US during the Second British Invasion, and in 1985 performed at Live Aid in Philadelphia, where they were joined onstage by Madonna.


title: Thompson Twins

text: In 1977, the original Thompson Twins line-up consisted of Tom Bailey (born 18 January 1956, Halifax, West Yorkshire) on bass guitar and vocals, Pete Dodd on guitar and vocals, John Roog on guitar, and Jon Podgorski (known as "Pod") on drums. Dodd and Roog first met when they were both 13 years old.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Arriving in London with very little money, they lived as squatters in Lillieshall Road, Clapham. Future Thompson Twins member Alannah Currie (born 20 September 1957, Auckland, New Zealand) lived in another squat in the same street, which is how she met Bailey. In this house they found an illegal way of accessing electricity from the house next door. Bailey described them, laughingly, as having been "spongers" at the time, for they were living on very little money, and scavenging everything they could lay their hands on. He even said that the only instruments they had were bought, or had been stolen or borrowed. Dodd managed to get a council flat not far away. Their roadie at that time was John Hade, who lived in the same house, and who later became their manager.


title: Thompson Twins

text: As Podgorski had decided to stay in the north, the group auditioned for drummers at the Point Studio in Victoria, London. Andrew Edge joined them on drums for 18 months, and went on to join Savage Progress, who later toured with the Thompson Twins as the support act on the band's 1984 UK tour.


title: Thompson Twins

text: In 1980, the band (now consisting of Bailey, Dodd, Roog and drummer Chris Bell, who had replaced Edge the previous year) released their first single, "Squares and Triangles", on their own Dirty Discs label. A follow-up single, "She's in Love with Mystery", was issued later that year.


title: Thompson Twins

text: In 1981, the line-up became Bailey, Dodd, Roog, Bell and two new members: former band roadie Joe Leeway on congas and percussion, and Jane Shorter on saxophone. This line-up recorded the debut Thompson Twins studio album "A Product Of... (Participation)", documented in the film "Listen to London" (1981). Currie, who had been associated with the band for a few years, played and sang on their debut studio album, but was not yet a full member.


title: Thompson Twins

text: After their debut studio album, the band's line-up shifted yet again. Saxophonist Jane Shorter left and was replaced by Currie (who also played percussion), and bassist Matthew Seligman, a former member of the Soft Boys and the Fallout Club, joined; leaving Bailey to switch to keyboards, with Leeway starting to handle lead vocals on some tracks.


title: Thompson Twins

text: The band signed a recording contract with Arista Records and released their second studio album "Set". Thomas Dolby played some keyboards on "Set" and some live gigs, for Bailey at that time had little experience with synthesizers. "Set" contained the single "In the Name of Love", sung and largely written by Bailey. It became a No. 1 dance club hit in the US, and an album titled "In the Name of Love" (consisting mainly of tracks from "Set", with two others from "A Product Of... (Participation)") was released in the US to capitalize on the song's popularity. It entered the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Thompson Twins

text: After the success of "In the Name of Love", Bailey, Currie and Leeway, wanting to pursue the single's different sound, toyed with the idea of starting a new band on the side, which they planned to call 'The Bermuda Triangle'. When "In the Name of Love" (and its parent studio album "Set") failed to make a substantial impact in the UK record charts, this plan was abandoned. However, at the same time, manager Hade convinced Bailey, Leeway and Currie to downsize the Thompson Twins to a core of the three in April 1982. Accordingly, the other four members of the band were notified that the band was breaking up; they were each paid £500 and were allowed to keep their instruments and equipment in exchange for an understanding not to perform together under the name "Thompson Twins".


title: Thompson Twins

text: The remaining Thompson Twins, who had not in fact broken up, decided to go abroad to free themselves of any UK influence, as well as to combine the songwriting for their first studio album as a trio with a long holiday. They first went to Egypt and then to the Bahamas, where they recorded at Compass Point Studios in Nassau with record producer Alex Sadkin.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Bailey commented on the band's reduction to a trio in a 1983 interview: "When we reformed the band, we were making a statement. We weren't going to be a rock 'n' roll band, we weren't going to have a guitar. We were going to move on. You know, Lou Reed said whenever he played live he ended up going back to heroin music. There are old associations, associations we don't want because they don't reflect the way we feel today. ... Right now, technology is what's important, and that's what our music tries to reflect."


title: Thompson Twins

text: The band broke into the UK Singles Chart and the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart at the beginning of 1983 with "Lies" and "Love On Your Side", which became the band's first UK Top 10 single. They then released their third studio album, "Quick Step & Side Kick" (called simply "Side Kicks" in the US), which peaked at number 2 in the UK and was later certified platinum. Further singles followed with "We Are Detective" (another Top 10 UK hit) and "Watching" (UK No. 33). All three band members worked collectively on songwriting with Currie providing lyrics and Bailey melodies. In addition Leeway was responsible for stagecraft, Currie for music videos and imagery and Bailey for musicianship and production. During 1983, the band had the opening spot on the Police's concert tour in the US.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Reduced to a trio, a logo representing each member was created by designer Andy Airfix and was voted the 4th best logo out of 13 by "Classic Pop Magazine".


title: Thompson Twins

text: "Hold Me Now" was released in late 1983. The song was an international chart success, peaking at No. 4 in their native UK where it became the band's biggest seller earning a gold disc, and reached No. 3 in the US in the spring of 1984 becoming their biggest American hit.


title: Thompson Twins

text: The band's fourth studio album, "Into the Gap", was released in February 1984 and became one of the year's biggest sellers, selling five million copies worldwide. It topped the UK Albums Chart and was later certified double platinum there. Further hit singles from the album followed with "Doctor! Doctor!" (UK No. 3) and "You Take Me Up" (UK No. 2, their highest UK singles chart placing and which earned a silver disc). Other singles included a new version of the album track "Sister of Mercy" (UK No. 11), and "The Gap" (though this was not released in the UK). The band embarked on a world tour in support of the album, which had also made the US top ten.


title: Thompson Twins

text: A brand new single, "Lay Your Hands on Me", was released in the UK in late 1984 and reached No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart. Following this, the band parted company with their producer Alex Sadkin and opted to produce their fifth studio album, "Here's to Future Days", by themselves in Paris. However, in March 1985, while promoting their new single "Roll Over" and the forthcoming studio album, Bailey collapsed in his London hotel room from nervous exhaustion. The "Roll Over" single was then cancelled at the last minute and the new album postponed. Though the band had chosen to produce themselves, the postponement caused them to rethink the project and producer Nile Rodgers was subsequently called in to rework the album with them. The album was eventually released in September 1985, reaching the UK Top 5 and US Top 20, though failed to come close to the success of "Into the Gap". It was preceded by the single "Don't Mess with Doctor Dream" (UK No. 15) and followed by the single "King for a Day", which peaked at No. 22 in the UK, but reached No. 8 on the US chart. Other singles included a new US version of "Lay Your Hands on Me" (US No. 6), and a cover of the Beatles' 1968 hit "Revolution", which failed to make the UK Top 40.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Prior to the album's release, the Thompson Twins performed on the American leg of Live Aid in July 1985 and were joined onstage by Madonna. The planned summer 1985 tour of the UK (and a headlining appearance at the Glastonbury Festival) had to be cancelled due to Bailey's health problems (fans with tickets received a free live album as compensation), though international dates were rescheduled and the latter half of 1985 saw sell out tours for the band in the US and Japan. A second planned tour of the UK in 1985 was also scrapped due to the promoter declaring bankruptcy.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Leeway left the band in 1986, and the remaining duo of Bailey and Currie carried on making music for another seven years. The act's first release as a duo was the North America-only single "Nothing in Common", released in July 1986. It peaked at No. 54 in the US, and No. 68 in Canada.


title: Thompson Twins

text: 1987 saw the release of their sixth studio album "Close to the Bone" and the single "Get That Love", which climbed to No. 31 in the US but only reached No. 66 in the UK. The album was a commercial flop. It spent only one week on the UK Albums Chart at No. 90 and yielded no further chart singles.


title: Thompson Twins

text: "In the Name of Love" was given a new lease on life in 1988, after a remix by Shep Pettibone made the Top 50 in the UK. 1989 saw the release of another studio album, "Big Trash", and a new recording contract with Warner Bros. Records. The single "Sugar Daddy" peaked at No. 28 in the US and would be their last brush with mainstream chart success. 1991's "Queer" would be the band's swansong, and was supported by various techno-inspired singles under the moniker of Feedback Max (in the UK) to disguise the identity of the band to club DJs. The single "Come Inside" reached No. 7 in the US Dance Chart and No. 1 in the UK Dance Chart.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Prior to this, Bailey and Currie (who were now a couple) had their first child together in 1988, and in the following years they spent a lot of time writing material for other artists including the hit single "I Want That Man" for Deborah Harry of Blondie in 1989. In 1990, Bailey and Currie contributed the song "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" to the Cole Porter tribute album "Red Hot + Blue" produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1991, Bailey and Currie were married in Las Vegas, US and the following year moved to New Zealand. In 1992, the Thompson Twins contributed the song "Play with Me" to the soundtrack of the Ralph Bakshi film "Cool World"; Bailey alone contributed a second track, "Industry and Seduction". The following year, the duo teamed up with engineer Keith Fernley and changed their band name to Babble. They released two studio albums: "The Stone" (1993) and "Ether" (1996).


title: Thompson Twins

text: Thompson Twins declined to follow the example of many of their contemporaries and reform in order to tie in with a trend of nostalgia for the 1980s, although Bailey, Currie and Leeway appeared together on the UK Channel 4 show "Top Ten Electro Bands" in 2001. Thompson Twins were placed ninth.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Babble released two studio albums, "The Stone" (1993) and "Ether" (1996), with songs featured in the films "Coneheads" (1993) and "With Honors" (1994).


title: Thompson Twins

text: In the mid-1990s, Currie gave up the music business to set up her own glass-casting studio in Auckland and concentrated on raising her two children. In 2001, she founded and ran the anti-genetic engineering group called MAdGE (Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in food and the environment), and networked thousands of women across New Zealand in a resistance movement, aimed at keeping the biotech industry from using New Zealand as an experimental playground. Currie described this group as a "rapidly growing network of politically non-aligned women who are actively resisting the use of genetically-engineered material in our food and on our land". During that time she designed a billboard to spark a debate on the ethics of genetically modifying cows with human genes to produce a new milk. The billboard, featuring a young woman with four breasts hooked up to a milking machine, caused huge controversy but won several international art awards. Bailey and Currie divorced in 2003, and both left New Zealand to live separately in the UK. Currie later married Jimmy Cauty (formerly of the KLF) and now lives and works in London. She is a visual artist who works under the pseudonym "Miss Pokeno", as well as the Armchair Destructivists and The Sisters of Perpetual Resistance. As well as several solo shows in London her work has also been exhibited at both the Guildhall Art Gallery and the Geffrye Museum.


title: Thompson Twins

text: In 1999, Bailey produced and played keyboards on the studio album "Mix" by the New Zealand band Stellar, and won the Producer of the Year Award at the 2000 New Zealand Music Awards. He has also arranged soundtracks and has provided instrumental music for several films. He continues to make music under the moniker International Observer and has released the studio albums "Seen" (2001), "All Played Out" (2005), and "Felt" (2009). He also performs with the Holiwater group from India. He began performing live again as Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey in 2014 and has since toured the UK, North America and Japan. In 2016 he released his debut solo single, "Come So Far". In 2018 Bailey released his debut solo studio album titled "Science Fiction".


title: Thompson Twins

text: After leaving the Thompson Twins in 1986, Leeway briefly dabbled in acting and attempted a solo music career, though neither were successful. , he resides in Los Angeles, and works in the field of hypnotherapy. He is on the staff at the Hypnosis Motivation Institute (HMI) in the Los Angeles district of Tarzana, and is also a certified trainer in neuro-linguistic programming.


title: Thompson Twins

text: Bailey performed Thompson Twins songs live for the first time in 27 years on 17 August 2014 at Temple Island Meadows, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, for the Rewind South Festival.


title: Thompson Twins

text: In 2014, Bailey also took part in the Retro Futura Tour in the US, along with Howard Jones, Midge Ure, China Crisis and Katrina Leskanich formerly of Katrina and the Waves.


title: Thompson Twins

text: He continues to tour internationally, under the moniker "Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey," performing in the UK and also in North America in 2016.


title: Thompson Twins

text: On 3 September 2022, Bailey performed the entire 'Into the Gap' studio album for the first time ever along with his band consisting of Alice Offley (bass guitar and backing vocals), Charlotte Raven (keyboards and cello) and Paulina Szczepaniak (drums and percussion) collectively known as 'The Sisters of Mercy' in Aylesbury, UK (at the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre) to a sold out audience.


title: Thompson Twins

text: This performance also featured a surprise full live performance of Thompson Twins hit "We Are Detective". Bailey had produced a reimagined purely instrumental version of the song that had served as the band's walk-on music for live performances since 2014, but this was the first time the full song appeared as part of the actual set since Bailey's return to performing Thompson Twins material. Alice Offley performed Alannah Currie's vocal parts, in addition to playing bass.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto (, "") was the ruler of the Greek underworld. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. "Ploutōn" was frequently conflated with Ploûtos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. The name "Ploutōn" came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as "Plouton" and as "Kore" respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Pluto and Hades differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the sea. His central narrative in myth is of him abducting Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm. "Plouton" as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: "Plūtō" (; genitive "Plūtōnis") is the Latinized form of the Greek "Plouton". Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean "Rich Father" and is perhaps a direct translation of "Plouton." Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. "Pluto" ("Pluton" in French and German, "Plutone" in Italian) becomes the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld in subsequent Western literature and other art forms.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The name "Plouton" does not appear in Greek literature of the Archaic period. In Hesiod's "Theogony", the six children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. "Ploutos", "Wealth," appears in the "Theogony" as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the "Odyssey", took place in a fallow field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility. "The resemblance of the name "Ploutos" to "Plouton" ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility." Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is already evident in Hesiod's "Works and Days", line 465–469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: "Plouton" was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the "Iliad" as the god most hateful to mortals. Plato says that people prefer the name "Plouton", "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking. The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it." What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods "Plouton" and "Ploutos" ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia), by means of which "Plouton" is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Roman poet Ennius ("ca." 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus. It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, and that "Dis pater" was only a translation of "Plouton". In the mid-1st century BC, Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as "Dives", 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek "Plouton". This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: During the Roman Imperial era, the Greek geographer Strabo (1st century AD) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below." In the discourse "On Mourning" by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss "(chasma)"; the name "Hades" is reserved for the underworld itself.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" ("Zeus Chthonios" or "Zeus Catachthonios"), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld. In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number of other deities, including Summanus, the Roman god of nocturnal thunder; Februus, the Roman god from whose purification rites the month of February takes its name and an Etruscans god of the underworld the syncretic god Serapis, regarded as Pluto's Egyptian equivalent; and the Semitic god Muth (Μούθ). Muth was described by Philo of Byblos as the equivalent of both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto. The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's "Theogony" and the extended narrative of the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter;" in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One"). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized. Increased usage of the name "Plouton" in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore. Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the "Library" of "Apollodorus" (1st century BC) and the Latin "Fables" of Hyginus ("ca." 64 BC–AD 17).


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The most influential version of the abduction myth is that of Ovid (d. 17 or 18 AD), who tells the story in both the "Metamorphoses" (Book 5) and the "Fasti" (Book 4). Another major retelling, also in Latin, is the long unfinished poem "De raptu Proserpinae" ("On the Abduction of Proserpina") by Claudian (d. 404 AD). Ovid uses the name "Dis", not "Pluto" in these two passages, and Claudian uses "Pluto" only once; translators and editors, however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the source text. The abduction myth was a popular subject for Greek and Roman art, and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common (see Pluto in Western art and literature below). Narrative details from Ovid and Claudian influence these later versions in which the abductor is named as Pluto, especially the role of Venus and Cupid in manipulating Pluto with love and desire. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and certainly by the time of Natale Conti's influential "Mythologiae" (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a single mythology that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is monogamous, and is rarely said to have children. In Orphic texts, the chthonic nymph Melinoe is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto, and the Eumenides ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and "Zeus Chthonios", often identified as Pluto. The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of the Furies, but the mother is the goddess Nox (Nyx), not his wife Persephone.The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Justin Martyr (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them. Hesychius (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto." In his 14th-century mythography, Boccaccio records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In "The Faerie Queene" (1590s), Edmund Spenser invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera. The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek "phosphor", "light-bearer," a regular epithet of Hecate. Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into "The Faerie Queene".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Orpheus was regarded as a founder and prophet of the mysteries called "Orphic," "Dionysiac," or "Bacchic." Mythologized for his ability to entrance even animals and trees with his music, he was also credited in antiquity with the authorship of the lyrics that have survived as the "Orphic Hymns", among them a hymn to Pluto. Orpheus's voice and lyre-playing represented a medium of revelation or higher knowledge for the mystery cults.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In his central myth, Orpheus visits the underworld in the hope of retrieving his bride, Eurydice, relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus's descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as "Plouton", as for instance in the "Bibliotheca". The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto "the Rich" as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the classical tradition.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The demonstration of Orpheus's power depends on the normal obduracy of Pluto; the Augustan poet Horace describes him as incapable of tears. Claudian, however, portrays the steely god as succumbing to Orpheus's song so that "with iron cloak he wipes his tears" "(ferrugineo lacrimas deterget amictu)", an image renewed by Milton in "Il Penseroso" (106–107): "Such notes ... / Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Greek writer Lucian ("ca." 125–after 180 AD) suggests that Pluto's love for his wife gave the ruler of the underworld a special sympathy or insight into lovers parted by death. In one of Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead", Pluto questions Protesilaus, the first Greek hero killed in the Trojan War, who wishes to return to the world of the living. "You are then in love with life?", Pluto asks. "Such lovers we have here in plenty; but they love an object, which none of them can obtain." Protesilaus explains, like an Orpheus in reverse, that he has left behind a young bride whose memory even the Lethe's waters of forgetting have not erased from him. Pluto assures him that death will reunite them someday, but Protesilaus argues that Pluto himself should understand love and its impatience, and reminds the king of his grant to Orpheus and to Alcestis, who took her husband's place in death and then was permitted at the insistence of Heracles to return to him. When Persephone intercedes for the dead warrior, Pluto grants the request at once, though allowing only one day for the reunion.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place. Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult, perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year. During the time of Plato, the Athenians periodically honored the god called "Plouton" with the "strewing of a couch" "(tên klinên strôsai)". At Eleusis, "Plouton" had his own priestess. Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God "(Theos)" and Goddess "(Thea)".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In the ritual texts of the mystery religions preserved by the so-called Orphic or Bacchic gold tablets, from the late 5th century BC onward the name "Hades" appears more frequently than "Plouton", but in reference to the underground place: "Plouton" is the ruler who presides over it in a harmonious partnership with Persephone. By the end of the 4th century BC, the name "Plouton" appears in Greek metrical inscriptions. Two fragmentary tablets greet Pluto and Persephone jointly, and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical epitaph:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones,the first and foremost honors, nurse, shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Hesychius identifies Pluto with Eubouleus, but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities. In the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return. In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's dream oracles; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The "Orphic Hymn to Pluto" addresses the god as "strong-spirited" and the "All-Receiver" who commands death and is the master of mortals. His titles are given as "Zeus Chthonios" and "Euboulos" ("Good Counsel"). In the hymn's topography, Pluto's dwelling is in Tartarus, simultaneously a "meadow" and "thick-shaded and dark," where the Acheron encircles "the roots of the earth." "Hades" is again the name of the place, here described as "windless," and its gates, through which Pluto carried "pure Demeter's daughter" as his bride, are located in an Attic cave within the district of Eleusis. The route from Persephone's meadow to Hades crosses the sea. The hymn concludes:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,You delight in the worshiper's respect and reverence.Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The hymn is one of several examples of Greco-Roman prayer that express a desire for the presence of a deity, and has been compared to a similar epiclesis in the "Acts of Thomas".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, with Hades typically referring to the underworld as a place, and Pluto regularly invoked as the partner of Persephone. Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "dates, figs, and a black pig" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic animal sacrifice to chthonic deities, whose victims were almost always black or dark in color.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All," sometimes taken as a title of Pluto, but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse. "Pasianax" is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a "daimon" like Abrasax.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a ploutonion (Latin "plutonium"). The complex at Eleusis for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two gods. Greek inscriptions record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis. One of the known ploutonia was in the sacred grove between Tralleis and Nysa, where a temple of Pluto and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and dream oracles. The ploutonion at Hierapolis, Phrygia, was connected to the rites of Cybele, but during the Roman Imperial era was subsumed by the cult of Apollo, as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle. The sites often seem to have been chosen because the presence of naturally occurring mephitic vapors was thought to indicate an opening to the underworld. In Italy, Avernus was considered an entrance to the underworld that produced toxic vapors, but Strabo seems not to think that it was a ploutonion.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian "Theos" in 5th-century vase painting that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a mature man, sometimes even white-haired; Hades is also usually bearded and mature, but his darkness is emphasized in literary descriptions, represented in art by dark hair. Plouton's most common attribute is a sceptre, but he also often holds a full or overflowing cornucopia; Hades sometimes holds a horn, but it is depicted with no contents and should be understood as a drinking horn. Unlike Plouton, Hades never holds agrarian attributes such as stalks of grain. His chest is usually bare or only partly covered, whereas Plouton is fully robed (exceptions, however, are admitted by the author). Plouton stands, often in the company of both Demeter and Kore, or sometimes one of the goddesses, but Hades almost always sits or reclines, usually with Persephone facing him. "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images remain.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the "Orphic Hymn to Pluto" are his scepter, keys, throne, and horses. In the hymn, the keys are connected to his capacity for giving wealth to humanity, specifically the agricultural wealth of "the year's fruits."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Pausanias explains the significance of Pluto's key in describing a wondrously carved cedar chest at the Temple of Hera in Elis. Numerous deities are depicted, with one panel grouping Dionysus, Persephone, the nymphs and Pluto. Pluto holds a key because "they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom." Natale Conti cites Pausanias in noting that keys are an attribute of Pluto as the scepter is of Jove (Greek Zeus) and the trident of Neptune (Poseidon).


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: A golden key "(chrusea klês)" was laid on the tongue of initiates by priests at Eleusis and was a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret. A key is among the attributes of other infernal deities such as Hecate, Anubis, and Persephone, and those who act as guardians or timekeepers, such as Janus and Aion. Aeacus "(Aiakos)", one of the three mortal kings who became judges in the afterlife, is also a "kleidouchos" (κλειδοῦχος), "holder of the keys," and a priestly doorkeeper in the court of Pluto and Persephone.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: According to the Stoic philosopher Cornutus (1st century AD), Pluto wore a wreath of "phasganion", more often called "xiphion", traditionally identified as a type of gladiolus. Dioscorides recorded medical uses for the plant. For extracting stings and thorns, "xiphion" was mixed with wine and frankincense to make a cataplasm. The plant was also used as an aphrodisiac and contraceptive. It grew in humid places. In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of "phasganion" to an etymology for Avernus, which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color "glaukos", "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves. Because the color could describe the sky, Cornutus regularly gives it divine connotations. Pluto's twin sister was named Glauca.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Ambiguity of color is characteristic of Pluto. Although both he and his realm are regularly described as dark, black, or gloomy, the god himself is sometimes seen as pale or having a pallor. Martianus Capella (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of Tartarean night," crowned with a wreath made of ebony as suitable for the kingdom he governs. The horses of Pluto are usually black, but Ovid describes them as "sky-colored" ("caeruleus", from "caelum", "sky"), which might be blue, greenish-blue, or dark blue.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti says wreaths of narcissus, maidenhair fern "(adianthus)", and cypress were given to Pluto. In the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter", Gaia (Earth) produced the narcissus at Zeus's request as a snare for Persephone; when she grasps it, a chasm opens up and the "Host to Many" (Hades) seizes her. Narcissus wreaths were used in early times to crown Demeter and Persephone, as well as the Furies (Eumenides). The flower was associated with narcotic drugginess ("narkê", "torpor"), erotic fascination, and imminent death; to dream of crowning oneself with narcissus was a bad sign. In the myth of Narcissus, the flower is created when a beautiful, self-absorbed youth rejects sexuality and is condemned to perpetual self-love along the Styx.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Conti's inclusion of "adianthus" ("Adiantum" in modern nomenclature) is less straightforward. The name, meaning "unmoistened" (Greek "adianton"), was taken in antiquity to refer to the fern's ability to repel water. The plant, which grew in wet places, was also called "capillus veneris", "hair of Venus," divinely dry when she emerged from the sea. Historian of medicine John M. Riddle has suggested that the "adianthus" was one of the ferns Dioscorides called "asplenon" and prescribed as a contraceptive "(atokios)". The associations of Proserpine (Persephone) and the maidenhair are alluded to by Samuel Beckett in a 1946 poem, in which the self is a Platonic cave with "", in French both "maidenhair fern" and "blood vessels".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The cypress (Greek "cyparissus", Latin "cupressus") has traditional associations with mourning. In ancient Attica, households in mourning were garlanded with cypress, and it was used to fumigate the air during cremations. In the myth of Cyparissus, a youth was transformed into a cypress, consumed by grief over the accidental death of a pet stag. A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the Orphic gold tablets as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the Tree of Life in various world mythologies. The description of the cypress as "white" (Greek "leukē"), since the botanical tree is dark, is symbolic, evoking the white garments worn by initiates or the clothing of a corpse, or the pallor of the dead. In Orphic funeral rites, it was forbidden to make coffins of cypress.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The tradition of the mystery religions favors Pluton/Hades as a loving and faithful partner to Persephone, but one ancient myth that preserves a lover for him parallels the abduction and also has a vegetative aspect. A Roman source says that Pluto fell in love with Leuca (Greek "Leukē", "White"), the most beautiful of the nymphs, and abducted her to live with him in his realm. After the long span of her life came to its end, he memorialized their love by creating a white tree in the Elysian Fields. The tree was the white poplar (Greek "leukē"), the leaves of which are white on one side and dark on the other, representing the duality of upper and underworld. A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his ascent from the underworld, an "aition" for why it was worn by initiates and by champion athletes participating in funeral games. Like other plants associated with Pluto, white poplar was regarded as a contraceptive in antiquity. The relation of this tree to the white cypress of the mysteries is debated.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The "Bibliotheca" of Pseudo-Apollodorus uses the name "Plouton" instead of "Hades" in relating the tripartite division of sovereignty, the abduction of Persephone, and the visit of Orpheus to the underworld. This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but adds that the three brothers were each given a gift by the Cyclopes to use in their battle against the Titans: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a trident; and Pluto a helmet "(kyneê)".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The helmet Pluto receives is presumably the magical Cap of Invisibility "(aidos kyneê)", but the "Bibliotheca" is the only ancient source that explicitly says it belonged to Pluto. The verbal play of "aidos", "invisible," and "Hades" is thought to account for this attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no ancient narratives record his use or possession of it. Later authors such as Rabelais (16th century) do attribute the helmet to Pluto. Erasmus calls it the "helmet of Orcus" and gives it as a figure of speech referring to those who conceal their true nature by a cunning device. Francis Bacon notes the proverbial usage: "the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel, and celerity in the execution."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: No ancient image of the ruler of the underworld can be said with certainty to show him with a bident, though the ornamented tip of his scepter may have been misunderstood at times as a bident. In the Roman world, the bident (from "bi-", "two" + "dent-", "teeth") was an agricultural implement. It may also represent one of the three types of lightning wielded by Jupiter, the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and the Etruscan Tinia. The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in Seneca's "Hercules Furens" ("Hercules Enraged"), in which Father Dis, the Roman counterpart of Pluto, uses a three-pronged spear to drive off Hercules as he attempts to invade Pylos. Seneca calls Dis the "Infernal Jove" or the "dire Jove" (the Jove who gives dire or ill omens, "dirae)", just as in the Greek tradition, "Plouton" is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus." That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantine scholiast, who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In the Middle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork. Early Christian writers had identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils. In the Renaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto. In an influential ceiling mural depicting the wedding of Cupid and Psyche, painted by Raphael's workshop for the Villa Farnesina in 1517, Pluto is shown holding the bident, with Cerberus at his side, while Neptune holds the trident. Perhaps influenced by this work, Agostino Carracci originally depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his painting "Pluto" (1592), in which the god ended up holding his characteristic key. In Caravaggio's "Giove, Nettuno e Plutone" (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based on alchemical allegory, it is Neptune who holds the bident.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The name "Plouton" is first used in Greek literature by Athenian playwrights. In Aristophanes' comedy "The Frogs" ("Batrachoi", 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive," the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of "Plouton". The play depicts a mock descent to the underworld by the god Dionysus to bring back one of the dead tragic playwrights in the hope of restoring Athenian theater to its former glory. Pluto is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the upper world. The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus, "wealth"). In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead", asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in [the] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of "Plouton", a giver of spiritual wealth. In the dialogue "Cratylus", Plato has Socrates explain the etymology of "Plouton", saying that Pluto gives wealth ("ploutos"), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath". Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible", people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond":


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing," death is not an evil. Walter Burkert thus sees Pluto as a "god of dissolution." Among the titles of Pluto was "Isodaitēs", "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the Moirai. "Isodaitēs" was also a cult title for Dionysus and Helios.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Pluto was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities. In the Attic calendar, the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was Skirophorion; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In the theogony of Euhemerus (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the early Christian writer Lactantius. Here the union of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of Cronus) and Ops, an Italic goddess of abundance, produces Jupiter (Greek Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune, Pluto, and Glauca:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Dis pater; some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan," Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of Diana conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis. This is the genealogy for Pluto that Boccaccio used in his "Genealogia Deorum Gentilium" and in his lectures explicating the "Divine Comedy" of Dante.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles, dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, Rhea gives birth to Pluto as she passes by Dodona, "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the Peneius. This is also called the Stygian river."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied, and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying Gnostic theogonies of late antiquity. Clementine literature (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on Hesiod, yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity Phanes is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the world-egg causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity ("plêthos") of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, "zeousa"). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called Metis, that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the ether, it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, "sunesis"), also called Pallas. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called Hera.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto. (In modern geochemistry, plutonium is the heaviest primordial element.) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; "Plouton" is here connected to "plêthos" (abundance).


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In the Stoic system, Pluto represented the lower region of the air, where according to Seneca (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of purgatory before ascending to the ether. Seneca's contemporary Cornutus made use of the traditional etymology of Pluto's name for Stoic theology. The Stoics believed that the form of a word contained the original truth of its meaning, which over time could become corrupted or obscured. "Plouton" derived from "ploutein", "to be wealthy," Cornutus said, because "all things are corruptible and therefore are 'ultimately consigned to him as his property.'"


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Within the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the moon (as represented by Persephone) and the sun. Neoplatonists sometimes interpreted the Eleusinian Mysteries as a "fabula" of celestial phenomena:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Authors tell the fable that Ceres was Proserpina's mother, and that Proserpina while playing one day was kidnapped by Pluto. Her mother searched for her with lighted torches; and it was decreed by Jupiter that the mother should have her daughter for fifteen days in the month, but Pluto for the rest, the other fifteen. This is nothing but that the name Ceres is used to mean the earth, called Ceres on analogy with "crees" ('you may create'), for all things are created from her. By Proserpina is meant the moon, and her name is on analogy with "prope serpens" ('creeping near'), for she is moved nearer to the earth than the other planets. She is called earth's daughter, because her substance has more of earth in it than of the other elements. By Pluto is meant the shadow that sometimes obstructs the moon.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: A dedicatory inscription from Smyrna describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of "Plouton Helios" and "Koure Selene", "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon." The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain." The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: "Plouton Helios" is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with "Koure Selene" and "Helios Apollon"; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. Apuleius describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina; it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be "Plouton Helios".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of "Helios Apollon" at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Pluto pose a dichotomy:


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: It has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a Pythagorean sodality or "brotherhood". The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to Platonism and Neoplatonism, is complex and much debated.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In the Hellenistic era, the title or epithet "Plutonius" is sometimes affixed to the names of other deities. In the Hermetic Corpus, Jupiter Plutonius "rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In Ptolemaic Alexandria, at the site of a dream oracle, Serapis was identified with Aion Plutonius. Gilles Quispel conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of Aion was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January. In Latin, "Plutonius" can be an adjective that simply means "of or pertaining to Pluto."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third demiurge, a sublunar demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or Hephaestus. This idea is present in Renaissance Neoplatonism, as for instance in the cosmology of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use. Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a daemonic 'many-headed' sophist, a magus, an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a shape-changer of himself and of others, a poet in a way of being and of not-being, a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also ... to supplement, the divine icastic or truly imitative art of the sublime translunar Demiurge."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Christian writers of late antiquity sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the Devil and treated as demonic forces by Christian apologists.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the gladiatorial games. Tertullian calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the Etruscan Charun the "brother of Jove," that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context. Prudentius, in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist Symmachus, describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto "(solvit ad aram / Plutonis fera vota)", where fallen gladiators were human sacrifices to Dis and Charon received their souls as his payment, to the delight of the underworld Jove "(Iovis infernalis)".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in Christian mythology known variously as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of Hell. For instance, in the 9th century, Abbo Cernuus, the only witness whose account of the Siege of Paris survives, called the invading Vikings the "spawn of Pluto."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three Harpies. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Acheron, tributaries of the Stygian swamp.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: This work derives from that of the Third Vatican Mythographer, possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an excursus on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In Dante's "Divine Comedy" (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the fourth circle of Hell, to which the greedy are condemned. The Italian form of the name is "Pluto", taken by some commentators to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life. Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy" and utters the famously impenetrable line "Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe". Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of Fortuna to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the Stygian swamp, through which they pass on their way to the city of Dis (Italian "Dite"). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by fallen angels and Furies. Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet Tasso throughout his epic "Jerusalem Delivered", in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) developed the myth of Pluto and Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) in English literature. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with Hell as a place of condemnation and torment, and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low"). But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "The Merchant's Tale," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" (Fairy King). As in the anonymous romance "Sir Orfeo" ("ca." 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and fairyland. Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic battle of the sexes that undermines the Christian imagery in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit. The Scottish poet William Dunbar "ca." 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich incubus / in cloke of grene" ("the eldritch incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the courtiers of Cupid.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The name "Pluto" for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (1565) was of great influence on William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Edmund Spenser. Golding translates Ovid's "Dis" as Pluto, a practice that prevails among English translators, despite John Milton's use of the Latin "Dis" in "Paradise Lost". The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's "tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat" ("the tyrant "[Dis]" had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In Huon de Méry's 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the Antichrist", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians." In the 15th-century dream allegory "The Assembly of Gods", the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility" basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Throughout the Renaissance, images and ideas from classical antiquity entered popular culture through the new medium of print and through pageants and other public performances at festivals. The Fête-Dieu at Aix-en-Provence in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto, and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 Midsummer Eve festival in London. During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical stagecraft. Leonardo da Vinci designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for librettists and composers of opera (see List of Orphean operas) and ballet. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bass voice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in Monteverdi and Rinuccini's "L'Orfeo" (1607) and "Il ballo delle ingrate" (1608). In their "ballo", a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic, and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The role of Pluto is written for a bass in Peri's "Euridice" (1600); Caccini's "Euridice" (1602); Rossi's "Orfeo" (1647); Cesti's "Il pomo d'oro" (1668); Sartoris's "Orfeo" (1672); Lully's "Alceste", a "tragédie en musique" (1674); Charpentier's chamber opera "La descente d'Orphée aux enfers" (1686); Telemann's "Orpheus" (1726); and Rameau's "Hippolyte et Aricie" (1733). Pluto was a baritone in Lully's "Proserpine" (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization. Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is Offenbach's satiric "Orpheus in the Underworld" (1858), in which a tenor sings the role of "Pluton", disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée (Aristaeus), a farmer.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Scenes set in Pluto's realm were orchestrated with instrumentation that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo" as two cornets, three trombones, a bassoon, and a régale.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from Cavalli's opera "Ercole amante" ("Hercules in Love"), Louis XIV himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop. Pluto appeared in Noverre's lost "La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers" (1760s). Gaétan Vestris danced the role of the god in Florian Deller's "Orefeo ed Euridice" (1763). The "Persephone" choreographed by Robert Joffrey (1952) was based on André Gide's line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by artists, who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book "Iconologia" of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted. Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg, the first teacher of Rembrandt, echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of Cupid's arrow while Venus watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The by Rubens is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate characterizations. The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the Romantics. The work of mythographers such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Ellen Harrison helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by Victorian and Modernist writers. In "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (1891), Thomas Hardy portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-Victorian culture of male domination, in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction." A similar figure is found in "The Lost Girl" (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, where the character Ciccio acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation." Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in "The First Lady Chatterley" (1926, an early version of "Lady Chatterley's Lover"), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.


title: Pluto (mythology)

text: In Rick Riordan's young adult fantasy series "The Heroes of Olympus", the character Hazel Levesque is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Jonathan Moss Tucker (born May 31, 1982) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the films "The Virgin Suicides" (1999), "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003), "Hostage" (2005), "In the Valley of Elah" (2007), "The Ruins" (2008), and "Charlie's Angels" (2019). He has appeared in the television series "The Black Donnellys" (2007), "Parenthood" (2011–2013), "Kingdom" (2014–2017), "Justified" (2015), "Snowfall" (2018), "Westworld" (2018-2022), "City on a Hill" (2019), and "Debris" (2021).


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Tucker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents Maggie Moss, a public relations and marketing analyst and executive, and Paul Hayes Tucker, a professor of art at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a leading expert on Claude Monet. His paternal great-grandfather was historian and ambassador Carlton J. H. Hayes. His aunt and uncle, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, founded the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University, where they remain as co-directors.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Tucker was raised in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and attended The Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended the Boston Ballet and played Fritz in their production of "The Nutcracker" for 5 years starting when he was in the third grade. He was featured in a Boston Ballet calendar and attended The Thacher School in Ojai, California. Tucker said of his ballet experience, "Ballet is one of the more difficult rigors that I've ever done. The Ballet instructors are some of the most intimidating people I've met."


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Tucker first started off in film by appearing in the early 1990s films "Botte di Natale" (1994), "Two If by Sea" (1996) and "Sleepers" (1996) before being cast in the 1999 film "The Virgin Suicides" as Tim Weiner.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: He starred as Matthew in the 2000 comedy film "100 Girls". A year later, he co-starred in Sundance hit "The Deep End" with Tilda Swinton and Josh Lucas. In 2003, Tucker was cast in the much anticipated re-imagining of the 1974 horror film of the same name, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" produced by Michael Bay and directed by Marcus Nispel. In 2004, he appeared in the films "Stateside" and "Criminal".


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: In the 2005 film "Hostage," Tucker worked alongside Bruce Willis and Ben Foster. Tucker plays Dennis Cooper, one of the brothers that, along with their mysterious accomplice Mars, holds a family hostage. Tucker was directed by Paul Haggis twice in 2007: he starred as Tommy Lee Jones's son in the film "In the Valley of Elah" as a soldier who is permanently changed by war after returning from Iraq; he also played Tommy Donnelly in the NBC TV series "The Black Donnellys".


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: In 2008, he was cast in "The Ruins", a thriller based on the best selling book by Scott Smith and directed by Sundance award-winner Carter Smith.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: He portrayed emerging artist Patrick Angus in the 2009 film "An Englishman in New York", opposite John Hurt as Quentin Crisp. The biographical drama chronicles Crisp's later years spent in New York City. He then appeared in the 2010 film "The Next Three Days" with Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks, marking his third collaboration with Haggis.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: It was announced in November 2011 that Tucker had signed on to the TV series "Parenthood". He played the role of Mayor Bob Little from 2011 to 2014.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Tucker had a main role on the 2014 DirecTV drama series "Kingdom". He played Jay, a mixed martial artist and son of trainer, Alvey Kulina, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by "Entertainment Weekly", which described his work as "one of the most electric performances on television."


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: In 2015, Tucker also appeared in the final five episodes of the TV series "Justified" on FX as the crazy-eyed Boon — a cross between Billy the Kid and Travis Bickle.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Continuing his collaboration with Bryan Fuller, having appeared in the second season of "Hannibal", Tucker starred as Low-Key Lyesmith in Starz's "American Gods", adapted from Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Beginning in 2019, Tucker played Frankie Ryan, a Boston gangster, in the Showtime crime drama "City on a Hill".


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: In 2021, Tucker played the lead role of CIA operative Bryan Beneventi in the short-lived NBC science fiction series "Debris".


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: On June 16, 2012, Tucker married Tara Ahamed, daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning economic historian Liaquat Ahamed. They have a twin son and daughter born May 15, 2019.


title: Jonathan Tucker

text: Tucker practices Transcendental Meditation to offset loneliness on film locations. He is the founder of the nonprofit organization Pegasus Fund.


title: Super Crooks

text: Super Crooks is a Japanese-American superhero anime streaming television series based on the comic book series of the same name by writer Mark Millar and artist Leinil Francis Yu. The series was written by Dai Satō from Millar's story, and it was directed by Motonobu Hori in his solo directorial debut. The 13-episode series premiered on Netflix worldwide on November 25, 2021. It serves as a spin-off to "Jupiter's Legacy". In June 2021, a live-action "Super Crooks" series and second spin-off from the simultaneously-cancelled "Jupiter's Legacy" was announced to be in active development.


title: Super Crooks

text: Small-time crook Johnny Bolt recruits a team of eight super-villains to perform a super-powered heist.


title: Super Crooks

text: Netflix first announced that the series was in production with Studio Bones in March 2019, and the series was ready for its world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2021. At its premiere, director Motonobu Hori explained that because the series takes place, in part, before the comic book series, Mark Millar provided additional back story for Dai Satō to adapt, and Leinil Francis Yu provided younger character designs for Takashi Mitani to translate into animation. Towa Tei composed the music for the series.


title: Super Crooks

text: The first nine episodes of the series serve as a prequel to the comics and then overlap with the comic storyline for the last four episodes, which serves as a straightforward adaptation, with the series also set in the same fictional universe as the live-action series "Jupiter's Legacy". In June 2021, a live-action "Supercrooks" series and direct spin-off continuation of the simultaneously-cancelled "Jupiter's Legacy" was announced to be in active development.


title: Super Crooks

text: At Netflix's Tudum event in September 2021, the primary voices from Kenjiro Tsuda and Maaya Sakamoto were revealed along with the release date of November 25, 2021.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Russell David Johnson (November 10, 1924 – January 16, 2014) was an American actor. He played Professor Roy Hinkley in "Gilligan's Island" and Marshal Gib Scott in "Black Saddle".


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson was born in Ashley, Pennsylvania, on November 10, 1924, to Russell Kennedy Johnson (1901–1932) and Marion Wenonah Smink Johnson (1902–1976).


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson was the eldest of seven siblings: Kenneth W. Johnson (1925–2012), David Reed Johnson (1926–1976), Lois Marion Johnson (1927–1928), Lorraine Johnson Crosby (1928-2015), Marion Joan Johnson Reeves (1930–2010), and Paul Wesley Johnson (1932–1933). Their father died of pneumonia in December 1932, and Paul Wesley died not long after. Minnie Johnson later remarried, to Thomas S. Lewis.


title: Russell Johnson

text: As a teenager, Johnson attended Girard College, a private boarding school for fatherless boys, located in Philadelphia.


title: Russell Johnson

text: After graduating from high school, Johnson enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet. On completing his training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He flew 44 combat missions in the Pacific Theater during World War II as a bombardier in B-25 twin-engined medium bombers.


title: Russell Johnson

text: On March 4, 1945, while flying as a navigator in a B-25 with the 100th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force, Johnson's B-25 and two others were shot down during a low-level bombing and strafing run against Japanese military targets in the Philippine Islands. The B-25s encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire, and all three had to ditch in the sea off Zamboanga. Johnson broke both his ankles in the landing, and his bomber's co-pilot was killed. Johnson received a Purple Heart for his injuries. He was also awarded the Air Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three campaign stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one campaign star, and the World War II Victory Medal.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant on November 22, 1945, then joined the United States Air Force Reserve.


title: Russell Johnson

text: After his honorable discharge from the military, Johnson used the G.I. Bill to pay for his acting studies at the Actors' Lab in Hollywood.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson became a close friend of Audie Murphy and later appeared with him in three of his films, "Column South" and "Tumbleweed" in 1953 and "Ride Clear of Diablo" in 1954. Johnson's Hollywood career began in 1952, with the college fraternity hazing exposé "For Men Only", and with "Loan Shark", also released in 1952 and starring George Raft.


title: Russell Johnson

text: His early roles were primarily in Westerns such as "Rancho Notorious" (1952, starring Marlene Dietrich), "Seminole" (1953), "Law and Order" (1953, opposite Ronald Reagan), and "Badman's Country" (1958), and science fiction films such as "It Came from Outer Space" (1953), "This Island Earth" (1955), "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1956), and "The Space Children" (1958). He also appeared in a Ma and Pa Kettle vehicle, "Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki" (1955), as well as in Roger Corman's rock-'n'-roll crime drama "Rock All Night" (1957). In 1955, he had a role in "Many Rivers to Cross" along with Alan Hale Jr., later the Skipper from "Gilligan's Island". Johnson and Hale also appeared together in an episode of the TV series, "Casey Jones" Season 1 Episode 20 "The Track Walker".


title: Russell Johnson

text: During the 1950s, he played the head of a gang of crooks in episode 17 of season one of "The Adventures of Superman" (originally broadcast in January 1953, filmed in 1951). Johnson was also cast on the religion anthology series "Crossroads".


title: Russell Johnson

text: In 1957 he played a ruthless and heartless murdering outlaw named "Stranger" (so out of character from his future "Professor" role) on the TV Western "Gunsmoke" in the episode "Bloody Hands" (S2E21), where he almost convinces Matt Dillon to quit from guilt because of his own constant need to kill. He returned to that series in 1959 as “Harry Webb” in the episode “The Bear”. He also played the Sundown Kid in an episode of the 1958 NBC's Western series "Jefferson Drum" and guest-starred in another NBC Western series, "The Californians". He appeared in episodes of "Wagon Train", "The Beauty Jamison Story" and "The Cliff Grundy Story."


title: Russell Johnson

text: He appeared four times on the first-run syndicated military drama "The Silent Service", based on actual stories of the submarine section of the United States Navy. He was cast as Hugh Grafton in episode 28, "The Gar Story", appeared twice as submarine officer and later author Edward L. Beach Jr., and as Tom Richards in two 1960 episodes, "Intermission" and "The Desperate Challenge", and twice with June Allyson on her CBS anthology series "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". Also, he guest-starred with William Shatner in "The Hungry Glass", a 1961 episode of "Thriller", and with Joan Evans and Harvey Stephens in "The Sky Diver", the unaired pilot episode of "Ripcord" of that same year. Then he was cast as John T. Metcalf in the 1962 episode "Mile-Long Shot to Kill" of the CBS anthology series "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. Also, in 1962, he was cast as Bob Murkland in the 6 March Season 3, episode 22 of Laramie, 'The Dynamiters'. In April of that same year, he was cast as Doctor Ross in the episode "Allergies Anonymous" of The Real McCoys. Also that year he played a role in "Tales of Wells Fargo". Then in 1963, he was cast in the episode "Mutiny at Fort Mercy" of the short-lived ABC/Warner Bros.' Western series "The Dakotas", and later he performed in the premiere of another short-lived ABC show, "Breaking Point", a medical drama series starring Paul Richards and Eduard Franz.


title: Russell Johnson

text: From January 1959 to May 1960, Johnson co-starred as Marshal Gib Scott on the television series "Black Saddle", which lasted two seasons—its first on NBC and its second on ABC.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson appeared in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone". His character brings a murderer from 1880 into the present via a time machine in the season-one episode "Execution". In the season-two episode "Back There", his character, Peter Corrigan, attempts to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The plot of both episodes involved time travel from the 20th to the 19th centuries. Johnson also appeared on "The Outer Limits" in 1964, playing a crewmember on a United States space station in the episode "".


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson was best known for playing Professor Roy Hinkley (usually called the "Professor"), the very knowledgeable polymath who could build all sorts of inventions out of the most rudimentary materials available on the island. As Johnson himself pointed out, though, he could not fix the hole in the boat. In the first episode of the show, the radio announcer describes the Professor as a research scientist and well-known scoutmaster. "Gilligan's Island" aired from 1964 to 1967, but has been shown in reruns continuously ever since. Johnson reprised this character in three "Gilligan's Island" made-for-television movies and two animated series. In a 2004 interview, Johnson commented about the role and shared his perspective regarding "Gilligan's Island" and the situation comedy's place in television history:


title: Russell Johnson

text: After "Gilligan's Island", Johnson found himself somewhat typecast, making portraying more unsophisticated roles other than his signature role as the Professor more difficult. Nevertheless, he was able to resume a sufficient acting career, appearing in several other movies and television shows, especially the latter. He appeared as a guest star in several dramatic series, including "The Big Valley" with Peter Breck (marking a reunion of sorts, since they co-starred together in "Black Saddle", an earlier Four Star Productions series), "The Invaders", "Death Valley Days", "", "Lassie", "That Girl", "Ironside", "The F.B.I", and "Gunsmoke." He was cast in the miniseries "Vanished", based on a novel by Fletcher Knebel (1971), the TV horror movie "The Horror at 37,000 Feet" (1973), uncredited in the Robert Redford spy thriller "Three Days of the Condor" (1975), the low-budget thriller "Hitch Hike to Hell" (1977), and appeared on the episode "Coffee, Tea or Cyanide" on "McMillan and Wife" in 1977, and on the NBC soap opera "Santa Barbara".


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson had a brief appearance in "MacArthur" (1977), in which he played United States Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, and he appeared in the 1978 made-for-television movies "The Ghost of Flight 401" and "The Bastard". Russell provided the narration for the animated-short episodes of "The Adventures of Stevie and Zoya" that appeared on MTV during the mid-1980s.


title: Russell Johnson

text: In an interview with "Starlog" magazine in the early 1980s, Johnson said that he had wanted to appear in the original "" during its run on NBC from 1966 to 1969, but he was never cast. An episode of CBS' "Newhart" featured the Beavers (a men's organization) watching a "Gilligan's Island" episode on television. When they are suddenly evicted from the room, one of them, portrayed by Johnson, protests, "I want to see how it ends!" He is assured that the castaways do not get off the island. Johnson also played the sheriff in several episodes of season 9 of "Dallas". His character in that series did not return in season 10, however, as season 9 turned out to be the infamous "dream season". In the late 1980s horror TV series "Monsters", Johnson played an elder scientist in the episode "Sleeping Dragon", in which he tries communicating with an ancient humanoid dinosaur that was awakened after a 65 million years-long slumber.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson entertained fans at the 1996 MST3K Conventio-Con-Expo-Fest-a-Rama 2: Electric Boogaloo on the "Celebrity Panel". Johnson was invited for his role in the movie-within-a-movie of "", "This Island Earth", but spent most of the time answering questions about his "Gilligan's Island" days. He shared an amusing anecdote:


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson once participated in the Ig Nobel award presentation ceremony, credited as "The Professor Emeritus of Gilligan's Island".


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson was married three times. His first marriage, to Edith Cahoon in 1943, ended in divorce in 1948.


title: Russell Johnson

text: In 1949 he married his second wife, Kay Cousins, whom he had met while at the Actors' Lab in Hollywood. Together they had a daughter, Kim, and a son, David. Cousins died on January 20, 1980, in Century City, California.


title: Russell Johnson

text: In 1982, Johnson married Constance "Connie" Dane, and became stepfather to her son, Courtney Dane. It was here that Johnson collaborated with writer Steve Cox on the memoir, ""Here on Gilligan's Isle"," published in 1993.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Russell's son David Johnson died of AIDS-related complications on October 27, 1994. After his son's diagnosis with AIDS, Johnson frequently helped raise money for AIDS charities.


title: Russell Johnson

text: Johnson died from kidney failure at his home in Bainbridge Island, Washington, on January 16, 2014, aged 89. His remains were cremated. Johnson's memorial service was held a month later.


title: Westside Gunn

text: Alvin Lamar Worthy (born July 27, 1982), known professionally as Westside Gunn, is an American rapper. He is a co-founder of independent hip-hop label Griselda Records. He is the brother of rapper Conway The Machine and cousin of rapper Benny the Butcher, both of whom he frequently collaborates with. Westside Gunn has released four studio albums in addition to an extensive catalog of mixtapes. Gunn was affiliated with Shady Records from 2017 to 2020, but has since returned to independent status.


title: Westside Gunn

text: Westside Gunn released his first mixtape in 2005, however his career was derailed by run-ins with the law. Gunn did not release any music in the years 2006-2011.


title: Westside Gunn

text: In 2012, Westside Gunn co-founded the Griselda Records label with his brother Conway the Machine and Mach-Hommy. Gunn was inspired to revitalize his career by the shooting of his brother Conway that same year, which left him with permanent disabilities, as well as by the 2006 murder of his cousin Machine Gun Black. Gunn’s first project for Griselda was the mixtape "Hitler Wears Hermes." While the name attracted controversy for its reference to Adolf Hitler, Gunn explained that the name is a play on "The Devil Wears Prada".


title: Westside Gunn

text: Over the next few years, Gunn released a steady stream of mixtapes and EPs, including multiple sequels to "Hitler Wears Hermes," on the Griselda label. Gunn’s official studio album debut was "Flygod," released on March 11, 2016.


title: Westside Gunn

text: On March 3, 2017, Griselda Records signed a deal with Eminem's Shady Records, making Westside Gunn and Conway the first rappers from Buffalo to sign with a major label. After signing with Shady, Gunn played at Coachella, Firefly and Governors Ball. On October 2, 2020, Westside Gunn released his Shady Records debut, "Who Made the Sunshine", his only solo project with Shady Records.


title: Westside Gunn

text: Shortly after signing with Shady Records, Westside released "Flygod Is Good... All the Time", as a collaborative EP with producer Mr. Green. Ambrosia For Heads named 2018's "Supreme Blientele" one of the best albums of 2018. He also signed with Roc Nation alongside label mate Benny the Butcher on August 6, 2019, under a management deal.


title: Westside Gunn

text: On April 17, 2020, he released his third studio album, "Pray for Paris". The album has features from artists such as Tyler, the Creator, Wale, Joey Badass and Freddie Gibbs. On July 3, 2020, Westside Gunn released his tenth mixtape "Flygod Is an Awesome God II", the sequel to his July 2019 mixtape "Flygod Is an Awesome God". The album features guest appearances by frequent collaborators Benny The Butcher, Keisha Plum, Boldy James, and Daringer.


title: Westside Gunn

text: On November 14, 2020, in an interview with Joe Budden, Gunn announced he had fulfilled his contractual obligations to Shady Records and had become an independent artist.


title: Westside Gunn

text: Gunn has stated within various interviews that he's a "devout wrestling fan" and often references this within his song lyrics and song titles. He often can be seen in the front-row seats of the audience of Impact Wrestling, WWE and All Elite Wrestling events. He maintains friendships with wrestlers Parker Boudreaux, Lio Rush, Finn Bálor, Bianca Belair, Montez Ford, Montel Vontavious Porter, Sonjay Dutt , Daniel Garcia, and Myron Reed. When asked who were his top 5 wrestlers on fellow rapper Smoke DZA's "Personal Podcast", he stated "It always changes but Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Bret Hart, The Undertaker and Chris Benoit". On the September 8, 2022 taping of All Elite Wrestling, Gunn escorted wrestler and close friend Daniel Garcia to the ring to face Wheeler Yuta in an ROH Pure Championship match, which Garcia won.


title: Fiona Dourif

text: Fiona Christianne Dourif (born October 30, 1981) is an American actress and producer. She is known for her role as Bart Curlish in BBC America's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and as the young Diane Jones in Dustin Lance Black's "When We Rise". She has appeared in Showtime's "Shameless", and in a recurring role on NBC's "The Blacklist", and starred as Nica Pierce in the 2013 horror film "Curse of Chucky", its sequel "Cult of Chucky", and the television series "Chucky", all of which are part of the "Child's Play" franchise; she appears in these works alongside her father, Brad Dourif, who portrays the series' main antagonist, Chucky. In 2018, she was cast as Good Leader Tavis in the USA Network series "The Purge".


title: Fiona Dourif

text: Dourif was born in Woodstock, New York, the daughter of actor Brad Dourif and psychic Jonina (Joni) Dourif. She has a sister, Kristina Dourif. After college she became a segment producer for documentaries premiering on History and TLC. She began acting at 23.


title: Fiona Dourif

text: In 2005, Dourif made her acting debut as Chez Ami Whore in the television series "Deadwood". The following year, she was cast as Alice in the television mini-series "Thief". The same year, Dourif made her debut film appearance in "Little Chenier".


title: Fiona Dourif

text: In 2007, Dourif appeared in the off-Broadway play "Some Americans Abroad" at Second Stage theater. Later she was cast in the short film "The Lucky One". In 2008, Dourif portrayed Becky in the indie film "Garden Party" and Lisa in "Frank the Rat". The same year, Dourif guest starred on "" as Detective Nikki Breslin.


title: Fiona Dourif

text: In 2009, Dourif starred in the film "The Messenger" and had a guest role on the television series "Bored to Death". The following year, Dourif starred in the indie film "Mafiosa" and the TV movie "After the Fall". Dourif subsequently portrayed Penny in "Letters from the Big Man" before having a recurring role as Casey in "True Blood" and a guest appearance on "The Protector".