title: John McTiernan

text: The budget for sci-fi "Predator" was around $15m. It opened as #1 at the U.S. box office with a gross of $12m on just its opening weekend, and went on to gross nearly $100m overall. In 1987, its domestic grosses were second only to "Beverly Hills Cop II". Initial critical reaction to "Predator" was negative, with criticism focusing on the thin plot. Metacritic, which assigns a score out of 100 to reviews, rates the film with an average score of 45 based on 15 reviews, with the review opinions summarized as "mixed". Elvis Mitchell of "The New York Times" described it as "grisly and dull, with few surprises". Dean Lamanna wrote in "Cinefantastique" that "the militarized monster movie tires under its own derivative weight." "Variety" wrote that the film was a "slightly above-average actioner that tries to compensate for tissue-thin plot with ever-more-grisly death sequences and impressive special effects." However, in subsequent years critics' attitudes toward the film warmed, and it has appeared on "best of" lists. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes reports that 78% of 40 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review.


title: John McTiernan

text: Made on a $28m budget, "Die Hard" went on to gross over $140m theatrically worldwide. It is considered one of the greatest action films. The film's success spawned a "Die Hard" franchise, which so far has included four sequels, video games, and a comic book. It received very high ratings from critics. English film critic Mark Kermode expressed admiration for the film, calling it an exciting setup of "Cowboys and Indians in "The Towering Inferno"". The film has been included in various top-ten lists of best Christmas movies, including "Empire" (rating it #1), "Entertainment Weekly" (rating it #4), "Forbes" (rating it #1), "The Guardian" (rating it #8), and "San Francisco Gate" (rating it #1). However, not every critic praised it. Roger Ebert gave it a mere two stars out of four and criticized the stupidity of the deputy police chief character, saying that "all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie".


title: John McTiernan

text: "The Hunt for Red October" also received positive reviews from critics. Nick Schager, for "Slant Magazine", called the film "a thrilling edge-of-your-seat trifle that has admirably withstood the test of time". Ebert called it "a skillful, efficient film that involves us in the clever and deceptive game being played", while Gene Siskel commented on the film's technical achievement and Baldwin's convincing portrayal of the character Jack Ryan.


title: John McTiernan

text: McTiernan directed "Medicine Man" (1992), about a medical researcher in a rainforest, starring Sean Connery. "Medicine Man" was poorly received. Roger Ebert gave it one-and-a-half stars, saying that although the film had "some beautiful moments", it never really came together and had "a cornball conclusion". "Entertainment Weekly" said the story was "built around some very tired devices" and especially criticized the performance of the female lead.


title: John McTiernan

text: In 1993, he directed and co-produced "Last Action Hero", an action-comedy vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. "Entertainment Weekly" said it was "a stupid, generic slab of action bombast that keeps reminding us it's a stupid, generic slab of action bombast" and called it "a lead balloon of a movie". "Variety" called it a "a joyless, soulless machine of a movie, an $80 million-plus mishmash". Vincent Canby likened the film to "a two-hour "Saturday Night Live" sketch" and called it "something of a mess, but a frequently enjoyable one". Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4, writing that despite some entertaining moments "Last Action Hero" more often "plays more like a bright idea than like a movie that was thought through".


title: John McTiernan

text: In 1995, McTiernan rebounded with "Die Hard with a Vengeance", the third installment of the "Die Hard" film series. It was highly successful garnering $366m in box office receipts and becoming the highest-grossing film of the year, although the film had mixed reviews by critics. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" said that while "McTiernan stages individual sequences with great finesse... they don't add up to a taut, dread-ridden whole." James Berardinelli said the explosions and fights were "filmed with consummate skill, and are thrilling in their own right." Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" said "the best thing about the movie is the relationship between McClane and Zeus", saying that Samuel L. Jackson was "almost as good as he was in "Pulp Fiction"". Ebert gave the film a positive review, praising the action sequences and the performances of Willis, Jackson, and Jeremy Irons, concluding: ""Die Hard with a Vengeance" is basically a wind-up action toy, cleverly made, and delivered with high energy. It delivers just what it advertises, with a vengeance." "Empire" magazine's Ian Nathan gave the film a 3/5-star review stating that ""Die Hard With A Vengeance" is better than "Die Hard 2", but not as good as the peerless original. Though it's breathless fun, the film runs out of steam in the last act. And Jeremy Irons' villain isn't fit to tie Alan Rickman's shoelaces."


title: John McTiernan

text: From 1995 to 1997, McTiernan was a producer for several smaller projects, including at least three films that were not major releases "The Right to Remain Silent" (a made-for-television film), "Amanda", and "Quicksilver Highway" (a made-for-television film).


title: John McTiernan

text: He directed "The 13th Warrior" (1999), a loose retelling of the tale of Beowulf starring Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora and Omar Sharif that was adapted from the novel "Eaters of the Dead" by Michael Crichton. The film did poorly at the box office, with a total loss estimated at $70–130 million. It received generally mixed-to-poor reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying that it "lumber[s] from one expensive set-piece to the next without taking the time to tell a story that might make us care." Conversely, James Berardinelli gave it three stars out of four, calling it "a solid offering" that "delivers an exhilarating 100 minutes". The outcome disappointed Sharif so much that he temporarily retired from film acting, saying "After my small role in "The 13th Warrior", I said to myself, 'Let us stop this nonsense, these meal tickets that we do because it pays well. Sharif said it was "terrifying to have to do the dialogue from bad scripts, to face a director who does not know what he is doing, in a film so bad that it is not even worth exploring." "The Thomas Crown Affair", directed by McTiernan a heist-film remake starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, which opened to solid reviews and strong box office results, was released later the same year.


title: John McTiernan

text: McTiernan then directed the 2002 film "Rollerball", a science fiction remake starring Chris Klein, Jean Reno, and LL Cool J. "Rollerball" was heavily panned by critics. "Time Out"'s Trevor Johnson described it as "a checklist shaped by a 15-year-old mallrat: thrashing metal track, skateboards, motorbikes, cracked heads and Rebecca Romijn with her top off", and Ebert called it "an incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense". The film was a box-office flop, earning a worldwide total of $26m compared to a production budget of $70m. In 2014, the "Los Angeles Times" listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time.


title: John McTiernan

text: , his most recent feature film project was the 2003 thriller "Basic" with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. Reviews for "Basic" were mostly negative. Roger Ebert gave it one star out of four, saying it was "not a film that could be understood" and that "If I were to see it again and again, I might be able to extract an underlying logic from it, but the problem is, when a movie's not worth seeing twice, it had better get the job done the first time through." "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide" gave it two stars out of four and said the film "keeps adding layers of confusion so that it becomes less interesting as it goes along! The final 'twist' seems to negate the entire story, like a bad shaggy-dog joke."


title: John McTiernan

text: His career was derailed in 2006 because of legal problems which saw McTiernan spend time in prison. As a result of his conviction, "The Hollywood Reporter" called McTiernan one of Hollywood's most "despised" people. His short film, "The Red Dot", was released by Ubisoft to advertise the 2017 video game "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands". It was the first of several action-oriented shorts to support the video game. "The Red Dot" was his first film project in 14 years.


title: John McTiernan

text: On April 3, 2006, McTiernan was charged in federal court with making a false statement to an FBI investigator in February 2006 about his hiring of the private investigator Anthony Pellicano to illegally wiretap Charles Roven, the producer of his film "Rollerball", around August 2000. McTiernan had been in a disagreement with Roven about what type of film "Rollerball" should be, and had hired Pellicano to investigate Roven's intentions and actions. He had asked Pellicano to try to find instances where Roven made negative remarks about the studio executives or said things to others that were inconsistent with what he said to the studio.


title: John McTiernan

text: McTiernan was arraigned and pleaded guilty on April 17, 2006, as part of an initial plea bargain agreement to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for lenient treatment. Prosecutors said they then became convinced that he was continuing to lie to them, and that he had also hired Pellicano to wiretap someone else, prompting them to seek a prison sentence. McTiernan then hired new counsel and tried to withdraw his guilty plea, saying that his prior counsel had not conducted a proper discovery in the case and had not presented him with the available defense approach of suppressing as evidence the conversation with him that Pellicano had recorded on August 17, 2000. However, this bid was denied by the Federal District Judge, Dale S. Fischer, who immediately proceeded to sentence him to four months in prison and $100,000 in fines. The judge characterized McTiernan as someone who thought he was "above the law", had shown no remorse, and "lived a privileged life and simply wants to continue that". He was ordered to surrender for incarceration by January 15, 2008, but was allowed to remain out of prison on bail pending an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.


title: John McTiernan

text: In October 2008, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated McTiernan's four-month sentence and ruled that Judge Fischer had erred and he was entitled to a hearing as to whether his plea could be withdrawn. The prosecution (and the judge) then agreed to allow McTiernan to withdraw his plea rather than proceed with such a hearing, and his plea was withdrawn on February 24, 2009.


title: John McTiernan

text: With the case reopened, the prosecution was no longer bound by the prior plea agreement, and filed additional charges against McTiernan; he faced another two counts of lying to the FBI (one for claiming he had hired Pellicano only in connection with his divorce proceedings and another for denying he had ever discussed wiretapping with Pellicano) and one count of committing perjury during the previous court proceedings by denying he had been coached by his attorney on what to say during his previous guilty plea hearing (a denial that he later stated in a declaration was false).


title: John McTiernan

text: After some adverse rulings on his attempted defense arguments, and facing the possibility of a prison sentence of more than five years from the various charges, McTiernan eventually entered another guilty plea (on all three counts) in a second plea bargain in 2010, conditioned on his plan to appeal the earlier rulings against his defense approach, and Judge Fischer sentenced him to one year in prison, three years of supervised probation, and a fine of $100,000. The judge said that the increased length of the prison sentence was related to the additional, more serious charge of perjury before her court, that McTiernan's crimes were more than just a momentary lapse of judgment, that he still did not seem to have really accepted responsibility for his actions, and that she would have issued an even more lengthy prison sentence if the prosecution had not recommended less. McTiernan was then released on bail pending an appeal of the adverse rulings.


title: John McTiernan

text: On August 20, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court judgment, but allowed McTiernan to address the U.S. Supreme Court regarding his attempt to suppress the recorded conversation before being required to report to prison. His defense tried to argue that Pellicano had made the recording for an unlawful purpose and that this made it inadmissible, but the district and appeals courts disagreed with that interpretation of the rules of evidence. On January 14, 2013, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.


title: John McTiernan

text: McTiernan surrendered to federal prison on April 3, 2013, to serve a stated 12-month sentence in the Federal Prison Camp, Yankton, in Yankton, South Dakota, a minimum-security former college campus holding about 800 male inmates, most of whom were white-collar criminals. His Bureau of Prisons registration number was 43029-112. Although the Yankton facility was rated by "Forbes" magazine as one of "America's 10 cushiest prisons", McTiernan's wife Gail stated that he had found it hard to adapt, having lost ; she also claimed that he was suffering from depression, and was "disintegrating" emotionally. While in prison, McTiernan managed to write a possible sequel for "The Thomas Crown Affair", with the working title "Thomas Crown and the Missing Lioness". His supporters created a "Free John McTiernan" campaign page on Facebook, including expressions of support from Samuel L. Jackson, Alec Baldwin and Brad Bird. He was released from prison on February 25, 2014, after 328 days of incarceration, to serve the remainder of his 12-month prison sentence under house arrest at his ranch home in Wyoming until April 3, 2014.


title: John McTiernan

text: On July 3, 2006, McTiernan's former wife, film producer Donna Dubrow, filed suit against him for invasion of privacy and other claims arising from her belief that he hired Pellicano to wiretap her telephone during their divorce negotiations. The lawsuit continued over time, and was still pending as of October 2015.


title: John McTiernan

text: In October 2013, while in prison, McTiernan filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy amidst foreclosure proceedings for his ranch residence in central Wyoming (valued at $8–10M), struggles to pay his past legal bills and IRS tax debts, and ongoing expensive disputes including the lawsuit by his ex-wife, a $5M claim against him of liability in a 2011 automobile accident, and his ongoing effort to reverse his felony conviction.


title: John McTiernan

text: The bank holding the mortgage on the ranch said the filing was a bad-faith tactic only intended to stall the foreclosure proceedings, and requested the presiding judge to convert the case to a chapter 7 bankruptcy under the terms of which he would lose control of the bankruptcy case and have a trustee appointed to manage his assets, which would result in the liquidation of his assets rather than giving McTiernan the opportunity to attempt to reorganize his debt himself.


title: John McTiernan

text: McTiernan's lawyers countered by saying that his potential for generating additional future income from new projects could enable him to eventually repay his debts, so a rapid liquidation of assets would be unnecessary and unjustified. In the bankruptcy proceedings, he identified two likely future film projects with Hannibal Pictures, with working titles "Red Squad" and "Warbirds", with large budgets and significant likely future income and planned to star major well-known actors. On December 8, 2015, a judge ruled against McTiernan agreeing with his creditors that his assets should be liquidated. It was reported that his ranch was likely to be sold and that an administrator would take over the management of his future film royalty payments.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: Lenard Larry McKelvey (born June 29, 1978), known professionally as Charlamagne tha God or simply Charlamagne, is an American radio host and television personality. He is a co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show "The Breakfast Club" with DJ Envy; whom he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame with in 2020 for their work on the show. He also hosts the late-night talk show "Hell of A Week with Charlamagne Tha God" on Comedy Central.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: Prior to his work on "The Breakfast Club", he worked as a radio personality for several radio stations and also spent time as second mic on "The Wendy Williams Experience" with Wendy Williams on VH1. He is the founder of the Black Effect Podcast Network, and was featured on "Guy Code", "Guy Court" and "Girl Code". He was also a VJ for "The Week in Jams" with DJ Envy and Sofi Green. In 2015, McKelvey began hosting the MTV2 show "Uncommon Sense".


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In the shock jock tradition, one of McKelvey's personal mantras is "bite my tongue for no one"; he was called "hip-hop's Howard Stern" by "Rolling Stone" magazine.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: McKelvey was born to Larry Thomas McKelvey, a Jehovah's Witness-turned-Muslim and his wife, an English teacher and Jehovah's Witness, on June 29, 1978. He grew up in Moncks Corner, South Carolina where as a teenager he was arrested twice for Possession with Intent to Distribute marijuana and cocaine.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: When McKelvey was arrested a third time, after being near a (non-fatal) shooting, his father refused to pay his bail money. After 41 days in jail, he asked his mother to pay for bail, at which point his father decided to "give him another chance". After his release, McKelvey began attending night school and graduated from Berkeley High School (in Moncks Corner).


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2001, McKelvey was accused of sexual assault after a party. He denied having sexual relations with the accuser and cooperated with the authorities, providing DNA evidence which failed to support the claim that he had had sex with the victim. The sexual assault charges were dropped and he later pled guilty to a misdemeanor count of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, for which he received three years probation.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: McKelvey started his career in radio as an intern for Z93 Jamz in Charleston. He also spent time in Columbia with WHXT. He left South Carolina in 2006 to become second mic to radio host Wendy Williams. He devised the stage name of "Charlamagne", derived from his street name as a drug dealer, "Charles," and developed a new persona based on Charlemagne (aka Charles the Great), who ruled much of Western Europe "circa" 800 A.D. He added "Tha God" because it "sounded cool."


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: His forward questioning and interviews of hip hop and R&B artists on radio raised his public profile, but also caused rifts between himself and the guests of the show. The show was taken off the air in 2008 and he was laid off. Relations between Charlamagne and Williams deteriorated, though he has stated numerous times on the show "The Breakfast Club" that he views Williams as a mentor, and the two reunited in 2019.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2008 he began hosting the morning show for 100.3 The Beat in Philadelphia. He was fired by the station in 2009, a few days after airing an interview with Beanie Sigel, who had released a diss track about Jay-Z, both of whom were former rappers for Roc-A-Fella Records. Speculation in the media was that Jay-Z was behind the firing of McKelvey due to the interview. He returned to Moncks Corner to live with his mother for about a year prior to being offered a position with WWPR-FM to co-host "The Breakfast Club."


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2010, McKelvey became a co-host on "The Breakfast Club", alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee on WWPR-FM in New York City, along with its national television simulcast on Revolt. The show was started by Power 105.1 to compete with Hot 97, one of the most popular hip-hop morning shows in New York. He was brought in as a co-host due to his radio experience and knowing "how to get to the edge and not go over it." Once part of the show, he gave himself the title "Prime Minister of Pissing People Off, the Architect of Aggravation, and the Ruler of Rubbing People the Wrong Way."


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2011, McKelvey began serving as a cast member of "Guy Code", a comedy television show on MTV2 that talks about a special code of conduct just for men. The show ended in March 2015. He also starred on the MTV2 show "Charlamagne & Friends". He co-hosted MTV New Year's live from Times Square in both 2013 and 2014, and in 2015 he was a correspondent for the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards pre-show.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2014, he was dubbed "hip-hop's Howard Stern" by "Rolling Stone" magazine. The following year, he began hosting "Uncommon Sense with Charlamagne tha God" on MTV2.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2017, his book "Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It", which he called "a self-help guide for the hood," was published by the Simon & Schuster imprint Touchstone. Steven Kurutz of "The New York Times" gave the book a mostly positive review, describing "Black Privilege" as "a street-smart self-help guide" with typically blunt advice offered in eight different principles. The book was ranked sixth in the May 7, 2017, "New York Times" list of best-selling hardback non-fiction. McKelvey's second book, "Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me" was released on October 23, 2018.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2019, he became the host of "Emerging Hollywood", a YouTube series from "The Hollywood Reporter". On this show, he speaks with Hollywood professionals to discuss various political topics. His past guests on the show include Trevor Noah and Jameela Jamil.


title: Charlamagne tha God

text: In 2020, McKelvey founded the Black Effect Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartMedia. In August 2020, he and his "Breakfast Club" co-hosts, Angela Yee and DJ Envy, were inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. With fellow MTV2 personality Andrew Schulz, he hosts "The Brilliant Idiots" podcast on Combat Jack's Loud Speakers Network.


title: Splash (film)

text: Splash is a 1984 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard, from a screenplay by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, and Bruce Jay Friedman, and a story by Friedman and producer Brian Grazer, and starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, and Eugene Levy. It involves a young man who falls in love with a mysterious woman who is secretly a mermaid. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.


title: Splash (film)

text: The film is notable for being the first film released by Touchstone Pictures, a film label created by Walt Disney Studios that same year in an effort to release films targeted at adult audiences, with mature content not appropriate for the studio's flagship Walt Disney Pictures banner. "Splash" received a PG-rating for some profanity and brief nudity. "Splash" was critically and commercially successful, earning over $69 million on an $11 million budget, and received praise for the acting, humor, and chemistry between Hanks and Hannah.


title: Splash (film)

text: In 1964, eight-year-old Allen Bauer and his family are taking a boat tour at Cape Cod. Allen is fascinated by something below the surface and jumps overboard. In the ocean, he encounters a young girl and inexplicably finds himself able to breathe underwater. However, Allen is rescued and pulled back to the surface, and the two are separated. Since no one else saw the girl, Allen comes to believe the encounter was a near-death hallucination.


title: Splash (film)

text: In 1984, Allen is now co-owner of a wholesale fruit and vegetable business in New York City with his womanizing older brother Freddie. Through the years, Allen’s relationships have failed as he subconsciously seeks the connection he felt with the mysterious girl. Depressed after his latest breakup, Allen returns to Cape Cod, where he encounters eccentric scientist Dr. Walter Kornbluth on a diving expedition. When his motorboat malfunctions, Allen falls into the sea and is knocked unconscious; his wallet drops onto the coral below. He wakes up on a beach, in the presence of a beautiful naked woman who is unable to talk. After kissing him, she dives into the sea, where she transforms into a mermaid. While swimming underwater, she is sighted by Kornbluth.


title: Splash (film)

text: The mermaid finds Allen's wallet, and uses a sunken ship’s charts to locate New York. She comes ashore naked at the Statue of Liberty and is arrested for indecent exposure. Using information from Allen’s wallet, the police contact him and the mysterious girl is released into his care. She learns how to speak English from watching television, and is eager to explore the city. Unable to say her real name in human language, she selects "Madison" from a Madison Avenue sign. She tells Allen that she will be in New York for "six fun-filled days until the moon is full"; unable to return home if she stays any longer. Despite Madison's occasionally outlandish behavior, she and Allen fall in love. Allen proposes to Madison, but she declines and runs away. After some contemplation, Madison returns to Allen and agrees to marry him, with the added promise of telling him the truth about herself after an upcoming dignitary dinner to welcome the President.


title: Splash (film)

text: Meanwhile, Kornbluth, realizing that the naked woman at Liberty Island was the mermaid he encountered, pursues the couple, trying to expose her as a mermaid by splashing her with water. His first attempts are unsuccessful, and Kornbluth ends up with multiple injuries. Finally, he infiltrates the dignitary dinner, splashing Madison with a hose and successfully unmasking her identity. Madison is seized by government agents and taken to a secret lab, headed by Kornbluth's cold-hearted rival Dr. Ross for examination. As Madison withers away in captivity, Kornbluth learns that the scientists are planning to dissect her; causing him to regret his actions, for he just wanted to prove that he wasn’t crazy rather than cause actual harm.


title: Splash (film)

text: Allen is shocked by Madison's secret and rejects her, but when he voices his disillusionment to his brother, Freddie lashes out at him, reminding Allen how happy he was with her. Realizing that he still loves Madison, Allen confronts the guilt-ridden Kornbluth, who having been rejected by his colleagues despite his discovery, agrees to help rescue her.


title: Splash (film)

text: Impersonating Swedish scientists, Allen, Freddie, and Kornbluth enter the lab and smuggle Madison outside. Freddie decides to be arrested in Allen's place, while Kornbluth unsuccessfully tries to stop United States troops from catching the couple. Despite being pursued, Allen and Madison make it to New York Harbor. Madison tells Allen that he can survive underwater as long as he is with her, causing Allen to realize that she was the girl he had met underwater as a child. Madison warns him that if he comes to live in the sea, he cannot return to land. She jumps in the water when the troops close in on them. When more troops attempt to arrest Allen, he jumps into the water after her, but starts to drown as he cannot swim. Madison kisses him, gifting him the ability to swim and breathe underwater. Frogmen enter the water to recapture Madison and Allen, but the couple fight them off and escape, happily swimming toward what appears to be an underwater kingdom.


title: Splash (film)

text: Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel both make cameo appearances in the film. Ganz plays Stan the Tour Guide in the scene set at the Statue of Liberty. Mandel plays the man in charge of ice skate rentals who tackles Tom Hanks' character when he tries to run out with his skates still on. Director Ron Howard's father, actor Rance Howard, can be seen early in the film as Mr. McCullough, an unhappy customer screaming at Allen about his cherries. Howard's brother Clint Howard can be seen as a wedding guest, identified by Candy's character as the bride's brother and yelled at by Hanks.


title: Splash (film)

text: The film was initially set up at United Artists, but Grazer decided to take the film elsewhere and took it to The Ladd Company, but Alan Ladd Jr. eventually passed on it. According to the documentary on the "Splash: 20th Anniversary Edition" DVD in 2004, producer Brian Grazer had pitched the film to numerous studios but was turned down repeatedly until Walt Disney Productions, then headed by Ron W. Miller, agreed to produce the film. The key to the proposal's success was that Grazer changed the premise description from the idea of a mermaid adjusting to life in New York City to that about a love story about an ordinary man in New York City meeting a mermaid. An issue at the time of production was the competition between "Splash" and another announced (but unnamed) mermaid film from Warner Bros. that had lined up Warren Beatty as its star. Director Ron Howard promised the studio that "Splash" would be filmed more quickly and cheaply than the other film, which eventually fell through. Howard turned down directing "Footloose" and "Mr. Mom" to direct "Splash". Many big name actors such as Jeff Bridges, Chevy Chase, Richard Gere, Dudley Moore, Michael Keaton, Kevin Kline, Bill Murray, and John Travolta were all considered for the lead role before the producers decided on the then lesser-known Tom Hanks. Murray turned down the part as he wanted to move away from comedies and do serious films instead. Steve Guttenberg also auditioned for the role. Before Daryl Hannah was cast as Madison, it had already been turned down by Tatum O'Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Genie Francis, Melanie Griffith, Fiona Fullerton, P.J. Soles, Diane Lane, Kathleen Turner, and Sharon Stone.


title: Splash (film)

text: Principal photography began on March 1, 1983 and completed on June 30, 1983 in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York. The beach where Hanks first encounters the nude Hannah is on the former Gorda Cay in the Bahamas, which now is known as Castaway Cay, the private island of Disney Cruise Line.


title: Splash (film)

text: Hannah's mermaid tail was designed and created by Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Robert Short. The tail was fully functional. Hannah swam with the mermaid tail so fast that her safety team could not keep pace with her. According to the DVD documentary, Hannah had been swimming "mermaid" style with her legs bound together since she was a child, due to her fascination with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" story. However, the exceptionally detailed film tail was difficult to remove. For the sake of efficiency, Hannah at first kept it on while the cast had lunch. In the documentary included on the 20th-anniversary "Splash" DVD, Hanks recalled how the other cast members would drop French fries over the side of the tank to her as though she were a trained sea mammal, because she could not leave the water while her legs were "shrink-wrapped".


title: Splash (film)

text: Produced on a $11 million budget, "Splash" grossed $6.2 million in its opening weekend and finished its run with a gross of $69.8 million in the United States and Canada, making it the tenth highest-grossing film of 1984. The movie was also well received by critics and is considered to be one of the best films of 1984. It earned a "Fresh" rating from the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews. The site's consensus states: "A perfectly light, warmly funny romantic comedy that's kept afloat by Ron Howard's unobtrusive direction and charming performances from Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah." Metacritic gave the film a score of 71 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". A negative review came from Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" who gave the movie 1.5 stars out of 4 and thought the film's biggest failing was casting then-unknown Hanks as the lead rather than the established comedy star John Candy: "They should have made Candy the lover, and Hanks the brother. Then we'd be on the side of this big lunk who suddenly has a mermaid drop into his life."


title: Splash (film)

text: Colin Greenland reviewed "Splash" for "Imagine" magazine, and stated that "Splash is an adult film that has the grace to treat fantasy with sensitivity and a sense of humour."


title: Splash (film)

text: A soundtrack album of Lee Holdridge's music for the film was released on both vinyl LP and cassette in the United Kingdom by Cherry Lane Records Ltd in 1984, with the music re-recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer. Both have been out of print for many years. The catalogue numbers for these releases were PIPLP 710 and ZCPIP 710 respectively. In 2000, the original music was released on a twenty-six track CD in the United States by Super Tracks Music Group. The back cover states that this product is "For Promotional Use Only" and that it has been "Manufactured for the composer...". Although this release is very hard to find brand new and may in fact be out of print, it is still obtainable from certain movie soundtrack specialist retailers and also occasionally used from certain online stores. This CD has every track that the LP and cassette have but has a considerably longer running length due to the twelve extra tracks. These extra tracks include more of the original music from the film, the theme song (by Lee Holdridge and Will Jennings) sung by Rita Coolidge and alternate versions of some of the tracks which appear on the LP and Cassette. The catalogue number for this release is LH CD – 02.


title: Splash (film)

text: Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's book "Freakonomics" (2006) credits the film with popularizing the name "Madison" for girls, as does Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought" (2007). In the film, Daryl Hannah's character takes her name from Madison Avenue (itself named after President James Madison) after walking past a road sign. Hanks' character comments that it is not a real name as, at the time, it was a rather unusual name for a woman. However, in the years since the film was released in theatres and re-released on VHS and then DVD, the name's popularity has skyrocketed.


title: Splash (film)

text: According to the Social Security Administration, the name "Madison" was the 216th most popular name in the United States for girls in 1990, the 29th most popular name for girls in 1995, and the 3rd most popular name for girls in 2000. In 2005, the name finally cracked the top 50 most popular girls' names in the United Kingdom, and articles in British newspapers credit the film for the popularization. In a 2014 interview, Hannah commented on the irony of the name's popularity and subsequent acceptance as a standard first name given its origins as a joke based on Madison being primarily known as a street name at the time:


title: Splash (film)

text: It's funny because no one understands the irony, because the whole point of me choosing that name was because it [was such a] silly name...Obviously everyone knew it as the name of the street. No one really saw it as a first name and that was a joke. And now, of course it's not funny at all. It's just like, 'Oh, what a beautiful name!'…It was funny at the time and now it's not even ironic.


title: Splash (film)

text: In 2016, producer Brian Grazer said he was working on a remake of "Splash", although this version would be told from the point-of-view of the mermaid, which was more in line with the earlier drafts of the original film. Jillian Bell and Channing Tatum were set to star with Bell as a female human and Tatum as a merman. Tatum was also set to produce the remake through his production company, Free Association, along with Reid Carolin and Peter Kieran, while Howard and Grazer will also produce from Imagine Entertainment with Anna Culp as the executive producer and Marja-Lewis Ryan writing. , the project was still in development.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: Camara DaCosta Johnson (born November 15, 1982), better known as Yaya DaCosta, is an American actress and model. She was the runner-up in Cycle 3 of "America's Next Top Model". DaCosta eventually went to star in ABC's daytime drama series "All My Children" (2008), ABC's comedy-drama "Ugly Betty" (2009), and NBC's medical drama "Chicago Med" (2015–2022)"." DaCosta starred in the Lifetime television film "Whitney" (2015) as singer Whitney Houston and received praise for her performance.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: DaCosta was born on November 15, 1982, in New York City and is of Brazilian and Black-American descent. She was raised in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. In addition to English, she speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish and conversational Japanese. She attended the elite Northfield Mount Hermon School during high school before attending Brown University, where she majored in Africana studies and international relations.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: After finishing second on Cycle 3 of "America's Next Top Model", DaCosta went on to have a successful career. DaCosta only appeared once in the bottom two during the competition. She has appeared in advertisements for Garnier Fructis, Lincoln Townhouse, Oil of Olay, Radioshack, Seda, Sephora and Dr. Scholl's. She has graced the covers of numerous magazines, including "W", "Hype Hair," "Splash" and "Global Modeling". In 2014, she landed a spot in Tom Ford’s Fall/Winter advertising campaign. DaCosta began acting in 2005 after guest-starring in an episode of the UPN sitcom "Eve". She then starred opposite Rob Brown, Antonio Banderas and Alfre Woodard in the 2006 dance film "Take the Lead". DaCosta had supporting roles in the independent films " Honeydripper" (2007) and "The Messenger" (2009).


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: She appeared in the ABC soap opera "All My Children" in 2008 as Cassandra Foster, the daughter of Angie Hubbard (Debbi Morgan). According to an interview with "All My Children"'s new head writer, Charles Pratt, Jr., DaCosta left the role some time in August 2008, less than four months after joining the show, to join the cast of "The First Breeze of Summer" on Broadway. "The First Breeze of Summer" was presented from 2008 to 2009 by the historic Negro Ensemble Company.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: In 2009, she had a recurring role as Nico Slater, the daughter of Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) in the fourth and final season of the ABC comedy-drama series "Ugly Betty".


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: In 2010, DaCosta had supporting roles in the comedy-drama film "The Kids Are All Right" and the science fiction action-adventure film "". Later, she appeared in the magazines, including on the cover of "W" (September 2010), in "L'Officiel" (in November 2010), and in "Vogue" (in January 2011 by Patrick Demarchelier). In 2013, she also appeared as Carol in the historical drama film "The Butler", starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: In 2015, it was announced in an interview with actress Angela Bassett on CNN that DaCosta would star as musical icon Whitney Houston in a Lifetime television film about her life, which was Bassett's directorial debut. DaCosta received high praise for her performance.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: Also from 2015 to 2021, DaCosta has starred in the NBC medical drama "Chicago Med" as April Sexton, an ED nurse. On May 14, 2021, DaCosta announced that she is leaving "Chicago Med" after six seasons and before her exit she has joined Fox's drama series "Our Kind of People" as Angela.


title: Yaya DaCosta

text: DaCosta was in a relationship with independent film producer and director Joshua Bee Alafia from 2012 to 2015. In September 2013, she gave birth to their son, Sankara. In November 2015, it was reported that DaCosta and Alafia broke up. Contrary to popular reports, DaCosta and Alafia were never officially married.


title: Essie Davis

text: Esther Davis (born 19 January 1970) is an Australian actress and singer, best known for her roles as Phryne Fisher in "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" and its film adaptation, "Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears", and as Amelia Vanek in "The Babadook". Other major works include a recurring role as Lady Crane in season six of the television series "Game of Thrones", Sister Iphigenia in "Lambs of God", and the role of Ellen Kelly in Justin Kurzel's "True History of the Kelly Gang".


title: Essie Davis

text: Davis was born and brought up in Hobart, Tasmania. She is the daughter of local artist George Davis. She was educated at Clarence High School; Rosny College; the University of Tasmania, where she was a member of the Old Nick Company; and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney.


title: Essie Davis

text: Her acting career began with the Bell Shakespeare company when, straight out of NIDA, she was cast as Juliet in its 1993 production of "Romeo and Juliet". She followed this with performances for the company in "Hamlet" and "Richard III" in 1993, and "Macbeth" and "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1994.


title: Essie Davis

text: Davis's film career started with her role in the 1995 Australian film "", which starred Geoffrey Rush, Leo McKern and Joan Sutherland. Film roles continued in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", director Richard Flanagan's 1998 Tasmanian film "The Sound of One Hand Clapping", and "Girl with a Pearl Earring".


title: Essie Davis

text: After further stage performances in Australia, including Gwendolen Fairfax in a national tour of "The Importance of Being Earnest" in 2000 and "The School for Scandal" for the Sydney Theatre Company in 2001, in 2003 she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Stella Kowalski opposite Glenn Close in Trevor Nunn's production of Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the National Theatre in London. In 2004 she starred in a Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers" at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination. In 2005 she appeared as Mrs. Nellie Lovett in the BBC production of "Sweeney Todd" with Ray Winstone.


title: Essie Davis

text: In the 2008 film, "Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger" she plays Esther's controlling mother. Also in 2008, she appeared in the film "Australia" with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, directed by Baz Luhrmann. The same year, Davis played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" for the Melbourne Theatre Company.


title: Essie Davis

text: Davis returned to Tasmania to launch the Tasmanian Theatre Company in 2008 and help support local theatre while encouraging youth to continue participating in the arts. In 2011, she received a Logie Award nomination for her role as Anouk in the Australian miniseries "The Slap". In 2012, 2013 and 2015, Davis played Phryne Fisher, the central character in ABC Television's high-rating costume drama "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries".


title: Essie Davis

text: Davis starred in Jennifer Kent's 2014 debut feature "The Babadook". For her work in the film Davis was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, an AACTA International Award for Best Actress and a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Leading Actress.


title: Essie Davis

text: In 2016, she joined the HBO series "Game of Thrones" in Season 6 as Lady Crane; this role did not continue into Season 7. In June 2016 she started filming "The White Princess", playing Dowager Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth Woodville). In early January 2017, the producers released a video clip from the series as a brief trailer (teaser).


title: Essie Davis

text: In 2018, Davis filmed the mini-series "Lambs of God" for Foxtel, playing the role of Sister Iphigenia. It was released July 2019 in Australia and has been sold to 46 other territories. For her performance as Sister Iphigenia, Davis has been nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series.


title: Essie Davis

text: Later the same year, Davis played Ellen Kelly in Justin Kurzel's "True History of the Kelly Gang". The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 11 September 2019 and was released in Australian cinemas in 2020 by Transmission Films.


title: Essie Davis

text: Also in 2018, Davis reprised her role of Phryne Fisher from the popular television series "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" with a stand-alone action-adventure feature film, "Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears" With an AU$8m production budget, it wrapped production in late November 2018 and was released in cinemas in 2020.


title: Essie Davis

text: In early 2019, Davis filmed the comedy-drama "Babyteeth", playing the role of Anna. The film was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 4 September 2019.


title: Essie Davis

text: In 2020, Davis finished filming "The Justice of Bunny King", playing the title role. The film, co-starring Thomasin McKenzie, was shot in New Zealand.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player who has won a record sixteen World Series of Poker bracelets. He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Event of the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and he is a 2007 inductee of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tournament players of all time.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended Madison West High School. He had trouble with grades and friends during school and said at the time he was the "ugly duckling" of his family. He then moved on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for three years, where he dropped out to become a full-time poker player.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Since 1992, he has lived in Palo Alto, California, with his wife, Katherine Sanborn, who is a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and their two sons, Phillip III and Nicholas.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: He is ranked 19th on the all-time money list. He holds the records for most WSOP cashes (154) and most WSOP final tables (64), overtaking T. J. Cloutier.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In the 1988 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth had his first in-the-money finish at the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Split, the 6th event. In the 1988 WSOP, he came in 33rd after being eliminated by eventual champion Johnny Chan.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads-up play; Hellmuth's record was broken by Peter Eastgate (22) in 2008.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: As of September 2020, Hellmuth had won over $15,000,000 at the WSOP and ranked fourth on the WSOP All Time Money List, behind Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Colman, and Daniel Negreanu. Hellmuth also was fifth all time in number of times cashed in the WSOP Main Event. He had eight Main Event cashes (1988, 1989, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009, and 2015), placing him behind Berry Johnston (10), and Humberto Brenes, Doyle Brunson, and Bobby Baldwin (9).


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Thirteen of Hellmuth's 16 bracelets have been in Texas hold'em, though he has had some success in non-hold'em events. As of the start of the 2015 World Series, 22 of Hellmuth's 52 final tables are for a variety of games, including 2-7 Lowball, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, Seven Card Razz, and Omaha hold'em (Pot Limit, Limit, and Hi-Lo), as well as mixed games like H.O.R.S.E and the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship; his first-ever WSOP final table (and first-ever WSOP cash) was in Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo in 1988, and his second-ever WSOP final table (and third-ever WSOP cash) was in Pot Limit Omaha hold'em w/Rebuys in 1989. His third-ever WSOP final table (and fifth-ever WSOP cash) was his Main Event victory in 1989.) Of those 22 events, Hellmuth has finished runner-up six times.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: At the 1993 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth became the second player in WSOP history to win three bracelets in one WSOP. (Walter "Puggy" Pearson was the first to do so in 1973; one of those bracelets was for winning the Main Event.) Hellmuth's three victories came in three consecutive days. (Ted Forrest also won three bracelets in three consecutive days at the 1993 WSOP to become the third player to win three bracelets in one WSOP.)


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: At the 1997 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his 5th bracelet of the decade, the most of any player in the 1990s.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: At the 2006 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth captured his 10th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em with rebuys event. At the time, it tied him with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for most bracelets. At the 2007 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his record-breaking 11th bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em Event.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth's sponsor arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in a race car. Hellmuth lost control of the car in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot and hit a light fixture. He gave up the car for a limo, arriving at the Main Event two hours late.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: At the 2008 WSOP Main Event, Hellmuth verbally abused another player and received a one-round penalty. After a private meeting with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, the penalty was overruled, and Hellmuth finished the tournament in 45th place.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In the 2011 World Series of Poker, Phil finished second in three tournaments, in the 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship, the Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship, and The Poker Player's Championship eight-game mix.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On June 11, 2012, Hellmuth won his 12th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $2,500 Seven-Card Razz event, defeating Don Zewin and earning $182,793. Zewin had finished third to Chan and Hellmuth when Hellmuth won his first bracelet in 1989. This is the first bracelet Hellmuth has won in a non-hold'em event, and made him the first player to win at least one bracelet in each of the last four decades, and only the third player in WSOP history to win a bracelet in four decades (Jay Heimowitz won 6 bracelets, spanning the 1970s through the 2000s, and Billy Baxter won 7 bracelets, also spanning the 1970s through the 2000s). Hellmuth also collected $2,645,333 for his fourth-place finish in the $1,000,000 buy-in "Big One for One Drop" tournament, by far the largest single tournament cash of his career.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On October 4, 2012, Hellmuth won his 13th World Series of Poker bracelet in the €10,450 WSOPE No Limit Hold'em Main Event, earning €1,022,376 ($1,333,841) and becoming the first player to ever win both the WSOP and WSOPE Main Events. This win also made Hellmuth the first player in WSOP history to win multiple bracelets in three decades (1993 (3), 2003 (2), and 2012 (2)). Also, Hellmuth finished runner-up in the WSOP Player of the Year race for a record third time (2006, 2011, and 2012).


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On June 8, 2015, Hellmuth won his 14th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $10,000 Seven-Card Razz event, earning $271,105.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On July 11, 2018, Hellmuth won his 15th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event, earning $485,082.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On October 17, 2021, Hellmuth won his 16th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw event, earning $84,851.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On July 2022, Hellmuth got close to winning his 17th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $3,000 No Limit Hold'em, he finished in second place and earned $369,698.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth has cashed 18 times and made five final tables on the World Poker Tour. He finished in fourth place in the $3,000 No Limit Hold'em WPT Event at the 49'er Gold Rush Bonanza in 2002, in third place in the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in 2003, in sixth place at the 2008 L.A. Poker Classic, in third place at the Bay 101 Shooting Star event in 2010, and second place in 2017 at the Bicycle Casino. In 2010 he also was the TV bubble boy finishing seventh at the $25,000 WPT World Championship. As of January 2021, Hellmuth had won $1,576,916 in WPT tournaments.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth makes regular appearances on episodes of "Poker After Dark" on PokerGO both as a player and as a drop-in commentator. Hellmuth won his first "Poker After Dark" tournament in the first episode of the third season, winning $120,000. Hellmuth returned two weeks later and claimed his second "Poker After Dark" title, winning another $120,000. Hellmuth is the Season 3 champion of "Late Night Poker".


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In 2000, he won the Poker EM 7-Card Stud Main Event in Austria, billed the largest 7-Card Stud tournament in the world. Phil defeated 437 other players to win $106,250. In 2005, Hellmuth won the first National Heads-Up Poker Championship. He defeated Men Nguyen, Paul Phillips, Huck Seed, Lyle Berman and Antonio Esfandiari on the way to the final against Chris Ferguson whom he defeated in two out of three games. While trying to repeat in 2006, he lost in the first round to Chip Reese. In 2007, Hellmuth did not play due to the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker, a British tournament in which he took part. He won four out of his six group matches and eventually finished third in the finals. Hellmuth took part in the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship, losing in the first round to Tom Dwan. In 2013, Hellmuth finished in second place, losing to Mike Matusow in the final round and earning $300,000.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In July 2020, PokerGO announced a new series called "High Stakes Duel" which would follow a heads-up format of poker with the stakes doubling every round and the loser of the match having the first option to challenge for a rematch. Hellmuth would face Antonio Esfandiari in Round 1 on July 31, 2020, with the buy-in for each player being $50,000. Hellmuth defeated Esfandiari, and Esfandiari immediately declared his intention for a rematch. Round 2 was held on September 24, 2020, and would see each player buy-in for $100,000. Hellmuth again defeated Esfandiari, and Round 3 would be set for October 21, 2020, when Esfandiari immediately challenged for a rematch after the loss. Round 3 saw the buy-in doubled to $200,000, and Hellmuth defeated Esfandiari for the third consecutive time. Following the unique rules of "High Stakes Duel", Esfandiari was out of challenges and Hellmuth could cash out his $400,000 in winnings or progress through to Round 4. Hellmuth decided to cash out the $400,000 and announced in his winner's interview that he will be ready for Season 2.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In 2021, Phil Hellmuth challenged Daniel Negreanu in High Stakes Duel II. The two played three rounds, and Hellmuth won all three and cashed out his $400,000. Following that victory, he returned for High Stakes Duel III. In round 1, he faced challenger Nick Wright of Fox Sports and won $100,000. His seven-game winning streak came to an end after Tom Dwan challenged him in round 2 and defeated him for $200,000. As of September 2021, Phil Hellmuth has challenged Tom Dwan to another round, and no date has been set, but it will likely occur during the World Series of Poker 2021. They will be playing for a prize of $400,000, each putting up $200,000 of their own money.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth appeared in seasons 1, 4, and 6 of GSN's cash game show, "High Stakes Poker". He was involved with creating the software for UltimateBet and was formerly a member of Team UB.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth has made several instructional poker videos, including his "Ultimate White To Black Belt Course" and "Phil Hellmuth's Million Dollar Poker System." He has written for Cardplayer magazine and authored several poker books including "Play Poker like the Pros," "Bad Beats and Lucky Draws," "The Greatest Poker Hands ever Played", and "Poker Brat." In May 2004 he partnered with Oasys Mobile to create a mobile app called "Texas Hold'em by Phil Hellmuth." In spring 2006, Hellmuth replaced Phil Gordon as commentator on Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown". Hellmuth was a poker coach on Fox Sports Network’s Best Damn Poker Show.


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: In 2009, Hellmuth's publishing company, Phil's House Publishing, published the Stephen John and Marvin Karlins book "Deal Me In: 20 Of The World's Top Poker Players Share The Heartbreaking and Inspiring Stories of How They Turned Pro".


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: Hellmuth is known for his "Poker Brat" personality, especially after taking bad beats. In the first week of "Poker After Dark" on NBC, Hellmuth asked fellow pros Shawn Sheikhan, Steve Zolotow, Gus Hansen and Huck Seed to stop talking while it was his turn to act on his hand after Annie Duke raised him. They initially complied, but when Hellmuth began to talk, he was mocked by Seed, who said, "please be quiet so I can talk," eliciting laughter from the other players. Hellmuth then threatened never to play on the show again and walked off the set. After the show's producers intervened, Hellmuth returned and was eliminated a few hands later by Sheikhan. Duke remained quiet while the drama played out, though in a later interview, she described Hellmuth's behavior as "one of the biggest overreactions I have ever seen."


title: Phil Hellmuth

text: On Day 5 of the 2008 WSOP, Hellmuth folded to Cristian Dragomir's bet on a flop of . Asked by the table to show his hand, Dragomir revealed that he had called Hellmuth's pre-flop re-raise with , a much weaker hand. Hellmuth proceeded to call Dragomir an "idiot," among other insults, and was eventually issued a warning by the floorperson for continued berating of another player. Other players, including his friend Mike Matusow, advised him to stop. Nonetheless, he continued to verbally abuse Dragomir until he received a one-round penalty. The penalty was to be carried out at the beginning of play the next day. After Hellmuth had a private meeting with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, Pollack overruled the floorperson's penalty.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Slavic mythology or Slavic religion is the religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and the 13th century. The South Slavs, who likely settled in the Balkan Peninsula during the 6th–7th centuries AD, bordering with the Byzantine Empire to the south, came under the sphere of influence of Eastern Christianity, beginning with the creation of writing systems for Slavic languages (first Glagolitic, and then Cyrillic script) in 855 by the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius and the adoption of Christianity in Bulgaria in 863. The East Slavs followed with the official adoption in 988 by Vladimir the Great of Kievan Rus'.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The West Slavs' process of Christianization was more gradual and complicated. The Moravians accepted Christianity as early as 831, the Bohemian dukes followed in 845, Slovaks accepted Christianity somewhere between the years 828 and 863, but the Poles accepted it much later, in 966, around the same time as the Sorbs, and the Polabian Slavs only came under the significant influence of the Catholic Church from the 12th century onwards. For the Polabian Slavs and the Sorbs, Christianisation went hand in hand with full or partial Germanisation.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The Christianisation of the Slavic peoples was, however, a slow and—in many cases—superficial phenomenon, especially in what is today Russia. Christianisation was vigorous in western and central parts of what is today Ukraine, since they were closer to the capital, Kyiv. Even there, however, popular resistance led by "volkhv"s, pagan priests or shamans, recurred periodically for centuries.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The West Slavs of the Baltic tenaciously withstood Christianity until it was violently imposed on them through the Northern Crusades. Among Poles and East Slavs, rebellions broke out throughout the 11th century. Christian chroniclers reported that the Slavs regularly re-embraced their original religion ("relapsi sunt denuo ad paganismus").


title: Slavic paganism

text: Many elements of the Slavic indigenous religion were officially incorporated into Slavic Christianity (which manifested itself in the architecture of the Russian Church, icon painting, etc.), and, besides this, the worship of Slavic gods has persisted in unofficial folk religion until modern times. The Slavs' resistance to Christianity gave rise to a "whimsical syncretism" which in Old Church Slavonic vocabulary was defined as "dvoeverie", "double faith". Since the early 20th century, Slavic folk religion has undergone an organised reinvention and reincorporation in the movement of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery).


title: Slavic paganism

text: One of the first written sources on the religion of the ancient Slavs is the description of the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea (6th century), who mentioned sacrifices to the supreme god-the thunderer of the Slavs, river spirits ("nymphs") and others:


title: Slavic paganism

text: Al-Masudi, an Arab historian, geographer and traveler, equates the paganism of the Slavs and rus' with reason:


title: Slavic paganism

text: Western European authors of the 11th and 12th centuries gave detailed descriptions of the sanctuaries and cults of Redigost (Radegast, Svarozhich) in Rethra, Svyatovit (Svetovid) in Arkon (Jaromarsburg), Triglav in Szczecin, Chernobog, the sanctuary in Volyně, etc. The identification of a number of Eastern European monuments with Slavic sanctuaries is a matter of dispute (Peryn, a complex near the site of the Zbruch idol).


title: Slavic paganism

text: The main idea of paganism and mythology of the Slavs is given primarily by historical and documentary sources (letopises and chronicles). The Tale of Bygone Years under the year 980 contains a story about the sanctuary in Kiev, built by Vladimir Svyatoslavich, and the idols of pagan gods installed there are mentioned:


title: Slavic paganism

text: The text mentions the deities Svarog, Yarilo and Veles. It is known that the idol of Veles stood in Kiev "under the mountain", probably on the Kiev Podol, in the lower part of the city, that is, in the trade and craft part of Kiev at the pier on the Pochain River. In the "Life of Vladimir" it is said that this idol was overthrown during the baptism of Kievan Rus in 988: "And Veles idol ... ordered to throw off the river in Pochaina".


title: Slavic paganism

text: Ancient Russian teachings against paganism can also serve as sources. In this genre, three of the most famous monuments are known: "The Word of St. Gregory about idols", "The word of a certain Christ-lover and the punishment of the spiritual father (about submission and obedience)" and "The Walking of the Virgin in torment".


title: Slavic paganism

text: In the absence of original mythological texts, it is possible to judge the paganism of the Slavs as a historical stage of the general Slavic culture only by secondary data-archaeological and book-written sources, by comparing them and reconstructing what historians Evgeny Anichkov, Dmitry Zelenin, Lubor Niederle, Henryk Łowmiański, Aleksander Gieysztor, Stanisław Urbańczyk and many others did.


title: Slavic paganism

text: It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that reconstruction became widespread by comparing Slavic data with data from other Indo-European (Baltic, Iranian, German, etc.) cultural traditions (first of all, the works of Vechaslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov are distinguished).


title: Slavic paganism

text: The richest sources for the study of Slavic paganism as a cultural model and the reconstruction of Ancient Slavic ideas remain modern (dating back to the 19th—20th centuries) linguistic, ethnographic and folklore evidence of Slavic traditions. Many traces of slavic paganism are left in Western European toponymy, including the names of settlements, rivers, mountains, and villages.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Twentieth-century scholars who pursued the study of ancient Slavic religion include Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Marija Gimbutas, Boris Rybakov, and Roman Jakobson, among others. Rybakov is noted for his effort to re-examine medieval ecclesiastical texts, synthesizing his findings with archaeological data, comparative mythology, ethnography, and nineteenth-century folk practices. He also elaborated one of the most coherent pictures of ancient Slavic religion in his "Paganism of the Ancient Slavs" and other works. Among earlier, nineteenth-century scholars there was Bernhard Severin Ingemann, known for his study of "Fundamentals of a North Slavic and Wendish mythology".


title: Slavic paganism

text: Historical documents about Slavic religion include the "Primary Chronicle", compiled in Kyiv around 1111, and the "Novgorod First Chronicle" compiled in the Novgorod Republic. They contain detailed reports of the annihilation of the official Slavic religion of Kyiv and Novgorod, and the subsequent "double faith". The "Primary Chronicle" also contains the authentic text of Rus-Greek treatises (dated 945 and 971) with native pre-Christian oaths. From the eleventh century onwards, various Rus writings were produced against the survival of Slavic religion, and Slavic gods were interpolated in the translations of foreign literary works, such as the "Malalas Chronicle" and the "Alexandreis".


title: Slavic paganism

text: The West Slavs who dwelt in the area between the Vistula and the Elbe stubbornly resisted the Northern Crusades, and the history of their resistance is written down in the "Latin Chronicles" of three German clergymen—Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen in the eleventh century, and Helmold in the twelfth—, in the twelfth-century biographies of Otto of Bamberg, and in Saxo Grammaticus' thirteenth-century "Gesta Danorum". These documents, together with minor German documents and the Icelandic "Knýtlinga saga", provide an accurate description of northwestern Slavic religion.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The religions of other Slavic populations are less documented, because writings about the theme were produced late in time after Christianisation, such as the fifteenth-century "Polish Chronicle", and contain a lot of sheer inventions. In the times preceding Christianisation, some Greek and Roman chroniclers, such as Procopius and Jordanes in the sixth century, sparsely documented some Slavic concepts and practices. Slavic paganism survived, in more or less pure forms, among the Slovenes along the Soča river up to the 1330s.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The linguistic unity, and negligible dialectal differentiation, of the Slavs until the end of the first millennium CE, and the lexical uniformity of religious vocabulary, witness a uniformity of early Slavic religion. It has been argued that the essence of early Slavdom was ethnoreligious before being ethnonational; that is to say, belonging to the Slavs was chiefly determined by conforming to certain beliefs and practices rather than by having a certain racial ancestry or being born in a certain place. Ivanov and Toporov identified Slavic religion as an outgrowth of a purported common Proto-Indo-European religion, sharing strong similarities with other neighbouring belief systems such as those of Balts, Thracians and Phrygians.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Although, especially in places like Russia, the local development of the ancient Slavic religion likely also included several influences from neighbouring Finnic peoples, which contributed to the local ethnogenesis. Slavic (and Baltic) religion and mythology is considered more conservative and closer to the purported original Proto-Indo-European religion—and thus precious for the latter's understanding—than other Indo-European derived traditions, due to the fact that, throughout the history of the Slavs, it remained a popular religion rather than being reworked and sophisticated by intellectual elites as happened to other Indo-European derived religious cultures.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The affinity with Proto-Indo-Iranian religion is evident in shared developments, including the elimination of the term for the supreme God of Heaven, *"Dyeus", and its substitution by the term for "sky" (Slavic "Nebo"), the shift of the Indo-European descriptor of heavenly deities (Avestan "daeva", Old Church Slavonic "div"; Proto-Indo-European *"deiwos", "celestial", similar to "Dyeus") to the designation of evil entities, and the parallel designation of gods by the term meaning both "wealth" and its "giver" (Avestan "baga", Slavic "bog"). Much of the religious vocabulary of the Slavs, including "vera" (loosely translated as "faith", meaning "radiation of knowledge"), "svet" ("light"), "mir" ("peace", "agreement of parts", also meaning "world") and "rai" ("paradise"), is shared with Iranian.


title: Slavic paganism

text: According to Adrian Ivakhiv, the Indo-European element of Slavic religion may have included what Georges Dumézil studied as the "trifunctional hypothesis", that is to say a threefold conception of the social order, represented by the three castes of priests, warriors and farmers. According to Gimbutas, Slavic religion represented an unmistakable overlapping of any purported Indo-European originated themes with ancient religious themes dating back to time immemorial. The latter were particularly hardwearing in Slavic religion, represented by the widespread devotion to "Mat Syra Zemlya", the "Damp Mother Earth". Rybakov said the continuity and gradual complexification of Slavic religion started from devotion to life-giving forces ("bereginy"), ancestors and the supreme God, "Rod" ("Generation" itself), and developed into the "high mythology" of the official religion of the early Kievan Rus'.


title: Slavic paganism

text: As attested by Helmold ( 1120–1177) in his "Chronica Slavorum", the Slavs believed in a single heavenly God begetting all the lesser spirits governing nature, and worshipped it by their means. According to Helmold, "obeying the duties assigned to them, [the deities] have sprung from his [the supreme God's] blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to their nearness to the god of the gods". According to Rybakov's studies, wheel symbols such as the "thunder marks" ("gromovoi znak") and the "six-petaled rose inside a circle" (e.g. ), which are so common in Slavic folk crafts, and which were still carved on edges and peaks of roofs in northern Russia in the nineteenth century, were symbols of the supreme life-giver Rod. Before its conceptualisation as Rod as studied by Rybakov, this supreme God was known as "Deivos" (cognate with Sanskrit "Deva", Latin "Deus", Old High German "Ziu" and Lithuanian "Dievas"). The Slavs believed that from this God proceeded a cosmic duality, represented by "Belobog" ("White God") and "Chernobog" ("Black God", also named "Tiarnoglofi", "Black Head/Mind"), representing the root of all the heavenly-masculine and the earthly-feminine deities, or the waxing light and waning light gods, respectively. In both categories, deities might be either "Razi", "rede-givers", or "Zirnitra", "wizards".


title: Slavic paganism

text: The Slavs perceived the world as enlivened by a variety of spirits, which they represented as persons and worshipped. These spirits included those of waters ("mavka" and "rusalka"), forests ("lisovyk"), fields ("polyovyk"), those of households ("domovoy"), those of illnesses, luck and human ancestors. For instance, "Leshy" is an important woodland spirit, believed to distribute food assigning preys to hunters, later regarded as a god of flocks and herds, and still worshipped in this function in early twentieth-century Russia. Many gods were regarded by kins ("rod" or "pleme") as their ancestors, and the idea of ancestrality was so important that Slavic religion may be epitomised as a "manism" (i.e. worship of ancestors), though the Slavs did not keep genealogical records.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The Slavs also worshipped star-gods, including the moon (Russian: "Mesyats") and the sun ("Solntse"), the former regarded as male and the latter as female. The moon-god was particularly important, regarded as the dispenser of abundance and health, worshipped through round dances, and in some traditions considered the progenitor of humanity. The belief in the moon-god was still very much alive in the nineteenth century, and peasants in the Ukrainian Carpathians openly affirm that the moon is their god.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Some Slavic deities are related to Baltic mythology: Perun/Perkūnas, Veles/Velnias, Rod/Dievas, Yarilo/Saulė. There was an evident continuity between the beliefs of the East Slavs, West Slavs and South Slavs. They shared the same traditional deities, as attested, for instance, by the worship of "Zuarasiz" among the West Slavs, corresponding to "Svarožič" among the East Slavs. All the bright male deities were regarded as the hypostases, forms or phases in the year, of the active, masculine divine force personified by "Perun" ("Thunder").


title: Slavic paganism

text: His name, from the Indo-European root *"per" or *"perk" ("to strike", "splinter"), signified both the splintering thunder and the splintered tree (especially the oak; the Latin name of this tree, "quercus", comes from the same root), regarded as symbols of the irradiation of the force. This root also gave rise to the Vedic "Parjanya", the Baltic "Perkūnas", the Albanian (now denoting "God" and "sky"), the Germanic "Fjörgynn" and the Greek "Keraunós" ("thunderbolt", rhymic form of *"Peraunós", used as an epithet of Zeus).


title: Slavic paganism

text: From this root comes the name of the Finnish deity Ukko, which has a Balto-Slavic origin. or , in modern Russian folklore rendered or (from "breg", "bereg", meaning "shore") and reinterpreted as female water spirits, were rather—as attested by chronicles and highlighted by the root *"per"—spirits of trees and rivers related to Perun.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Slavic traditions preserved very ancient elements and intermingled with those of neighbouring European peoples. An exemplary case are the South Slavic still-living rain rituals of the couple "Perun"–"Perperuna", Lord and Lady Thunder, shared with the neighbouring Albanians, Greeks and Arumanians, corresponding to the Germanic "Fjörgynn"–"Fjörgyn", the Lithuanian "Perkūnas"–"Perkūna", and finding similarities in the Vedic hymns to "Parjanya".


title: Slavic paganism

text: The West Slavs, especially those of the Baltic, worshipped prominently "Svetovid" ("Lord of Power"), while the East Slavs worshipped prominently Perun himself, especially after Volodymyr's 970s–980s reforms. The various spirits were believed to manifest in certain places, which were revered as numinous and holy; they included springs, rivers, groves, rounded tops of hills and flat cliffs overlooking rivers. Calendrical rituals were attuned with the spirits, which were believed to have periods of waxing and waning throughout the year, determining the agrarian fertility cycle.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The cosmology of ancient Slavic religion, which is preserved in contemporary Slavic folk religion, is visualised as a three-tiered vertical structure, or "world tree", as common in other religions. At the top there is the heavenly plane, symbolised by birds, the sun and the moon; the middle plane is that of earthly humanity, symbolised by bees and men; at the bottom of the structure there is the netherworld, symbolised by snakes and beavers, and by the chthonic god "Veles". The Zbruch Idol (which was identified at first as a representation of Svetovid), found in western Ukraine, represents this theo-cosmology: the three-layered effigy of the four major deities—"Perun", "Dazhbog", "Mokosh" and "Lada"—is constituted by a top level with four figures representing them, facing the four cardinal directions; a middle level with representations of a human ritual community ("khorovod"); and a bottom level with the representation of a three-headed chthonic god, Veles, who sustains the entire structure.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The scholar Jiří Dynda studied the figure of "Triglav" (literally the "Three-Headed One") and Svetovid, which are widely attested in archaeological testimonies, as the respectively three-headed and four-headed representations of the same "axis mundi", of the same supreme God. Triglav itself was connected to the symbols of the tree and the mountain, which are other common symbols of the "axis mundi", and in this quality he was a "summus deus" (a sum of all things), as recorded by Ebbo ( 775–851).


title: Slavic paganism

text: Triglav represents the vertical interconnection of the three worlds, reflected by the three social functions studied by Dumézil: sacerdotal, martial and economic. Ebbo himself documented that the Triglav was seen as embodying the connection and mediation between Heaven, Earth and the underworld. Adam of Bremen ( 1040s–1080s) described the Triglav of Wolin as "Neptunus triplicis naturae" (that is to say, "Neptune of the three natures/generations") attesting the colours that were associated to the three worlds, also studied by Karel Jaromír Erben (1811–1870): white for Heaven, green for Earth and black for the underworld.


title: Slavic paganism

text: It also represents the three dimensions of time, mythologically rendered in the figure of a three-threaded rope. Triglav is Perun in the heavenly plane, Svetovid in the centre from which the horizontal four directions unfold, and Veles the psychopomp in the underworld. Svetovid is interpreted by Dynda as the incarnation of the "axis mundi" in the four dimensions of space. Helmold defined Svetovid as "deus deorum" ("god of all gods").


title: Slavic paganism

text: Besides Triglav and Svetovid, other deities were represented with many heads. This is attested by chroniclers who wrote about West Slavs, including Saxo Grammaticus ( 1160–1220). According to him, "Rugievit" in Charenza was represented with seven faces, which converged at the top in a single crown. These three-, four- or many-headed images, wooden or carved in stone, some covered in metal, which held drinking horns and were decorated with solar symbols and horses, were kept in temples, of which numerous archaeological remains have been found.


title: Slavic paganism

text: They were built on upraised platforms, frequently on hills, but also at the confluences of rivers. The biographers of Otto of Bamberg (1060/1061–1139) inform that these temples were known as , "dwellings", among West Slavs, testifying that they were regarded as the houses of the gods. They were wooden buildings with an inner cell with the god's statue, located in wider walled enclosures or fortifications; such fortifications might contain up to four .


title: Slavic paganism

text: Different were owned by different kins, and used for the ritual banquets in honour of their own ancestor-gods. These ritual banquets are known variously, across Slavic countries, as "bratchina" (from "brat", "brother"), "mol'ba" ("entreaty", "supplication") and "kanun" (short religious service) in Russia; "slava" ("glorification") in Serbia; "sobor" ("assembly") and "kurban" ("sacrifice") in Bulgaria. With Christianisation, the ancestor-gods were replaced with Christian patron saints.


title: Slavic paganism

text: There were also holy places with no buildings, where the deity was believed to manifest in nature itself. Such locations were characterised by the combined presence of trees and springs, according to the description of one such sites in Szczecin by Otto of Bamberg. A shrine of the same type in Kobarid, contemporary Slovenia, was stamped out in a "crusade" as recently as 1331.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Usually, common people were not allowed into the presence of the images of their gods, the sight of which was a privilege of the priests. Many of these images were seen and described only in the moment of their violent destruction at the hands of the Christian missionaries. The priests ("volkhv"s), who kept the temples and led rituals and festivals, enjoyed a great degree of prestige; they received tributes and shares of military booties by the kins' chiefs.


title: Slavic paganism

text: The stone idols of the northeastern Slavs in some cases looked like mushrooms, without a face, with a clearly distinguished hat. Moreover, such idols were made by hand by turning a boulder and giving it the shape of a mushroom. The medieval manuscript of the 11th-14th centuries "The Word of St. Gregory, Invented in Toltsekh" contains a direct indication that the Slavs worshiped such phallic idols. According to some researchers, such idols were dedicated to the god Rod or the god Veles (according to local old folklore, stone mushrooms are dedicated to Veles).


title: Slavic paganism

text: Due to the fact that these idols had no face, they were not destroyed. According to the beliefs of the local population, such stone idols were healing, so they were regularly visited. On certain days, people brought gifts to them, and in order to receive healing from an illness, they had to sit on an idol. The stone mushroom was respected and protected. Disrespectful attitude towards this idol was not allowed. The keepers of traditions and rituals performed around the idol were very old women; the tradition was passed down through generations.


title: Slavic paganism

text: There are also beliefs that such stone mushrooms provided fertility for the soil and people. Therefore, in some places, the worship of these idols persisted for centuries until the end of the 20th century (and even after being transferred to a museum, elements of the rituals are still performed). The dating of stone mushrooms is approximate; they date back to about 1000 AD. These stone mushroom idols are very similar to two Slavic stone idols from northeast lands: Sheksna idol (in Novgorod museum, Novgorod region, Russia) and Sebej idol (Sebej museum, Pskov region, Russia). These Slavic idols have a face and a phallic shape. Their characteristic feature is a hat.


title: Slavic paganism

text: An ancient Slavic stone idol was discovered on the territory of the Nikolo-Babaevsky monastery (Nekrasovsky district) in 2020. An ancient pagan place that existed before the monastery and churches is mentioned in the ethnographic materials of Bogdanovich. In that place, on Babayki, the idol of the supreme heavenly god was worshiped. The discovered Babaevsky idol has a clear shape of a large mushroom, completely carved from a boulder. It is very similar to mushroom idols from the local cities of Ples and Myshkin. Based on morphological details, the multifaceted cult function of this idol is assumed—fertility not only for the land and forest, but also fertility for humans.


title: Slavic paganism

text: In 980 CE, in Kievan Rus', led by the Great Prince Vladimir, there was an attempt to unify the various beliefs and priestly practices of Slavic religion in order to bind together the Slavic peoples in the growing centralised state. Volodymyr canonised a number of deities, to whom he erected a temple on the hills of the capital Kyiv. These deities, recorded in the "Primary Chronicle", were five: "Perun", "Xors Dazhbog", "Stribog", "Simargl" and "Mokosh". Various other deities were worshipped by the common people, notably Veles who had a temple in the merchant's district of Podil of the capital itself. According to scholars, Volodymyr's project consisted of a number of reforms that he had already started by the 970s, and which were aimed at preserving the traditions of the kins and making Kyiv the spiritual centre of East Slavdom.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Perun was the god of thunder, law and war, symbolised by the oak and the mallet (or throwing stones), and identified with the Baltic "Perkunas", the Germanic "Thor" and the Vedic "Indra" among others; his cult was practised not so much by commoners but mainly by the aristocracy. Veles was the god of horned livestock ("Skotibog"), of wealth and of the underworld. Perun and Veles symbolised an oppositional and yet complementary duality similar to that of the Vedic "Mitra" and "Varuna", an eternal struggle between heavenly and chthonic forces. Roman Jakobson himself identified Veles as the Vedic Varuna, god of oaths and of the world order. This belief in a cosmic duality was likely the reason that led to the exclusion of Veles from Volodymyr's official temple in Kyiv. Xors Dazhbog ("Radiant Giving-God") was the god of the life-bringing power of the sun. Stribog was identified by E. G. Kagarov as the god of wind, storm and dissension. Mokosh, the only female deity in Volodymyr's pantheon, is interpreted as meaning the "Wet" or "Moist" by Jakobson, identifying her with the Mat Syra Zemlya ("Damp Mother Earth") of later folk religion.


title: Slavic paganism

text: According to Ivanits, written sources from the Middle Ages "leave no doubt whatsoever" that the common Slavic peoples continued to worship their indigenous deities and hold their rituals for centuries after Kievan Rus' official baptism into Christianity, and the lower clergy of the newly formed Orthodox Christian church often joined the celebrations. The high clergy repeatedly condemned, through official admonitions, the worship of "Rod" and the "Rozhanitsy" ("God and the Goddesses", or "Generation and the generatrixes") with offerings of bread, porridge, cheese and mead. Scholars of Russian religion define "Rod" as the "general power of birth and reproduction" and the "Rozhanitsy" as the "mistresses of individual destiny". Kagarov identified the later "Domovoi", the god of the household and kinship ancestry, as a specific manifestation of Rod. Other gods attested in medieval documents remain largely mysterious, for instance "Lada" and her sons "Lel" and "Polel", who are often identified by scholars with the Greek gods "Leda" or "Leto" and her twin sons "Castor" and "Pollux". Other figures who in medieval documents are often presented as deities, such as "Kupala" and "Koliada", were rather the personifications of the spirits of agrarian holidays.


title: Slavic paganism

text: In 988, Vladimir of Kyivan Rus' rejected Slavic religion and he and his subjects were officially baptised into the Eastern Orthodox Church, then the state religion of the Byzantine Empire. According to legend, Vladimir sent delegates to foreign states to determine what was the most convincing religion to be adopted by Kyiv. Joyfulness and beauty were the primary characteristics of pre-Christian Slavic ceremonies, and the delegates sought something capable of matching these qualities. They were crestfallen by the Islamic religion of Volga Bulgaria, where they found "no joy ... but sorrow and great stench", and by Western Christianity (then the Catholic Church) where they found "many worship services, but nowhere ... beauty". Those who visited Constantinople were instead impressed by the arts and rituals of Byzantine Christianity. According to the "Primary Chronicle", after the choice was made Vladimir commanded that the Slavic temple on the Kyivan hills be destroyed and the effigies of the gods be burned or thrown into the Dnieper. Slavic temples were destroyed throughout the lands of Kievan Rus' and Christian churches were built in their places.


title: Slavic paganism

text: According to Ivakhiv, Christianisation was stronger in what is today western and central Ukraine, lands close to the capital Kyiv. Slavic religion persisted, however, especially in northernmost regions of Slavic settlement, in what is today the central part of European Russia, such as the areas of Novgorod, Suzdal and Belozersk. In the core regions of Christianisation themselves the common population remained attached to the "volkhv"s, the priests, who periodically, over centuries, led popular rebellions against the central power and the Christian church. Christianisation was a very slow process among the Slavs, and the official Christian church adopted a policy of co-opting pre-Christian elements into Slavic Christianity. Christian saints were identified with Slavic gods—for instance, the figure of Perun was overlapped with that of Saint Elias, Veles was identified with Saint Blasius, and Yarilo became Saint George—and Christian festivals were set on the same dates as pagan ones.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Another feature of early Slavic Christianity was the strong influence of apocryphal literature, which became evident by the thirteenth century with the rise of Bogomilism among the South Slavs. South Slavic Bogomilism produced a large amount of apocryphal texts and their teachings later penetrated into Russia, and would have influenced later Slavic folk religion. Bernshtam tells of a "flood" of apocryphal literature in eleventh- to fifteenth-century Russia, which might not have been controlled by the still-weak Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Some scholars have highlighted how the "conversion of Rus" took place no more than eight years after Volodymyr's reform of Slavic religion in 980; according to them, Christianity in general did not have "any deep influence ... in the formation of the ideology, culture and social psychology of archaic societies" and the introduction of Christianity in Kyiv "did not bring about a radical change in the consciousness of the society during the entire course of early Russian history". It was portrayed as a mass and conscious conversion only by half a century later, by the scribes of the Christian establishment. According to some scholars, the replacement of Slavic temples with Christian churches and the "baptism of Rus" has to be understood in continuity with the foregoing chain of reforms of Slavic religion launched by Volodymyr, rather than as a breaking point.


title: Slavic paganism

text: V. G. Vlasov quotes the respected scholar of Slavic religion E. V. Anichkov, who, regarding Russia's Christianisation, said:


title: Slavic paganism

text: According to Vlasov the ritual of baptism and mass conversion undergone by Volodymyr in 988 was never repeated in the centuries to follow, and mastery of Christian teachings was never accomplished on the popular level even by the start of the twentieth century. According to him, a nominal, superficial identification with Christianity was possible with the superimposition of a Christianised agrarian calendar ("Christian–Easter–Whitsunday") over the indigenous complex of festivals, "Koliada–Yarilo–Kupala". The analysis of the Christianised agrarian and ritual calendar, combined with data from popular astronomy, leads to determine that the Julian calendar associated with the Orthodox Church was adopted by Russian peasants between the sixteenth and seventeenth century. It was by this period that much of the Russian population became officially part of the Orthodox Church and therefore nominally Christians. This occurred as an effect of a broader complex of phenomena which Russia underwent by the fifteenth century, that is to say radical changes towards a centralisation of state power, which involved urbanisation, bureaucratisation and the consolidation of serfdom of the peasantry.


title: Slavic paganism

text: That the vast majority of the Russian population was not Christian back in the fifteenth century may possibly be evidenced by archaeology: according to Vlasov, mound ("kurgan") burials, which do not reflect Christian norms, were "a universal phenomenon in Russia up to the fifteenth century", and persisted into the 1530s. Moreover, chronicles from that period, such as the "Pskov Chronicle", and archaeological data collected by N. M. Nikolsky, testify that back in the fifteenth century there were still "no rural churches for the general use of the populace; churches existed only at the courts of boyars and princes". It was only by the sixteenth century that the Russian Orthodox Church grew as a powerful, centralising institution taking the Catholic Church of Rome as a model, and the distinctiveness of a Slavic folk religion became evident. The church condemned "heresies" and tried to eradicate the "false half-pagan" folk religion of the common people, but these measures coming from the centres of church power were largely ineffective, and on the local level creative syntheses of folk religious rituals and holidays continued to thrive.


title: Slavic paganism

text: When the incorporation of the Russian population into Christianity became substantial in the middle of the sixteenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church absorbed further elements of pre-Christian and popular tradition and underwent a transformation of its architecture, with the adoption of the hipped roof which was traditionally associated with pre-Christian Slavic temples. The most significant change, however, was the adoption of the sunwise—or clockwise—direction in Christian ritual procession.


title: Slavic paganism

text: Christianity is characterised by withershins ritual movement, that is to say, movement against the course of the sun. This was also the case in Slavic Christianity before the sixteenth century. Sunwise movements are instead characteristic of Slavic religion, evident in the "khorovod", ritual circle-dance, which magically favours the development of things. Withershins movement was employed in popular rituals, too, though only in those occasions when it was considered worthwhile to act against the course of nature, in order to alter the state of affairs.


title: Slavic paganism

text: When Patriarch Nikon of Moscow launched his reform of the Orthodox Church in 1656, he restored the withershins ritual movement. This was among the changes that led to a schism ("raskol") within Russian Orthodoxy, between those who accepted the reforms and the Old Believers, who preserved instead the "ancient piety" derived from indigenous Slavic religion. A large number of Russians and ethnic minorities converted to the movement of the Old Believers, in the broadest meaning of the term—including a variety of folk religions—pointed out by Bernshtam, and these Old Believers were a significant part of the settlers of broader European Russia and Siberia throughout the second half of the seventeenth century, which saw the expansion of the Russian state in these regions. Old Believers were distinguished by their cohesion, literacy and initiative, and constantly emerging new religious sects tended to identify themselves with the movement. This posed a great hitch to the Russian Orthodox Church's project of thorough Christianisation of the masses. Veletskaya highlighted how the Old Believers have preserved early Slavic pagan ideas and practices such as the veneration of fire as a channel to the divine world, the symbolism of the colour red, the search for a "glorious death", and more in general the holistic vision of a divine cosmos.


title: Slavic paganism

text: In the opinion of Norman Davies, the Christianization of Poland through the Czech–Polish alliance represented a conscious choice on the part of Polish rulers to ally themselves with the Czech state rather than the German one. The Moravian cultural influence played a significant role in the spread of Christianity onto the Polish lands and the subsequent adoption of that religion. Christianity arrived around the late 9th century, most likely around the time when the Vistulan tribe encountered the Christian rite in dealings with their neighbours, the Great Moravia (Bohemian) state. The "Baptism of Poland" refers to the ceremony when the first ruler of the Polish state, Mieszko I and much of his court, converted to Christianity on the Holy Saturday of 14 April 966.


title: Slavic paganism

text: In the eleventh century, Slavic pagan culture was "still in full working order" among the West Slavs. Christianity faced popular opposition, including an uprising in the 1030s (particularly intense in the years of 1035–1037). By the twelfth century, however, under the pressure of Germanisation, Catholicism was forcefully imposed through the Northern Crusades, and temples and images of Slavic religion were violently destroyed. West Slavic populations held out vigorously against Christianisation. One of the most famous instances of popular resistance occurred at the temple-stronghold of Svetovid at Cape Arkona, in Rugia. The temple at Arkona had a squared groundplan, with an inner hall sustained by four pillars which contained Svetovid's statue. The latter had four heads, shown beardless and cleanshaven after the Rugian fashion. In its right hand the statue held a horn of precious metal, which was used for divination during the yearly great festival of the god. In 1168, Arkona surrendered to the Danish troops of King Valdemar I, and the bishop Absalon led the destruction of the temple of Svetovid.