title: Russian nobility

text: Although Peter the Great is considered to be the first westernized ruler of Russia, there were, in fact, contacts between the Muscovite nobility and Western Europe before his reign. Ivan III, starting in 1472, sent numerous agents to Italy to study architecture. Both Michael Romanov (1613–1645) and his son Alexis (1645–1676) invited and sponsored European visitors – mostly military, medical, and building specialists – who came to Moscow in foreign dress, speaking foreign languages. When the boyars began to imitate the westerners in dress and hairstyle, Tsar Alexis in 1675 and then Tsar Feodor in 1680 restricted foreign fashions to distinguish between Russians and outsiders,


title: Russian nobility

text: Peter the Great was, first and foremost, eager to do away with Russia's reputation as an Asiatic land and to propel his new empire onto the political stage of Western Europe. One of the many ways he hoped to achieve this was by changing the upper-class culture; he believed that forcing selected features of western fashion, education, and language onto the nobility would hasten Russia's rise to international prestige. In 1697, he began to send nobles on compulsory trips abroad to England, Holland, and Italy. While the Tsar primarily designed these expeditions for naval training, he also encouraged the noblemen to learn about the arts of the west. Furthermore, Peter prioritized sending Russian natives as opposed to foreign expatriates; he was intent on “breeding” a new nobility that conformed to western customs but represented the Slavic people as a whole. When the travelers returned to Moscow, Peter tested them on their training, insisting on further education for those whose accumulated knowledge was unsatisfactory. By 1724, he had established – for the purpose of scientific study and discovery – the Academy of Sciences, which he modeled after “the ones in Paris, London, Berlin, and other places”.


title: Russian nobility

text: Peter's westernizing efforts became more radical after 1698 when he returned from his expedition through Europe known as the Grand Embassy. Upon arriving Peter summoned the nobility to his court and personally shaved almost every beard in the room. In 1705 he decreed a beard tax on all men of rank in Moscow and ordered certain officers to seek out noble beards and shave them on sight. He only allowed peasants, priests, and serfs to retain the ingrained and religious Russian tradition of wearing beards, which the Orthodox populace considered an essential aspect of their duty to convey the image of God. He also reformed the clothing of the nobility, replacing the long-sleeved traditional Muscovite robes with European clothing. Beginning in 1699 the tsar decreed strict dress requirements borrowing from German, Hungarian, French and British styles, fining any noblemen who failed to obey. Peter himself, who usually wore German dress and had a trimmed mustache, acted as a prime example. While the nobility universally followed Peter's fashion preferences at court, they greatly resented these styles, which they saw as blasphemous. Away from St. Petersburg, very few noblemen followed Peter's guidelines and enforcement was lax.


title: Russian nobility

text: Peter also demanded changes in mannerisms and language among nobles. To supply Russians with a basic set of “proper” morals and habits, he ordered publication of manuals on Western etiquette. The most popular of these was "The Honourable Mirror of Youth or A Guide to Social Conduct Gathered from Various Authors", a compilation of rules of conduct from numerous European sources, initially published in St. Petersburg in 1717. He also encouraged the learning of foreign languages especially French, which was the foremost political and intellectual language of Europe at the time. For the nobility, these changes felt even more forced than fashion regulations. As with clothing, there was uniform acceptance of Western mannerisms at court but general disregard for them outside of St. Petersburg. Furthermore, when Westerners visited Peter's court they found the image and personality of the courtiers to appear forced and awkward. Friedrich Christian Weber, a representative of Britain, commented in 1716 that the nobles “wear the German Dress; but it is easy to observe on many, that they have not been long used to it”.


title: Russian nobility

text: While none of the rulers in power from 1725 to 1762 focused as strongly on cultural westernization, Peter sparked a transformation that was now unstoppable. Through their education and travels, some members of the nobility began to understand the extent to which Russia lagged behind Western Europe in the complexity of their political and educational systems, their technology and economy. By 1750, the ideas of secularism, skepticism and humanism had reached sects of the elite class, providing some with a new worldview and giving Russia a taste of the Enlightenment, of which they had experienced little. While even the most educated of the nobility still supported the autocracy that upheld the feudal system on which they depended, some considered how to make it more representative and to improve the bureaucracy.


title: Russian nobility

text: The period between Peter I and Catherine II represents gradual yet significant developments in western culture among the nobility. Empress Anna gave many privileges to the nobility. In 1730 she repealed the primogeniture law introduced by Peter the Great allowing the sub-division of estates. In 1736 the age at which nobles had to start service was raised from 15 to 20 and length of service was changed to 25 years instead of life and families with more than one son could keep one to manage the family estate. In 1726 Catherine I and in 1743 Empress Elizabeth further regulated noble dress in a Western direction. In 1755 also during Elizabeth's reign, advanced secondary schools and the University of Moscow were founded with curricula that included foreign languages, philosophy, medicine and law; the material was chiefly based on imported texts from the west. Most significantly Peter III freed the nobility from obligatory civil and military service in 1762, allowing them to pursue personal interests. While some used this liberty as an excuse to lead lavish lives of leisure, a select group became increasingly educated in Western ideas through schooling, reading, and travel. As before, these changes applied to few and represented a gradual shift in noble identity rather than a sudden or universal one. Marc Raeff in "Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia" has suggested this was not a noble victory but a sign the state didn't need them as much now that they had plenty of trained officials.


title: Russian nobility

text: When Catherine II ascended the throne, she quickly made her political and philosophical opinions clear in the “Instruction” of 1767, a lengthy document which she prepared for the nobility, drawing largely from and even plagiarizing ideas from the west, especially those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The point she emphasized first and foremost was that Russia was a truly European state, and her reforms of the court and education reflect this belief. While Catherine was primarily preoccupied with impressing westerners (especially the philosophers, with whom she corresponded in writing), in doing so she also made significant efforts to educate the nobility and expose them to western philosophy and art. She designed an imperial court in the style of Louis XIV, entertaining the nobility with performances of western theatre and music. She encouraged the understanding of French, German, and English languages so that nobles could read classic, historical, and philosophical literature from the west. For the first time in the history of the Russian court, “intellectual pursuits became fashionable”. When foreigners visited the court, Catherine expected the noblemen and their ladies to flaunt not only their western appearance but also their ability to discuss current events in western languages.


title: Russian nobility

text: Catherine also made specific reforms in institutional education that pushed the nobility's culture further westward. She based Russian education on that of Austria, importing German textbooks and adopting in 1786 a standardized curriculum to be taught in her newly created public schools. While many members of the lower classes were allowed into these schools, Catherine hoped that they could become educated enough to rise through the meritocratic Table of Ranks and eventually become nobles themselves. Catherine also established the Society for the Translation of Foreign Books, “to bring enlightenment to those Russians who could not read either French or German.” It is clear that, like Peter I, Catherine the Great desired to construct a new nobility, a “new race,” which would both resemble western noblemen and prove knowledgeable in discussions of modern issues. And, according to accounts from foreign visitors, the noblemen did, in fact, resemble those of Western Europe in their dress, topics of discussion, and taste in literature and performance.


title: Russian nobility

text: She also gave away 66,000 serfs in 1762–72, 202,000 in 1773–93, and 100,000 in one day: 18 August 1795. Thus she was able to bind the nobility to herself. From 1782, a kind of uniform was introduced for civilian nobles called uniform of civilian service or simply civilian uniform. The uniform prescribed colors that depended on the territory. The uniform was required at the places of service, at the Court, and at other important public places. The privileges of the nobility were fixed and were legally codified in 1785 in the Charter to the Gentry. The Charter introduced an organization of the nobility: every province ("guberniya") and district ("uyezd") had an Assembly of Nobility. The chair of an assembly was called Province/District Marshal of Nobility. In 1831 Nicholas I restricted the assembly votes to those with over 100 serfs, leaving 21,916 voters.


title: Russian nobility

text: By 1805 the various ranks of the nobility had become confused, as reflected in "War and Peace." In the era of the Napoleonic Wars, there were counts who were wealthier and more important than princes and noble families whose wealth had been dissipated partly through lack of primogeniture, partly through extravagance and due to poor estate-management. Young noblemen served in the military but did not thereby acquire new landed estates. Tolstoy reported later improvements: some nobles paid more attention to estate management, and some, like Andrey Bolkonsky, freed their serfs even before the tsar did so in 1861. Of Russia's nobles, 62.8% were szlachta from the nine western gubernii in 1858 and still 46.1% in 1897.


title: Russian nobility

text: "Obrok" or cash rent was most common in the north while "barshchina" or labor rent was found mainly in the southern Black Earth Region. In the reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855) the latter brought three times the income of cash rent (though this needed less administration). In 1798 Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs separately from land. In 1841 landless nobles were banned also.


title: Russian nobility

text: Descended from the gentry, the landholding, but not serf-owning, odnodvortsy were between peasants and nobles. They emerged as frontier settlers recruited from the class of boyar scions. The status of the odnodvortsy changed gradually from singleholding farmers to taxed state peasants.


title: Russian nobility

text: The nobility was too weak to oppose the Emancipation reform of 1861. In 1858, three million serfs were held by 1,400 landlords (1.4%) while 2 million by 79,000 (78%). In 1820 a fifth of the serfs were mortgaged, half by 1842. By 1859, a third of nobles' estates and two-thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to noble banks or to the state. The nobility was also weakened by the scattering of their estates, lack of primogeniture and the high turnover and mobility from estate to estate.


title: Russian nobility

text: After the peasant reform of 1861 the economic position of the nobility weakened. The influence of the nobility was further reduced by the new law statutes of 1864, which repealed their right of electing law officer. The reform of the police in 1862 limited the landowners' authority locally, and the establishment of all-estate Zemstvo local government did away with the exclusive influence of nobility in local self-government.


title: Russian nobility

text: These changes occurred despite the nobles keeping nearly all the meadows and forests and having their debts paid by the state, while the ex-serfs paid 34% over the market price for the shrunken plots they kept. This figure was 90% in the northern regions, 20% in the black-earth region but zero in the Polish provinces. In 1857, 6.79% of serfs were domestic, landless servants who stayed landless after 1861. Only Polish and Romanian domestic serfs got land. Ninety percent of the serfs who got larger plots lived in the eight ex-Polish provinces where the Tsar wanted to weaken the Szlachta. The other 10% lived in Astrakhan and in the barren north. In the whole Empire, peasant land declined 4.1% - 13.3% outside the ex-Polish zone and 23.3% in the 16 black-earth provinces. Georgia's serfs suffered the loss of of their land in Tiflis province, in Kutaisi province. These redemption payments were not abolished till January 1, 1907.


title: Russian nobility

text: The influx of New World grain caused a slump in grain prices, forcing the peasants to farm more land. At the same time, despite their efficiency, large peasant households split up (from 9.5 to 6.8 persons per household in central Russia, 1861–1884). The resulting land hunger increased prices 7-fold and made it easier for nobles to sell or rent land rather than farm it themselves. From 1861 to 1900 40% of noble land was sold to peasants (70% of this went to the Commune and by 1900 two thirds of the nobles' arable land was rented to the peasantry). Between 1900–1914, over 20% of remaining noble land was sold but only 3% of the 155 estates over 50,000 "destiny". According to the 1897 census, 71% of the top 4 ranks of the civil service were nobles. But in the civil service as a whole, noble membership declined from 49.8% in 1755 to 43.7% in the 1850s and to 30.7% in 1897. There were 1.2 million nobles, about 1% of the population (8% in Poland; compare with 4% in Hungary and 1 to 1.5% in France). Their military influence waned: in the Crimean War 90% of officers were noble, by 1913 the proportion had sunk to 50%. They lived increasingly away from their estates: in 1858 only 15 to 20% of Russian nobles lived in cities, by 1897 it was 47.2%.


title: Russian nobility

text: The Russian imperial nobility was multi-ethnic. Native non-Russians such as the Poles, Georgians, Lithuanians, Tatars, and Germans formed an important segment of the noble estate. The Baltic German nobility was particularly prominent. According to the 1897 census, 0.87% of Russians were classified as hereditary nobles versus 5.29% of Georgians and 4.41% of Poles, followed by Lithuanians, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, and Germans. After the abolition of serfdom, the non-Russian nobility, with the exception of Finland, lost their special status. Later, many of the impoverished or déclassé Polish and Georgian nobles became leaders of nationalist and radical political movements, including Bolshevism.


title: Russian nobility

text: Quoting historian John Armstrong, Andrei Znamenski describes the Baltic Germans as a "mobilized diaspora" who acted as the Russian Empire's cultural and diplomatic envoys.


title: Russian nobility

text: After the October Revolution of 1917, the new Soviet government legally abolished all classes of nobility. Many members of the Russian nobility who fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution played a significant role in the White Emigre communities which settled in Europe, in North America, and in other parts of the world. In the 1920s and 1930s, several Russian nobility associations were established outside Russia, including groups in France, Belgium, and the United States. In New York, the Russian Nobility Association in America, was founded in 1933. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 interest among Russians in the role that the Russian nobility played in the historical and cultural development of Russia has grown.


title: Russian nobility

text: Nobility was transferred by inheritance or was bestowed by a fount of honour, i.e. the sovereign of the Russian Empire, and was typically ranked as per below, with those of the highest noble prestige ranked first.


title: Russian nobility

text: Unlike the ancient nobility, which was exclusively hereditary, the remaining classes of nobility could be acquired.


title: Russian nobility

text: A newly designated noble was usually entitled to landownership. A loss of land did not automatically mean loss of nobility. In later Imperial Russia, higher ranks of state service (see Table of Ranks) were automatically granted nobility, not necessarily associated with land ownership.


title: Russian nobility

text: Russian did not in general employ a nobiliary particle before a surname (as "von" in German or "de" in French), however the Russian name suffix -skij which means “of” and is equal to “von” and “de” was used in many noble surnames especially topographic surnames as nobiliary particle. Russian noblemen were accorded an official salutation, or style, that varied by rank: "your high born" (), "your high well born" (), "your well born" (), etc.


title: Russian nobility

text: Titled nobility () was the highest category: those who had titles such as prince, count and baron. The latter two titles were introduced by Peter the Great. A baron or count could be either proprietary (actual) ( владетельный (действительный))—"i.e.," who owned land in the Russian Empire—or titular (титулярный), "i.e.," only endowed with a rank or title.


title: Russian nobility

text: Hereditary nobility () was transferred to wife, children, and further direct legal descendants along the male (agnatic) line. In exceptional cases, the emperor could transfer nobility along indirect or female lines, "e.g.," to preserve a notable family name.


title: Russian nobility

text: Personal nobility () could, for instance, be acquired by admission to orders of knighthood of the Russian Empire. It was transferable only to the wife.


title: Russian nobility

text: In addition, the ancient nobility () was recognised, descendants of Rurik, Gediminas and historical boyars and knyazes, "e.g.," the Shuyskies, Galitzins, Naryshkins, Khilkoffs, Gorchakovs, Belosselsky-Belozerskys and Chelyadnins.


title: Russian nobility

text: The Russian Tsardom came into being around the Grand Duchy of Moscow by the incorporation of various political entities surrounding it. After Peter the Great returned from his grand tour he implemented reforms aimed at westernization of his realm, including officially adopting the title of Emperor of All Russia, preceding the traditional Slavic title of Tsar. Peter and his successors also streamlined the stratification of the Russian nobility, adopting European-style titles such as Count and Baron and discontinuing the archaic titles of Boyars. The Russian system of noble titles evolved into its final form:


title: Russian nobility

text: Hereditary nobility could be achieved in the following ways: 1) by Imperial grant to individuals or families; 2) by attaining a certain military or civil officer's rank while in active service; 3) by being awarded an order of chivalry of the Russian Empire.


title: Russian nobility

text: Between 1722 and 1845 hereditary nobility was given to military officers who achieved the 14th rank of ensign, to civil servants who achieved the 8th rank of Collegiate Assessor and to any person who was awarded any order of the Russian Empire (since 1831 – except the Polish order of Virtuti Militari).


title: Russian nobility

text: Between 1845 and 1856 hereditary nobility was given to military officers who achieved the 8th rank of major/captain 3rd rank, to civil servants who achieved the 5th rank of State Councillor and to any person who was awarded the Order of Saint George or the Order of Saint Vladimir of any class, or any order of the Russian Empire of the first class.


title: Russian nobility

text: From 1856 to 1917 hereditary nobility was given to military officers who achieved the 6th rank of colonel/captain 1st rank, to civil servants who achieved the 4th rank of Active State Councillor and to any person who was awarded the Order of Saint George of any class or the Order of Saint Vladimir of any class (since 1900 - of the third class or higher), or any order of the Russian Empire of the first class.


title: Russian nobility

text: Personal nobility could be acquired in the following ways: 1) by Imperial grant; 2) by attaining the 14th military rank of ensign or the 9th civil rank of Titular Councillor; 3) by being awarded the orders of the Russian Empire unless those gave hereditary nobility; except merchants (unless those were awarded between 1826 and 1832), who acquired honorary citizenship instead. Personal nobility was not inherited by children but was shared by the recipient's wife.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Vanessa Rosalia Marquez (December 21, 1968 – August 30, 2018) was an American actress. She was primarily known for her recurring role in the first three seasons of "ER" as nurse Wendy Goldman, as well as her role as Ana Delgado in the 1988 biographical drama film, "Stand and Deliver".


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Marquez appeared in a 1992 episode of "Seinfeld" called "The Cheever Letters", portraying a secretary in the Cuban Permanent Mission (the US and Cuba did not have mutual embassies from 1961 to 2015). Her success with "Stand and Deliver" led to a career in film and television, with roles in the crime drama, "Blood In Blood Out" (1993), and the independent film, "Twenty Bucks" (1993). Her television work included guest spots on popular programs, including "Melrose Place" in 1994 and "Malcolm & Eddie" in 1999, and recurring roles on "ER" from 1994 to 1997. In addition to her acting credentials, Marquez appeared as a singer in the 2000 thriller film, "Under Suspicion".


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Vanessa Rosalia Marquez was born in Los Angeles County, California. She was the daughter of John Marquez, who died during the Vietnam War when she was one and half years old; and Delia. She grew up in Montebello, where she attended Schurr High School.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Prior to her death, Marquez made headlines related to the #MeToo movement, alleging that she endured harassment while on the set of "ER". In October 2017, she accused series star George Clooney of helping to "blacklist" her after she complained to executives about the harassment. Clooney denied the allegations.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Marquez appeared in an early episode of the A&E Network reality television series "Intervention", as she tried to manage her shopping addiction. Marquez was given an "intervention" by friends (including "Stand and Deliver" co-star, Karla Montana) to get her to go to treatment (she later said that her treatment was not successful). She had serious mental health issues, including bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and agoraphobia, that ended her career as an actress and left her almost entirely homebound. She also had celiac disease, fibromyalgia, and depression at the time of her death, and had regular seizures.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: Marquez's death occurred during an incident on August 30, 2018, at her home in South Pasadena, California, where a wellness check by local authorities led to an armed confrontation. Her home was found in a state of disarray and she claimed to be experiencing a seizure, for which paramedics and a mental health expert were called to evaluate her. Marquez was shot several times by police after she pointed a firearm and advanced toward the officers, who had retreated down the stairs after initially seeing the firearm. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead at 2:36 p.m. local time. The firearm was later determined to be a BB gun. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has ruled that the police officers had acted in lawful self-defense in the shooting.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: In February 2019, attorneys representing her mother filed a wrongful death claim against the City of South Pasadena. The claim alleges battery, negligence, unlawful entry, false arrest and imprisonment, wrongful death, negligent training, conspiracy, seizure of property, failure to summon prompt medical care and violation of the Bane Act.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: In March 2020, the South Pasadena Police Department released bodycam footage from the incident, showing Marquez pleading to the officers to kill her, as well as pointing the BB gun at them. The LA County District Attorney's Office released its report on February 25 the same year.


title: Vanessa Marquez

text: On February 23, 2021, the City of South Pasadena settled the wrongful death suit with Marquez's mother in the amount of $450,000.


title: Kugelblitz (astrophysics)

text: A kugelblitz is a theoretical astrophysical object predicted by the general relativity. It is a concentration of heat, light or radiation so intense that its energy forms an event horizon and becomes self-trapped. In other words, if enough radiation is aimed into a region of space, the concentration of energy can warp spacetime so much that it creates a black hole. This would be a black hole whose original mass–energy was in the form of radiant energy rather than matter.


title: Kugelblitz (astrophysics)

text: John Archibald Wheeler's 1955 "Physical Review" paper entitled "geons" refers to the kugelblitz phenomena and explores the idea of creating such particles (or toy models of particles) from spacetime curvature.


title: Kugelblitz (astrophysics)

text: The kugelblitz phenomenon has been considered a possible basis for interstellar engines (drives) for future black hole starships.


title: Ellen Wong

text: Ellen Wong (born January 13, 1985) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles as Knives Chau in the 2010 film "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", Jill "Mouse" Chen in The CW's series "The Carrie Diaries", and Jenny Chey in the Netflix series "GLOW".


title: Ellen Wong

text: Wong was born in Scarborough, Ontario, to Teochew-speaking Chinese Cambodian parents who fled to Canada during the Cambodian genocide. She began acting in community theatre while attending L'Amoreaux Collegiate Institute and worked in a variety of television production jobs from the age of 14. She later studied radio and television arts at Ryerson University.


title: Ellen Wong

text: Wong continued acting while at university, and in 2005, she landed a role in the television series "This Is Wonderland" followed by "Runaway" in 2006. She also has a black belt in taekwondo, but had to stop sparring competitively due to her acting schedule. Wong's martial arts background helped her land the role of Knives Chau in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" in January 2009. She auditioned for the part three times. On her second audition director Edgar Wright was surprised to find out that she studied taekwondo and was intrigued by this "sweetfaced young lady being a secret badass". Wong expressed that the role of Knives Chau caught her eye because "it's not every day that as an Asian female, you get to be able to read a role that's empowering, that has a great arc, and that's so integral to the story as a whole".


title: Ellen Wong

text: Wong also appeared in the television show "Unnatural History". In 2011, she had a recurring role as Nurse Suzy Chao in the Global/ABC series "Combat Hospital". In January 2012, she was nominated for an ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female for her work portraying an illegal immigrant smuggled across the ocean in a shipping container in the short film "Silent Cargo". In February 2012, Wong was cast in the "Sex and the City" prequel series "The Carrie Diaries", playing Jill "Mouse" Chen, Carrie's best friend from high school who is described as "pragmatic, bright, and super loyal". In 2012 she also starred in "Silent Night", a loose remake of the 1984 horror film "Silent Night, Deadly Night".


title: Ellen Wong

text: In June 2016, Wong was cast in the second season of the Syfy series "Dark Matter", and in October, she was cast in the Netflix comedy series "GLOW", which was inspired by the 1980s female professional wrestling league of the same name. In the series, Wong plays Jenny, an immigrant from Cambodia who is obsessed with pop culture. Wong was initially dismayed to find out the character's wrestling persona was named "Fortune Cookie" but stated, "What is really awesome about "GLOW" is that we play these two characters. In the ring, you are these stereotypes. But then you see who these characters are in real life outside of the ring and how they feel... Jenny is trying to be this all-American girl in the '80s, and she's basically trying to fight all these stereotypes and at the same time here she is playing this stereotype." The creators of the series wrote the character's background as Cambodian after several meetings with Wong.


title: Ellen Wong

text: In 2017, Wong appeared in the thriller film "The Circle", starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, and in Katy Perry's music video for "Swish Swish" as her character from "GLOW". That August, Wong joined the Audience television network series, "Condor", in a recurring role. In December 2019, Wong joined the cast of the Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza comedy "Best Sellers".


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Waiting for Guffman is a 1996 American mockumentary comedy film written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest. The film's ensemble cast includes Guest, Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, and Parker Posey.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: The film's title is a reference to Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot". As in the other mockumentary films created by Guest, the majority of the dialogue was improvised (based on Guest and Levy's story). Because the film is about the production of a stage musical, it contains several original musical numbers written by Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: In the fictional small town of Blaine, Missouri, a few residents prepare to put on a community theater production led by eccentric director Corky St. Clair. The show, a musical chronicling the town's history titled "Red, White and Blaine", is to be performed as part of the town's 150th-anniversary celebration.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Cast in the leads are Ron and Sheila Albertson, married travel agents who are also regular amateur performers; Libby Mae Brown, a perky Dairy Queen employee; Clifford Wooley, a "long time Blaineian" and retired taxidermist, who is "Red, White and Blaine"s narrator; Johnny Savage, a handsome and oblivious mechanic, whom Corky goes out of his way to get into the play; and Dr. Allan Pearl, a tragically square dentist determined to discover his inner entertainer. High-school teacher Lloyd Miller is the show's increasingly frustrated musical director.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Corky has used connections from his "off-off-off-off-Broadway" past to invite Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer, to critique "Red, White and Blaine". Corky leads the cast to believe that a positive review from Guffman could mean their show might go all the way to Broadway.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: The program itself is designed to musically retell the history of Blaine, whose founding father was a buffoon incapable of distinguishing the geography of middle Missouri from the Pacific coastline. The viewer also learns why the town obtusely refers to itself as "the stool capital of the United States." The music is a series of poorly performed songs such as "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars", a reference to the town's supposed visit by an unidentified flying object, and "Stool Boom". (The DVD contains "This Bulging River" and "Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine", which were edited from the cinema release.)


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Central to the film are Corky's stereotypically gay mannerisms. He supposedly has a wife called Bonnie, whom no one in Blaine has ever met or seen. He uses her to explain his habit of shopping for women's clothing and shoes.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: When Johnny is forced by his suspicious father to quit the show, Corky takes over his roles, which were clearly intended for a young, masculine actor, playing a lusty young frontiersman, a heartbroken soldier, and a little boy wearing a beanie and shorts. Corky never sheds his dainty demeanor, bowl haircut, lisp, or earring in spite of his historical roles, and his face is pasted with an overkill of stage rouge and eyeliner.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Corky is also faced with creating his magic on a shoestring budget, at one point quitting the show after storming out of a meeting with the city council, which turns down his request for $100,000 to finance the production, but the distraught cast and persuasive city fathers convince Corky to return. At the show's performance, Guffman's seat is seen to be empty, much to the dismay of the cast. Corky reassures them that Broadway producers always arrive a bit late for the show, and sure enough, a man soon takes Guffman's reserved seat. The show is well received by the audience, whereupon Corky invites the assumed Guffman backstage to talk to the actors.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: The man is actually Roy Loomis, who has come to Blaine to witness the birth of his niece's baby, but he did enjoy the show. Corky then reads a telegram stating that Guffman's plane was grounded by snowstorms in New York City, meaning that, like the "Godot" being spoofed, the real Guffman himself is destined never to arrive.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: An epilogue shows the fates of the cast: Libby Mae is now living in Sipes, Alabama, where she moved after her father was paroled, and working at the Dairy Queen. Allan and the Albertsons have pursued their dreams of being entertainers, Ron and Sheila traveling to Los Angeles, California, to work as extras, and Allan now performing for elderly Jews in Miami, Florida retirement communities. Corky has returned to New York City, where he has opened a Hollywood-themed novelty shop, which includes such items as Brat Pack bobblehead dolls, "My Dinner with Andre" action figures, and "The Remains of the Day" lunch boxes.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: The movie was shot in Lockhart, Texas, a town located 30 miles south of Austin. Christopher Guest wanted to put a "Stool capital of the world" sign up over the town, but he was not granted permission to do so. Additional shooting took place in Los Angeles, including the scenes set in Corky St. Clair's apartment.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: As in the other mockumentary films created by Guest, the majority of the dialogue is improvised. Matt Keeslar was the only cast member with no history of doing improvisational acting. Guest compares the process to jazz music: "You know the basic melody and the key changes, but it's how you get from one change to the next that matters, and you don't know in advance how you're going to do it. I'm completely blank before the camera rolls. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say." Guest shoots 10-minute-long scenes and allows improvisations to unfold organically. He ends up with almost 60 hours of film, and takes over a year to edit it down to about 90 minutes. A two-hour workprint version of "Waiting for Guffman" has circulated among fans, which includes some of the original footage that was edited out.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: After being shown at the Toronto and Boston film festivals in late 1996, it received a US theatrical release, playing in roughly 50 theaters beginning on January 31, 1997. The only other country it received a theatrical release in was Australia, during September 1997. It had earlier been shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 4, 1997.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: To promote the film, Guest made appearances on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and the NBC talk show "Later" during February 1997.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: "Waiting for Guffman" received a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This riotously deadpan mockumentary about aspiring community theater performers never stoops to ridicule oft-ridiculous characters."


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: The film also received a score of 71 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a grade A and called it "A madcap gem." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called it "Priceless".


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: It got two thumbs up on the February 1, 1997, episode of "Siskel and Ebert". In his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote: "Attention is paid not simply to funny characters and punch lines, but to small nudges at human nature."


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: During opening weekend, the film made $37,990. The film earned $2.9 million at the US domestic box office, against a production budget of $4 million.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: In January 1998, "SFGate" listed it as one of the best films of the previous year, according to ratings by 40 major critics, including those of "The New York Times", the "San Francisco Chronicle", and the "Los Angeles Times". The Lone Star Film & Television Awards awarded "Waiting for Guffman" for Best Film and Best Director.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: Actress Jane Lynch has stated her admiration of "Waiting for Guffman" is what made her want to work with Guest on "Best in Show.


title: Waiting for Guffman

text: In the USA, it was released on VHS by Warner Bros. in August 1997, and then on DVD in August 2001. In 2017, it was re-released on Blu-ray.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Colm Tóibín (, ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: His first novel, "The South", was published in 1990. "The Blackwater Lightship" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. "The Master" (a fictionalised version of the inner life of Henry James) was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the 2006 International Dublin Literary Award, securing for Toíbín a bounty of thousands of euro as it is one of the richest literary awards in the world. "Nora Webster" won the Hawthornden Prize, whilst "The Magician" (a fictionalised version of the life of Thomas Mann) won the Folio Prize. His fellow artists elected him to Aosdána and he won the "UK and Ireland Nobel" David Cohen Prize in 2021.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: He succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. He was appointed Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2017. He is now Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He was reared in Parnell Avenue. His parents were Bríd and Michael Tóibín. He is one of the two youngest children in his family, alongside his brother Niall. His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, participated in the Easter Rising in April 1916, and was subsequently interned at Frongoch in Wales, while an uncle was involved in the IRB during the Irish Civil War. Following the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Tóibín's family favoured the Fianna Fáil political party.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín grew up in a home where there was, he said, "a great deal of silence". Unable to read until the age of nine, he also developed a stammer. When he was eight years of age, in 1963, his father became ill and his mother – sending her two youngest children to stay with an aunt in County Kildare – abandoned them for three months, so that she could escort their father to Dublin, where he could be cared for. Tóibín traces the stammer he developed to this time – a stammer which would often leave him unable to speak his own name, and which he retained throughout his life. Tóibín's father – who worked as a schoolteacher – died in 1967, when his son was twelve years of age.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive. He was also an altar boy in his youth.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín went to University College Dublin (UCD), first attending history and English lectures there in 1972, before graduating in 1975. He thought about becoming a civil servant but decided against this. Instead, he left Ireland for Barcelona in 1975, later commenting: "I arrive the 24th of September, 1975. Franco dies 20th November". The city would later feature in some of Tóibín's early work: his first novel, 1990's "The South", has two characters meeting in Barcelona. His 1990 non-fiction work "Homage to Barcelona" also references the city in its title.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín left Barcelona in 1978 and came back to Ireland. He began writing for "In Dublin". Tóibín became editor of the monthly news magazine "Magill" in 1982, and remained in the position until 1985. He left due to a dispute with Vincent Browne, "Magill"s managing director. In 1997, when "The New Yorker" asked Tóibín to write about Seamus Heaney becoming President of Ireland, Tóibín noted that Heaney's popularity could survive the "kiss of death" of an endorsement by Conor Cruise O'Brien. "The New Yorker" telephoned Conor Cruise O'Brien to confirm that this was so, but Cruise O'Brien disagreed and the statement could not be corroborated.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín identifies as gay. Since 2012, Tóibín has been in a relationship with a man who lives in Los Angeles, and whose name he prefers not to disclose. He has served as a curator of exhibits for the Manhattan-based Morgan Library & Museum. He has judged both the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Giller Prize. Tóibín does not watch television, and his awareness of British parliamentary politics can be summed up by his admission that he thought Ed Balls was a nickname for the then Labour Party leader Ed Miliband. He is interested in tennis and plays the game for leisure; upon meeting Roger Federer, Tóibín enquired as to his opinion on the second serve.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: As of 2008, he had family in Enniscorthy, including two sisters (Barbara, Nuala) and a brother (Brendan).


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín lives in Southside Dublin City's Upper Pembroke Street, where on occasions his friends — such as playwright Tom Murphy and former Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan — assembled for social interaction and entertainment.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín poured his thousands of euro in prize money from his 2006 International Dublin Literary Award into building a house near Blackwater, County Wexford, where he holidayed as child. He filled this house with artworks and expensive furniture and has someone in to keep it clean it for him. He also possesses a personal key to the private gated park at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Square, which is shut to ordinary members of the public.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: In 2019, Tóibín spoke about having survived testicular cancer which spread to multiple organs including a lung, liver and lymph node.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Henry James, he is especially fond of "The Portrait of a Lady", "The Wings of the Dove", "The Ambassadors", and "The Golden Bowl".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Thomas Mann, he is especially fond of "Buddenbrooks" — which he first read in his late teens — and has also read "The Magic Mountain", "Doctor Faustus" and the novella "Death in Venice".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibin's non-fiction was influenced by Joan Didion and Norman Mailer. He said decades after the publication of his debut novel ("The South"), "If you look at it, you see that the sentence structure is more or less taken from Didion", and expressed reservations about its quality.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: In July 1972, aged 17, he had a summer job as a barman in the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, working from six in the evening to two in the morning. He spent his days on the beach, reading "The Essential Hemingway", the copy of which he still professes to have, its "pages stained with seawater". The book developed in him a fascination with Spain, led to a wish to visit that country, and gave him "an idea of prose as something glamorous, smart and shaped, and the idea of character in fiction as something oddly mysterious, worthy of sympathy and admiration, but also elusive. And more than anything, the sheer pleasure of the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of emotion living in what was not said, what was between the words and the sentences."


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Eavan Boland introduced him to the poetry of Louise Glück while Boland and Tóibín were at Stanford together in the 2000s. Tóibín stated in 2017 that "there are a few books of mine that I have written since then that I don't think I could have written had it not been for that encounter". When Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, Tóibin immediately wrote an article in praise of her and had it published.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín has said his writing comes out of silence. He does not favour story and does not view himself as storyteller. He has said, "Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly." When working on a first draft he covers only the right-hand side of the page; later he carries out some rewriting on the left-hand side of the page. He keeps a word processor in another room on which to transfer writing at a later time.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: He writes in great discomfort, saying in 2017: "When you're writing, you should be bent over, and you need to be in pain and your shoulders should be bent — you need to be pulling things up from within yourself. You can't be too comfortable".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: His 1990 novel "The South" was followed by "The Heather Blazing" (1992), "The Story of the Night" (1996) and "The Blackwater Lightship" (1999). His fifth novel, "The Master" (2004), is a fictional account of part of the inner life of Henry James. U.S. writer Cynthia Ozick said his "rendering of the first hints, or sensations, of the tales as they form in James's thoughts is itself an instance of writer's wizardry". 2012 brought the publication of "The Testament of Mary". In 2014, he released his first full-length novel since "Brooklyn" (2009), a portrait of a recently widowed mother of four in Wexford struggling through a period of grief, entitled "Nora Webster".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín has written two short story collections. His first, "Mothers and Sons", which — as the name suggests — explores the relationship between mothers and their sons, was published in 2006, and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in "The New York Times"). His second, broader collection, titled "The Empty Family", was published in 2010. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín has written many non-fiction books, including "" (1994), (reprinted from the 1987 original edition) and "The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe" (1994). He has written for the "London Review of Books", "The New York Review of Books" and "The Dublin Review", amongst other publications. Asked in 2021, how many articles he had written, Tóibín was uncertain: "I suppose thousands might be accurate". His article writing also contributed to his reputation as a literary critic: he edited a book on Paul Durcan, "The Kilfenora Teaboy" (1997), and "The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction" (1999); and wrote "The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950" (1999), with Carmen Callil. He wrote a collection of essays, "Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar" (2002), and a study on Lady Gregory, "Lady Gregory's Toothbrush" (2002). In his 2012 essay collection "New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families" he studies the biographies of James Baldwin, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Yeats, amongst others. In 2015, he released "On Elizabeth Bishop", a critical study which made "The Guardian"s Best Books of 2015 list twice. In June 2016, Tóibín visited Israel, as part of a project by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on the Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. The book was edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published in June 2017 under the title "Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín's play, "Beauty in a Broken Place", was staged in Dublin in August 2004. He first wrote poetry while attending secondary school in Wexford. In 2011, "The Times Literary Supplement" published his poem "Cush Gap, 2007". The December 2021 issue of "The New York Review of Books" included his poem "Father & Son", which may be autobiographical (as the description of the son's developing stammer in the second stanza—particularly on hard consonants—is similar to Tóibín's description of his own stammer).


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín has been visiting professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Middlebury College, Boston College, New York University, Loyola University Maryland, and The College of the Holy Cross. In 2017 he lectured in Athens, Georgia as the University of Georgia Chair for Global Understanding. He was a professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester, succeeding Martin Amis in that post, and currently teaches at Columbia University.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Commenting on the absence of gay students from his lectures, Tóibín said: "Whatever aura I have, it’s not as a gay guru—I'm not Edmund White. 'My mother's reading your book'—I get that a lot".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: In 2015, ahead of a referendum on marriage in Ireland, Tóibín delivered a talk titled "The Embrace of Love: Being Gay in Ireland Now" in Trinity Hall, featuring Roger Casement's diaries, the work of Oscar Wilde, John Broderick and Kate O'Brien, and Senator David Norris's 1980s High Court battles.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín jointly runs the Dublin-based publishing imprint, Tuskar Rock Press, with his agent Peter Straus.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín's work explores a number of main themes: the depiction of Irish society, living in exile, the legacy of Catholicism, the process of creativity, and the preservation of a personal identity, masculinity, fatherhood and homosexual identity, and on personal identity when confronted by loss. The "Wexford" novels ("The Heather Blazing" and "The Blackwater Lightship") use Enniscorthy, the town of Tóibín's birth, as narrative material, together with the history of Ireland and the death of his father. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, "The Sign of the Cross". In 2009, he published "Brooklyn", a tale of a woman emigrating to Brooklyn from Enniscorthy; characters from that novel also appear in "Nora Webster", in which the young character of Donal seems to have been part-based on Colm's own childhood. Two other novels, "The Story of the Night" and "The Master", revolve around characters who have to deal with a homosexual identity and take place outside Ireland for the most part, with a character having to cope with living abroad. His first novel, "The South", seems to have ingredients of both lines of work. It can be read together with "The Heather Blazing" as a diptych of Protestant and Catholic heritages in County Wexford, or it can be grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A third topic that links "The South" and "The Heather Blazing" is that of creation, of painting in the first case and of the careful wording of a judge's verdict in the second. This third thematic line culminated in "The Master", a study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction book on the same subject, "Love in a Dark Time". The book of short stories "Mothers and Sons" deals with family themes, both in Ireland and Catalonia, and homosexuality. As described by "The New Yorker" in 2021, his characters are "careful in conversation, each utterance fraught with importance... [his] novels typically depict an unfinished battle between those who know what they feel and those who don't, between those who have found a taut peace within themselves and those who remain unsettled. His prose relies on economical gestures and moments of listening, and is largely shorn of metaphor and explanation".


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Tóibín has written gay sex into several novels, and "Brooklyn" contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Bernard Schwartz informed Tóibin after "The Magician" was published that eight of his novels feature "someone tak[ing] a swim in cold water and hesitat[ing] before they go in" – Thomas Mann, the protagonist in "The Magician", is sent swimming in the Baltic Sea. Tóibín had not previously noticed this.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: Arts Council director Mary Cloake called Tóibín "a champion of minorities" as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award.


title: Colm Tóibín

text: In 2017, Tóibin objected to the wording of an Arts Council letter, which was attempting to regulate artists and force them to produce a constant supply of work if they wanted to be paid a basic income (which would also be withdrawn if they were "temporarily incapacitated due to ill-health"). Tóibín wrote: "The first problem with this, as I'm sure you will agree, is that the phrase 'working artists engaged in productive practice' sounds oddly North Korean, or is like a phrase that could have been used by Stalin about recalcitrant farmers in the Soviet Union." Tóibín noted that W. B. Yeats had heart disease which incapacitated him in later life, yet days before his death, he wrote his poem "Cuchulain Comforted", which Tóibín called "one of the greatest poems in the English language." Tóibín also enquired of the Arts Council: "In the case of James Joyce, who 'produced' nothing between 1922 and 1939, what would you have done?" He referred to his personal experience with another writer: "I draw your attention to the fact that John McGahern published no novel between 1979 and 1990. I know, because I was in regular touch with him during some of those years, how much he struggled, but he 'produced' no novel... would you really have sent 'auditors' down to Leitrim to do 'a sample audit' of what he was doing?"


title: Colm Tóibín

text: In 2011, John Naughton, of "The Observer", included Tóibín in his list of Britain's three hundred "public figures leading our cultural discourse" — despite Tóibín being Irish.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Darren Bailey (born March 17, 1966) is an American far-right politician who is a Republican member of the Illinois Senate for the 55th district. Previously, he was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 109th district in Southern Illinois. He was the Republican nominee for the 2022 Illinois gubernatorial election, which he lost to incumbent J. B. Pritzker.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Bailey was born in Louisville, Illinois, on March 17, 1966. He graduated from North Clay High School and earned an Associate of Science degree in Agricultural Production from Lake Land College.


title: Darren Bailey

text: In a rare victory for candidates supported by Dan Proft's Liberty Principles PAC, Bailey defeated David Reis in the 2018 Republican primary. Bailey then defeated Democratic candidate Cynthia Given, the Secretary of the Richland County Democratic Party, by a margin of 76.14% to 23.86%. The 109th district at the time, located in the Illinois Wabash Valley, included all of Edwards, Jasper, Richland, Wabash, Wayne, and White counties and parts of Effingham and Lawrence counties.


title: Darren Bailey

text: On July 8, 2019, Bailey announced his intention to run for the Illinois Senate seat being vacated by Dale Righter. He won the March 17, 2020, Republican primary. Bailey defeated Democratic Party candidate Cynthia Given in the general election.


title: Darren Bailey

text: In April 2020, Bailey sued Governor J. B. Pritzker, claiming that the governor's stay-at-home order extension to mitigate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was unfairly affecting residents of Clay County. A judge granted a temporary restraining order against the stay-at-home order, though it only applied to Bailey. Pritzker stated he would appeal the order and characterized Bailey's lawsuit as a "cheap political stunt." On May 20, 2020, the Illinois House voted 81–27 to remove Bailey from its session for refusing to wear a mask. The following day, Bailey attended the House wearing a face mask as required by the rules.


title: Darren Bailey

text: On February 22, 2021, Bailey announced his candidacy for governor of Illinois in the 2022 gubernatorial election. On December 13, 2021, Bailey announced that his running mate for Lieutenant Governor would be former WLS-AM 890 talk radio host Stephanie Trussell. Three days before the primary, he appeared at a rally with Donald Trump and he received his endorsement.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Bailey won the primary by a large margin, receiving 57.7% of the vote and winning every county except two.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Before a campaign appearance on July 4, 2022, in the wake of the Highland Park Parade Shooting, Bailey stated on a livestream "The shooter is still at large, so let's pray for justice to prevail, and then let's move on and let's celebrate - celebrate the independence of this nation". He received backlash for his statement and later apologized. For his gubernatorial campaign, Bailey has received more than $50M in support from cardboard box businessman Dick Uihlein.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Bailey currently serves on the following committees: Agriculture (Minority Spokesperson); Education; Energy and Public Utilities; Health; Higher Education; Labor; Subcommittee on Public Health; App- Agriculture, Envir. & Energy; App- Higher Education; App-Human Services; App- Personnel and Procurement; Redistricting- E Central & SE IL.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Bailey holds far-right political views. He is anti-abortion. As a state lawmaker, Bailey has voted against abortion rights measures. He praised the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn "Roe v. Wade". He supports a statewide ban on abortion except in cases where the mother's life is in danger. He opposes abortion in cases of rape or incest. In a video posted on Facebook in 2017, Bailey said "the attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn’t even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization".


title: Darren Bailey

text: Darren Bailey strongly opposes the SAFE-T Act, a bill signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker that, among other things, ended mandatory cash bail in Illinois. Bailey has referred to the act as "radical, pro-criminal legislation."


title: Darren Bailey

text: In 2019, Bailey and seven other Republicans sponsored a resolution calling for the City of Chicago to become its own state, claiming that "the majority of residents in downstate Illinois disagree with City of Chicago residents on key issues such as gun ownership, abortion, immigration, and other policy issues." This was not the first time such a resolution was introduced, but it had little chance of passing, and some of the sponsors stated they did not actually intend to separate Chicago. With the announcement of Bailey's bid for governor, Bailey backtracked, calling it "an old resolution" and "a warning shot" targeted towards Chicago.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Following the 2020 presidential election, Bailey refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden fairly defeated Donald Trump, stating that he “did not know” if Trump's disproven claims of voter fraud were legitimate.


title: Darren Bailey

text: Bailey is married to Cindy Stortzum, and they have four children and multiple grandchildren. He owns a family farm. Bailey and his wife run a private Christian school.


title: Prudential Financial

text: Prudential Financial, Inc. is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, retirement planning, investment management, and other products and services to both retail and institutional customers throughout the United States and in over 40 other countries. In 2019, Prudential was the largest insurance provider in the United States with $815.1 billion in total assets.


title: Prudential Financial

text: The use of Prudential's symbol, the Rock of Gibraltar, began after an advertising agent passed Laurel Hill, a volcanic neck, in Secaucus, New Jersey, on a train in the 1890s. The related slogans "Get a Piece of the Rock" and "Strength of Gibraltar" are also still quite widely associated with Prudential, though current advertising uses neither of these. Through the years, the symbol went through various versions, but in 1989, a simplified pictogram symbol of the Rock of Gibraltar was adopted. It has been used ever since. The logotype was updated with a proprietary font in 1996. The font, Prudential Roman, was designed by Doyald Young and John March, based on the Century font family.


title: Prudential Financial

text: Started in Newark, New Jersey, in 1875, Prudential was originally called The Widows and Orphans Friendly Society, then the Prudential Friendly Society. It was founded by John F. Dryden, who later became a U.S. Senator. In the beginning, the company sold only one product, burial insurance. Dryden was the president of Prudential until 1912. He was succeeded by his son Forrest F. Dryden, who was the president until 1922.


title: Prudential Financial

text: A history of The Prudential Insurance Company of America up to about 1975 is the topic of the book "Three Cents A Week", referring to the premium paid by early policyholders.


title: Prudential Financial

text: At the turn of the 20th century, Prudential and other large insurers reaped the bulk of their profits from industrial life insurance, or insurance sold by solicitors house-to-house in poor urban areas. For their insurance, industrial workers paid double what others paid for ordinary life insurance, and due to high lapse rates, as few as 1 in 12 policies reached maturity. Prominent lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis helped pass a 1907 Massachusetts law to protect workers by allowing savings banks to sell life insurance at lower rates.


title: Prudential Financial

text: Prudential has evolved from a mutual insurance company (owned by its policyholders) to a joint stock company (as it was prior to 1915). It is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PRU. The Prudential Stock was issued and started trading on the New York Stock Exchange on December 13, 2001.


title: Prudential Financial

text: On August 1, 2004, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the discovery of terrorist threats against the Prudential Headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, prompting large-scale security measures that included concrete barriers outside the premises and internal X-ray machines. In the same year, a joint venture was formed between Prudential and China Everbright Limited.


title: Prudential Financial

text: On November 28, 2007, the Prudential board of directors elected a new CEO, John R. Strangfeld, to replace retiring Arthur F. Ryan.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In 1981, the company acquired Bache & Co., a stock brokerage service that operated as a wholly owned subsidiary until 2003, when Wachovia and Prudential combined their retail brokerage operations into Wachovia Securities, with Prudential a minority stake holder. In 1999, Prudential sold its healthcare division, Prudential HealthCare, to Aetna for $1 billion.


title: Prudential Financial

text: On May 1, 2003, Prudential formalized the acquisition of American Skandia, the largest distributor of variable annuities through independent financial professionals in the United States. The CEO of American Skandia, Wade Dokken, partnered with Goldman Sachs and sold the division to Prudential for $1.2 billion. The combination of American Skandia variable annuities and Prudential fixed annuities was part of Prudential's strategy to acquire complementary businesses that help meet retirement goals.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In April 2004, the company acquired the retirement business of CIGNA Corporation. In late 2009, Prudential sold its minority stake in Wachovia Securities Financial Holdings LLC to Wells Fargo & Co. In 2011, Prudential sold Prudential Bache Commodities, LLC to Jefferies.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In February 2011, the company acquired AIG Edison and AIG Star both in Japan from American International Group, Inc (AIG) for a total of $4.8 billion. This acquisition bolstered Prudential's operations in Asia while giving cash to AIG to pay back the federal government from its bailout in 2008.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In January 2013, the company acquired the individual life insurance business from The Hartford for $615 million in cash. The acquisition includes 700,000 in force life insurance policies with a face amount of approximately $135 billion. This move by Prudential brought over additional life insurance revenue.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In September 2019, the company agreed to acquire online startup Assurance IQ Inc. for $2.35 billion. Assurance has underperformed financial expectations, and industry commentators believe Prudential paid too much for the acquisition.


title: Prudential Financial

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, Prudential Securities Incorporated (PSI), formerly a division of Prudential Financial, was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for suspected fraud. During the investigation, it was found that PSI had defrauded investors of close to $8 billion, the largest fraud found by the SEC in US history to that point. The SEC charged that Prudential allowed rogue executives to cheat customers on a large scale and blithely ignored a 1986 SEC order to overhaul its internal enforcement of securities laws. In all, some 400,000 individual investors lost money on the deals.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In 1993, Prudential Financial eventually settled with investors for $330 million. Prudential said it would repay customers across the U.S. who lost money on the company's limited partnerships in the 1980s. In addition, the firm was required to pay another $41 million in fines. The settlement also resolved investigations of the firm by the National Association of Securities Dealers and 49 states, including California, where 52,000 investors lost money in Prudential limited partnerships. Further investigation was conducted by the SEC into the executives of the company to determine the extent of the fraud.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In 1997, Prudential settled a class action lawsuit by millions of its customers who had been sold unnecessary life insurance by Prudential agents over a 13-year period ending in 1995. The settlement called for Prudential to repay an estimated $2 billion to customers through direct refunds and enhancements to existing policies. The settlement had been the subject of extensive negotiations involving not only Prudential and its customers, but also insurance regulators in 30 states. Prudential had agreed in early 1997 to pay a fine of $35 million to settle state allegations of deceptive sales practices. Prudential acknowledged that for more than a decade its agents had improperly persuaded customers to cash in old policies and purchase new ones so that the agents could generate additional sales commissions.


title: Prudential Financial

text: In 2010, various media outlets noted allegations that the Prudential Life Insurance Company was manipulating the payout of life insurance benefits due to the families of American soldiers in order to gain extra profits. The company provided life insurance to people in the armed forces under a government contract. Rather than paying the full amount due to the families at once, the company would instead deposit the funds into a Prudential corporate account. These accounts are referred to as 'retained asset accounts' and are essentially an I.O.U. from the company to the payee (in many cases a fallen service members' family). While Prudential was making profits of up to 4.2% in its general account in early 2010, they paid out 0.5% interest in these non-FDIC insured "Alliance" accounts. In some cases, when families requested to be sent a full payout in the form of a check, the family was sent a checkbook, rather than the amount due.


title: Prudential Financial

text: It is not clear if the practice was in violation of law or the contract. In August 2010, the company was sued by a number of the bereaved families. The company's response included an open letter to the military community in which it addressed what it characterized as "misinformation" about the nature of the accounts. "Military Times" noted that prior lawsuits against insurance companies pertaining to the use of retained asset accounts have been dismissed in federal courts without action.


title: Prudential Financial

text: Prudential has received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign every year since 2003, the second year of the report. In addition, the company is in the "Hall of Fame" of "Working Mothers" magazine among other companies that have made their "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" list for 15 or more years. It is still achieving that list, as of 2013. According to Business Week's "The Best Places to Launch a Career 2008", Prudential Insurance was ranked #59 out of 119 companies on the list. In 2007, The Prudential Foundation provided over $450,000 in Prudential CARES Volunteer Grants to 444 nonprofit organizations worldwide. The Prudential CARES Volunteer Grants Program recognizes individual and team volunteers based on a minimum of 40 hours of volunteer service per individual. Grants range from $250 to $5,000 for each award winner's charitable organization. Prudential ranked #69 on the 2017 Forbes World’s Biggest Public Companies list, calling out their $45.6 billion market value. Prudential ranked No. 52 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. As of 2019, Prudential is the largest insurance provider in the United States with $815.1 billion in total assets.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The Tin Drum () is a 1979 film adaptation of Günter Grass' novel of the same title, directed by Volker Schlöndorff from a screenplay co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière and Franz Seitz. It stars Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Daniel Olbrychski, Katharina Thalbach, Charles Aznavour, and David Bennent in the lead role of Oskar Matzerath, a young boy who willfully arrests his own physical development and remains in the body of a child even as he enters adulthood.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: A darkly comic war drama with magical realist elements, the film follows Oskar, a precocious child living in Danzig, who wields seemingly preternatural abilities. He lives in contempt of the adults around him and witnesses firsthand their potential for cruelty, first via the rise of the Nazi Party and then the subsequent war. The title refers to Oskar's toy drum, which he loudly plays whenever he is displeased or upset. The German-language film was a co-production of West German, French, and Yugoslavian companies.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival and was a major financial hit in West Germany, where it won the German Film Award for Best Fiction Film. It was received more controversially internationally, targeted by censorship campaigns in Ireland, Canada, and the United States. Despite the notoriety, the film won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1980 Academy Awards. In 2003, "The New York Times" placed the film on its "Best 1000 Movies Ever" list.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The film centres on Oskar Matzerath, a boy born and raised in the Free City of Danzig prior to and during World War II, who recalls the story's events as an unreliable narrator. Oskar is the son of a half-Polish Kashubian woman, Agnes Bronski, who is married to a German chef named Alfred Matzerath but secretly carrying on an affair with Jan, a Polish Post Office worker and her cousin. The two men are great friends, but Alfred is blissfully unaware of his wife's infidelity. Oskar's parentage is uncertain; though he himself believes he is Jan's son.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Flashbacks reveal his mother's conception by his grandfather Joseph Kolaizcek, a petty criminal in rural Kashubia (located in modern-day Poland). He hides underneath the skirts of a young woman named Anna Bronski. He has sex with her and she tries to hide her emotions, as the troops pass close by. She later gives birth to their daughter, who is Oskar's mother. Joseph evades the authorities for a year, but when they find him again, he either drowns or escapes to America and becomes a millionaire.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: In 1927, on Oskar's third birthday, he is given a tin drum. Reflecting on the foolish antics of his drunken parents and friends, he resolves to stop growing and throws himself down the cellar stairs. From that day on, he does not grow at all. Oskar discovers that he can shatter glass with his voice, an ability he often uses whenever he is upset. Oskar's drumming also causes the members of a Nazi rally to start dancing. During a visit to the circus, Oskar befriends Bebra, a performing dwarf who chose to stop growing at age 10.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: When Alfred, Agnes, Jan and Oskar are on an outing to the beach, they see an eel-picker collecting eels from a horse's head used as bait. The sight makes Agnes vomit repeatedly. Alfred buys some of the eels and prepares them for dinner that night. When he insists that Agnes eat them, she becomes distraught and retreats to the bedroom. Jan enters and comforts her, all within earshot of Oskar who is hiding in the closet. She calmly returns to the dinner table and eats the eels. Over the next few days, she binges on fish. Anna Bronski helps reveal that Agnes is worried her pregnancy is due to her relations with Jan. In anger, Agnes vows that the child will never be born. She dies shortly thereafter, seemingly from the accumulated stress.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: At the funeral, Oskar encounters Sigismund Markus, the kindly Jewish toy seller who supplies him with replacement drums, and who was also in love with Agnes. Markus is ordered by two of the mourners to leave because he is Jewish; Nazism is on the rise, and the Jewish and Polish residents of Danzig are under increasing pressure. Markus later commits suicide after his shop is vandalized and a synagogue is burned down by SA men.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: On 1 September 1939, Oskar and Jan go looking for Kobyella, who can repair his drum. Jan slips into the Polish Post Office, despite a Nazi cordon, and participates in an armed standoff against the Nazis. During the ensuing battle, Kobyella is fatally shot and Jan is wounded. They play Skat until Kobyella dies and the Germans capture the building. Oskar is taken home, while Jan is arrested and later executed.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Alfred hires sixteen-year-old Maria to work in his shop. Oskar seduces Maria, but later discovers Alfred having sex with her. Oskar bursts into the room, makes Alfred ejaculate inside her (when he was expected to pull out, to avoid getting her pregnant), causing Maria to become angry at Alfred when he blames Oskar for the inadvertent insemination.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: While rinsing her vagina in an attempt to remove the deposited semen, she and Oskar fight, and he hits her in the groin. She later gives birth to a son, who Oskar is convinced is his. Oskar also has a brief sexual relationship with Lina Greff, the wife of the local grocer and scoutmaster. It is implied that Lina was sexually frustrated as her husband preferred to spend more time with the Hitler Youth boys. Lina's husband later commits suicide (or is executed) after an official from the Nazi regime catches him 'playing' with those boys.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: During World War II, Oskar meets Bebra and Roswitha, another dwarf performer in Bebra's successful troupe. Oskar decides to join them, using his glass-shattering voice as part of the act. Oskar and Roswitha have an affair, but she is killed by artillery fire during the Allied invasion of Normandy while on tour.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Oskar returns home. Much of the city has been destroyed and the Russians are fast approaching. Oskar gives Maria's three-year-old son Kurt a tin drum like his own. The Russians break into the cellar where the family is hiding. Some of them gang-rape Lina. Alfred is killed by a soldier after swallowing and choking violently on his Nazi party pin. Later Matzerath's shop goes to Mariusz Fajngold, a Jewish survivor of Treblinka who also takes care of Alfred's funeral.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: During Alfred's burial, Oskar decides to grow up, and throws his drum into the grave. As he does, Kurt throws a stone at his head and he falls into the grave. Afterward, an attendee announces Oskar is growing again. The family, apart from Anna Bronski, leave for the West.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The film was mostly shot in West Germany including at the Spandau Studios, with some street scenes, particularly ones concerning the landmarks of Danzig, shot on-location in Gdańsk, Poland. The Polish communist authorities gave the crew little time in the country, since the novel itself had been banned in Eastern Bloc countries. While filming in Poland, a production assistant was arrested by the authorities when trying to buy eels from fishing boats for the beach scene, accused of attempting to sabotage the national industries. The scenes with the Polish Post Office were shot in Zagreb, Croatia as were several generic street scenes. The scenes in France were shot on-set.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Schlöndorff was authorised by Grass himself during much of the preproduction and the writing of the script. David Bennent was chosen as the role of Oskar when Schlöndorff was discussing with a doctor the possibility of a child whose growth stops at an early age, and the doctor brought up the case of the son of the actor Heinz Bennent, whom Schlöndorff was friends with. During the filming several difficulties arose: there was a supposed love affair between Daniel Olbrychski and Angela Winkler, and a romantic rivalry between Fritz Hakl, who played Bebra, and the fiancé of Mariella Oliveri, who played Roswitha.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: "The Tin Drum" was one of the most financially successful German films of the 1970s, taking 25 million marks at the German box office. New World Pictures paid $400,000 for the U.S. rights and the film became the highest-grossing German film in the United States, with a gross of $4 million, beating the record set the year earlier by Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun".


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The film presently holds a score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 reviews, with an average grade of 7.5/10.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film two stars (out of four), writing "I must confess that the symbolism of the drum failed to involve me":


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called it "a seriously responsible adaptation of a gargantuan novel, but it's an adaptation that has no real life of its own. There are a number of things seen or said on the screen that, I suspect, will not make much sense to anyone who isn't familiar with the novel ... However, because the story it tells is so outsized, bizarre, funny and eccentric, the movie compels attention."


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film a full four out of four stars and called it "quite shattering" with "one striking image after another."


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" declared that it was "like few films since 'Citizen Kane'—a combination of stunning logistics and technique and of humanistic content that is terrifically affecting."


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" wrote that it "will be hard to beat as the season's most prestigious bad idea for a movie," stating that Oskar "doesn't have a personality forceful enough to unify the rambling continuity or replace the narrative voice and complex of meanings that gave the book intellectual vitality and authority."


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: At the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, it was jointly awarded the Palme d'Or, along with "Apocalypse Now". "The Tin Drum" was the first film directed by a German to win the Palme d'Or. In 1980, it became the first film from Germany or in German to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: The film features scenes in which Bennent, then 11 years of age and playing a stunted 16-year-old, licks effervescing sherbet powder from the navel of a 16-year-old girl, played by Katharina Thalbach. Thalbach was 24 years old at the time. Subsequently, Bennent appears to have oral sex and then intercourse with her.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: In 1980, the film version of "The Tin Drum" was first cut, and then banned as child pornography by the Ontario Censor Board in Canada. Similarly, on June 25, 1997, following a ruling made by State District Court Judge Richard Freeman, who had reportedly only viewed a single isolated scene of the film, "The Tin Drum" was banned from Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, citing the state's obscenity laws for portraying underage sexuality. All copies in Oklahoma City were confiscated, and at least one person who had rented the film on video tape was threatened with prosecution. Michael Camfield, at the time a member of the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against the police department on July 4, 1997, alleging that the tape had been illegally confiscated and his rights infringed.


title: The Tin Drum (film)

text: This led to a high-profile series of hearings on the film's merits as a whole versus the controversial scenes, and the role of the judge as censor. The film emerged vindicated and most copies were returned within a few months. By 2001, all the cases had been settled and the film is legally available in Oklahoma County. This incident was covered in the documentary film "Banned in Oklahoma", which is included in the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of "The Tin Drum".


title: Carol Leifer

text: born July 27, 1956) is an American comedian, writer, producer, and actress whose career as a stand-up comedian started in the 1970s when she was in college. She has written many television scripts including "The Larry Sanders Show", "Saturday Night Live" and "Seinfeld". She has received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for "The Larry Sanders Show", "Seinfeld", the 82nd Academy Awards and the 84th Academy Awards. Leifer's inner-monologue driven, observational style is often autobiographical, encompassing subjects about her Jewish ancestry and upbringing, coming out, same-sex marriage, relationships (having been married previously to a man and now partnered with a woman) and parenting.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer was born in East Williston, New York, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, the daughter of Anna Leifer, a psychologist, and Seymour Leifer, an optometrist. As a child, Leifer would frequently put on performances for her family and friends in her family's basement. Leifer recalls her family being a significant part of her fondest memories, including her father's well-known jokes amongst family and friends, as well as her brother taking her to see The Beatles in concert at Shea Stadium. She frequently credits her father for the reason she became a comic.


title: Carol Leifer

text: While studying for a theater degree at Harpur College (now Binghamton University), Leifer accompanied her then boyfriend Paul Reiser to a comedy club to see him perform at the open mic night at Catch A Rising Star. In 1977, she began performing stand-up comedy and transferred to Queens College to be closer to the club scene. Later she tried performing at New York's Comic Strip and was introduced by emcee Jerry Seinfeld.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer's stand-up comedy career has been well received. Early in her career, a critic from "Variety" wrote a review on one of Leifer's sets, saying, "She still has much to absorb in operating in the comedic area, but, with further experience, has a good chance at the brass ring." The critic was correct: with experience and skill, she became a successful comic. She has gotten tremendously positive feedback over the years, known for her infectious laugh, witty observational comedy, and clean-cut humor. Leifer credits mentor and lifelong friend, David Letterman, with her rise to fame, having performed stand-up comedy on "Late Night with David Letterman" 25 times. Leifer also appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", "Dr. Katz", "Politically Incorrect", "Hollywood Squares", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Her stand-up experience also includes opening for Jerry Seinfeld and Frank Sinatra.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer has also performed and released several stand-up specials. Her stand-up specials, listed chronologically, are:


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer's writing career spans several well-known shows, including "Seinfeld, Saturday Night Live," "It's Like, You Know...," and "The Larry Sanders Show". She has written for the Academy Awards for most of the 21st century, as well as the 69th Annual Tony Awards.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer started her comedy writing career at "Saturday Night Live." Leifer was hired by Al Franken and Jim Downey to work as a writer for the popular sketch comedy show. Executive producer, Lorne Michaels did not hire Leifer directly, and that became clear. Leifer recalls her time at "SNL" being a great opportunity to grow and learn as a writer, but the division caused by Michaels' indifference impacted her time working there, as she recalls "it felt like being asked to play on a Beatles album by Ringo." Leifer was not asked to return to the staff for a second season.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer starred in, created, and executive-produced the 1997 WB sitcom "Alright Already", which only ran one season. Alright, Already focused on single optometrist Carol Lerner (played by Leifer). Lerner runs her own practice in Miami, Florida while dealing with family, friends, and romance. The show received mixed reviews, saying it lacked an endearing plot and Leifer "squeezed uncomfortably into an uncomfortable sitcom."


title: Carol Leifer

text: With Mitchell Hurwitz, Leifer created and was a writer for "The Ellen Show" (2001). The series was negatively received and only ran one season. Leifer has also written for several television shows, such as "Devious Maids," "Modern Family, and Rules of Engagement." Leifer's writing credits are listed below:


title: Carol Leifer

text: Carol Leifer joined the "Seinfeld" writing staff during its fifth season (1993–94), and wrote six episodes for the show between then and its seventh season (1995–96). Alongside being a writer on the show, Leifer was a story editor for 16 episodes from 1993 to 1994 and an executive story editor for 23 episodes from 1994 to 1995. She has been dubbed "the real Elaine", as the series' character, Elaine Benes, was partially based on her. The episodes Leifer wrote, listed chronologically, are:


title: Carol Leifer

text: Her work on "Seinfeld" garnered her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Leifer recalls when looking for writers for the show, Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld", specifically wanted writers who had never written for sitcoms before. Working as a writer for "Seinfeld" is one of Leifer's favorite credits because of the incredible experiences it gave her as well as the opportunity to work alongside incredible comedians. Leifer speaks highly of her coworkers while working on the show, remembering Jerry Seinfeld as "the hardest working of all the comedians I came up with." One of the most important things she learned as a writer from working on "Seinfeld" was to "mine your own life for comedy ideas." Leifer's comedy frequently stems from herself and her family, proving what she learned from working on "Seinfeld" has had a lasting impact on her work.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer appeared as a contestant on the third season of "Celebrity Apprentice". Leifer chose North Shore Animal League as her charity because of her and her wife's work for animal advocacy. She was the first to be eliminated, on the premiere episode, which aired on March 14, 2010.


title: Carol Leifer

text: She has also hosted for all four seasons of A&E's "Caroline's Comedy Hour", as well as guest appearances on "Talk Soup" and "Later". She was also a guest on "Inside Comedy" where she was interviewed by David Steinberg.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer wrote and starred in the 1992 Showtime TV film "", a mockumentary about fictional aged comedian Rusty Berman (played by Leifer), told through interviews and flashbacks. The film had a similar concept to the film "Mr. Saturday Night", which had come out several months earlier. She was also part of "" as Beth Lewis, Lois Lane's best friend.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer has also had minor acting and voice-over roles in movies such as "Bee Movie", "Rules of Engagement", "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", "," and "Desperately Seeking Susan."


title: Carol Leifer

text: Carol Leifer has written two books. Her first book of humorous essays, entitled "When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win", was released on March 10, 2009. Leifer discusses her early life and family, the daunting idea of getting older, outlooks on life, and the moment she discovered she might be gay and how her life changed for the better. Her second book, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying" was published in 2014. Considered a "part memoir, part guide to life", Leifer tells the public her journey as a comic and entertainer. She gives tips and guides for working in the entertainment industry. Leifer also talks about her personal work experiences, such as her time writing for Saturday Night Live, working with Jerry Seinfeld, and her career as a stand-up comic.


title: Carol Leifer

text: In 1981, Leifer married comic Ritch Shydner, whose gentile status troubled Leifer's father. They divorced in 1987 and have remained friends. Leifer also briefly dated Jerry Seinfeld before working with him on "Seinfeld", on which show the character of Elaine is inspired by her. The two only dated for less than a year and have remained close friends, with Leifer having only positive things to say about him.


title: Carol Leifer

text: Though she had relationships with men and had been married to a man in the past, Carol Leifer identifies as a lesbian. After her divorce from Ritch Shydner, Leifer wanted to explore her sexuality. At age 40, Leifer met her current wife, Lori Wolf, and realized she was gay, not "just looking for a fling" as she originally intended. When coming out, Leifer's family and friends were very supportive, especially her parents. She recalls her father being happy that Lori Wolf was Jewish. When Leifer came out, her comedy and material changed to fit her life, often making jokes about coming out so late in her life and humor based on her and Wolf's relationship. Leifer has faced some negative reception and homophobic hate due to her sexuality. After receiving a homophobic letter, Leifer recalls feeling "I thought I was prepared for something like that, but even 13 years in, it's still a kick in the face."


title: Carol Leifer

text: In 1996, Leifer met Lori Wolf, a real estate executive, when they shared a table at a Project Angel Food charity dinner in Los Angeles. Leifer was immediately interested and later contacted Wolf through the host of their table, though Wolf initially rebuffed Leifer's overtures because Wolf was in a relationship at the time. Wolf contacted Leifer weeks later, after she had ended her relationship, and began one with Leifer. They moved in together in 2005, and in acclimating herself to Wolf's pets, Leifer became an animal rights activist. That year, Leifer proposed to Wolf over dinner at the Palm Restaurant in Beverly Hills. On December 5, 2015, they were married by Rabbi Ron Stern at the Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles. In attendance were Jane Lynch, Larry David, Bill Maher, Garry Shandling, Henry Winkler, Larry Miller, Jay Leno and Paul Reiser. They have an adopted son.


title: Carol Leifer

text: In 2007 they purchased a $3.2-million, home in the Santa Monica Hills, as part of their preparations to adopt their nine-month-old son, Bruno Leifer-Wolf, who was born in Guatemala in 2006. Leifer was 50 years old at the time, which she felt was the best age for her to have a child, saying "I feel I have a better outlook on life."


title: Carol Leifer

text: Leifer has become vegan, saying "I recently became vegan because I felt that as a Jewish lesbian, I wasn't part of a small enough minority. So now I'm a Jewish lesbian vegan." Leifer has been advocate for animal rights and made testimonials for PETA about her decision to become vegan, encouraging others to do the same.


title: James Baskett

text: James Franklin Baskett (February 16, 1904 – July 9, 1948) was an American actor who portrayed Uncle Remus, singing the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" in the 1946 Disney feature film "Song of the South".


title: James Baskett

text: In recognition of his portrayal of Remus, he was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1948, making him the first black male performer to receive an Oscar.


title: James Baskett

text: Baskett studied pharmacology as a young man but gave it up to pursue an acting career. He first moved to New York City, New York, where he joined up with Bill 'Mr. Bojangles' Robinson. Using the name Jimmie Baskette, he appeared with Louis Armstrong on Broadway in the 1929 black musical revue "Hot Chocolates" and in several all-black New York films, including "Harlem is Heaven" (1932).


title: James Baskett

text: He later moved to Los Angeles, California, and had a supporting role in the film "Straight to Heaven" (1939), starring Nina Mae McKinney. In 1941 he voiced Fats Crow in the animated Disney film "Dumbo", and he also had bit parts in several B movies, including that of Lazarus in "Revenge of the Zombies" (1943), a porter in "The Heavenly Body" (1944), and native tribal leader Orbon in "Jungle Queen" (1945). From 1944 until 1948, he was part of the cast of the "Amos 'n' Andy Show" live radio program as lawyer Gabby Gibson.


title: James Baskett

text: In 1945, he auditioned for a bit part voicing one of the animals in the new Disney feature film "Song of the South" (1946), based on the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris. Walt Disney was impressed with Baskett's talent and hired him on the spot for the lead role of Uncle Remus. Baskett was also given the voice role of Brer Fox, one of the film's animated antagonists, and also filled in as the main animated protagonist, Brer Rabbit, in one sequence. This was one of the first Hollywood portrayals of a black actor as a non-comic character in a leading role in a film meant for general audiences.


title: James Baskett

text: Baskett was prohibited from attending the film's premiere in Atlanta, Georgia, because Atlanta was racially segregated by law.


title: James Baskett

text: Although Baskett was occasionally criticized for accepting such a "demeaning" role (most of his acting credits were that of African-American stereotypes), his acting was almost universally praised, and columnist Hedda Hopper, along with Walt Disney, was one of the many journalists and personalities who declared that he should receive an Academy Award for his work.


title: James Baskett

text: He was the first African-American male actor to win an Academy Award. Additionally, Baskett was the last adult actor to receive an Honorary Oscar for a single performance.


title: James Baskett

text: Baskett had been in poor health during the filming of "Song of the South" due to diabetes and he suffered a heart attack in December 1946 shortly after the film's release. His health continued to decline, and he was often unable to attend the "Amos 'n' Andy" radio show he was on, missing almost half of the 1947–1948 season. On July 9, 1948, during the show's summer hiatus, James Baskett died at his home of heart failure resulting from diabetes at age 44. He was survived by his wife Margaret and his mother Elizabeth. He is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.


title: Uto-Aztecan languages

text: Uto-Aztecan, Uto-Aztekan or (rarely in English) Uto-Nahuatl is a family of indigenous languages of the Americas, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family was created to show that it includes both the Ute language of Utah and the Nahuan languages (also known as Aztecan) of Mexico.


title: Uto-Aztecan languages

text: The Uto-Aztecan language family is one of the largest linguistic families in the Americas in terms of number of speakers, number of languages, and geographic extension. The northernmost Uto-Aztecan language is Shoshoni, which is spoken as far north as Salmon, Idaho, while the southernmost is the Pipil language of El Salvador and Nicaragua. "Ethnologue" gives the total number of languages in the family as 61, and the total number of speakers as 1,900,412. Speakers of Nahuatl languages account for over 85% of these.