title: Kathy Beale

text: Kathy is upset when Ian sends Bobby to a boarding school to try to help his anger problems. Ian puts the restaurant up for sale to pay for the school, and though Kathy tries to encourage more trade at the restaurant, Ian accepts an offer from a supermarket chain, Costmart. Several weeks later, Ian worries he will regret selling the restaurant but Kathy reminds him he is doing it for Bobby and must tell everyone soon that Costmart is buying it, or she will. The market traders then discover this from Ian, and Shirley's boyfriend Buster Briggs (Karl Howman) leads a campaign to boycott all of Ian's businesses, fearing they will all lose their jobs. Kathy tells Buster that Ian needs to fund Bobby's place in school, so Buster announces this at Ian's meeting with the traders, angering Ian. Buster asks Kathy why the school is so important, so she tells him to leave her alone as she does not care about him, but then kisses him. She then shows her loyalty to Ian by telling potential boycotters that Buster is a criminal. Ian then changes his mind about selling the restaurant. Buster later propositions Kathy for a secret relationship, believing he is with the wrong woman, and they begin meeting each other secretly. As she tries to meet up with Buster, Gavin stops her and says he has Dennis, so she gets into his car. Gavin takes her to a house and she realises that Dennis is not there. Gavin says they can live there together. Gavin's sister Margaret Midhurst (Jan Harvey) arrives, and Gavin locks Kathy in a room to stop her from leaving, while he and Margaret argue; Margaret hits him over the head with a vase and the two women attempt to escape but the most of the doors and windows are locked. Gavin regains consciousness and follows them, and it results in Margaret's death when she falls onto the windscreen of Sharon and Buster's car, who have arrived to rescue Kathy. Sharon calls the ambulance for Margaret whilst she and Buster search for Kathy. Buster finds Kathy, while Sharon confronts Gavin, who is arrested. Later, Kathy tells Buster she needs to end their relationship because things are getting too serious for her. However, as they passionately kiss one last time, they are unaware that Phil has seen them. Kathy spends a night away with Buster and on her return, she is distraught after being told that Ben has been killed and blames herself for not being with him, thus ending her affair with Buster. However, she is relieved when it is a mistaken identity and comforts Ben when he discovers it is his boyfriend, Paul Coker (Jonny Labey), who is dead. As Buster awaits the verdict from his son Dean Wicks's (Matt Di Angelo) rape trial, Kathy reveals her two rapes to him during a heart-to-heart, they later embrace. Kathy resumes her affair with Buster but she is found out by Ian and Jane following a burglary at Ian's restaurant, however, although she denies her lover is Grant or Buster, she tells Jane she will end the affair. After Buster's son Mick Carter (Danny Dyer) discovers the affair without knowing Kathy's identity, he urges Buster to tell Shirley or leave Walford for good. Buster asks Kathy to leave Walford with him, but she ultimately decides to remain in Walford with her family, leaving him heartbroken again and he leaves alone.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Kathy accompanies Pam Coker (Lin Blakley) when she visits Diane Atmore (Hazel Ellerby) who is the mother of Simon Atmore (Tom Palmer), one of Paul's killers. Kathy and Pam try to persuade Diane to get Simon to plead guilty, which he eventually does. As a result, Simon and the rest of the killers are sentenced to thirty years in prison. Kathy is horrified when she hears about Ben wanting to donate some of his liver to Phil. She firmly tells him that she will not allow him to do so but Ben insists. Kathy accompanies Ben to his appointment to discuss the transplant. Kathy tries to support him but ends up embarrassing him when she mentions Paul's death and suggests that it is a reason for Ben wanting to donate. An angry Ben later tells Kathy to stay out of his life as she always has done. Kathy joins the Walford Players and clashes with the Christmas show's director, Geraldine Clough (Gwyneth Strong) over her plans initially to run a talent show, then to have a fairy godmother in her version of "A Christmas Carol" and finally for casting Kathy as a pantomime horse. Kathy's protests lead to Geraldine's resignation and Kathy becoming the director. Kathy is overjoyed when Ian decides to rename the café back to "Kathy's", which leads her to decide she no longer wants to be Kathy Sullivan, opting to change her name back to Kathy Beale by deed poll. Ben is hurt with Kathy's decision to change her surname to Beale (rather than his surname of Mitchell), feeling pushed out of the family, but she reassures him that it does not make him any less important to her than Ian. Babe Smith (Annette Badland) starts selling breakfasts at The Vic and attempts to steal trade from the café by putting rat droppings in the café's coffee machine, leaving Kathy furious when she finds out. Kathy reports Babe for breaking The Vic's license by selling alcohol outside of their licensed hours. This leads to Babe, Mick and Shirley being arrested and fined, which Kathy feels guilty about. Kathy suffers minor injuries when a car, driven by Michelle (now played by Jenna Russell), crashes a car into the chip shop. After Phil returns from Italy, he tells Kathy about an offer he has received on the car lot land and confides in her about the guilt he still has over the car lot fire. Phil gives Ben The Arches and Kathy lets slip to Ben about the value of the car lot land, which Phil hands over to Jay Brown (Jamie Borthwick). Kathy insists to Phil that he justifies his reasons to Ben about the car lot land. Kathy returns from holiday and finds out from Kim Fox-Hubbard (Tameka Empson) about the gas explosion that left Jane severely injured and that Steven has died. Ian rejects Kathy's support. Ben tells Kathy that Ian may still have anger towards her for faking her death, despite accepting her. Kathy confides in Carmel Kazemi (Bonnie Langford) about her relationship with Ian and Carmel advises her to work at it. Kathy tells Ian and Ben that she feels that she has become irrelevant to them, but is determined to be their mum and apologises for not being there and Ian finally shows his emotions.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Later at Steven's memorial, once Kathy and Ian are walking away, a man leaves flowers for Kathy. The man is revealed to be James, who has secretly returned to Walford as the CEO of his properly company called "Weyland & Co"; James is plotting to conquer the square and is aided by his daughter Fi Browning (Lisa Faulkner); her brother Luke (Adam Astill); their half-brother Josh Hemmings (Eddie Eyre); and James' brother-in-law Hugo (Simon Williams) respectively. Kathy is unbeknownst about James' return until later on at Halloween, right after she comforts Michelle about her stalker Tom Bailey (Daniel Casey) - as well as helping her give advice to Shakil Kazemi (Shaheen Jafargholi) about Bex. When she closes the café for the night, Kathy is startled when James appears and greets her - explaining that he has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. Grabbing hold of a knife while James acts casual, Kathy rubbishes beliefs that they are alike - not does she believe James when he claims that the reason for his visit is to move on from the past. Kathy wants James to explain truthfully what happened on the night of the rape, but he continues to act in denial - prompting Kathy to furiously retell it. Whilst doing so, Kathy realizes that James has intended to rape her all along and demands to know when he decided to do so in the first place - pointing out that the impact had scarred her for life. Unfazed, James gives Kathy his home address before leaving. Kathy later confides in Ian that James is back, prompting him to inform Phil about this. When confronting James with the threat of killing him should he go anywhere near Kathy again, Phil finds out that Ben's boyfriend is James' son. Phil tells Kathy that Luke is James' son and Phil fails to warn Luke away from Ben. Ben is angry with what Phil did and when Kathy tries to get Ben and Phil to make up, Kathy tells Ben that Phil was protecting him as James raped her. After struggling to process what he is told, Ben is determined to hurt James, but Kathy orders Ben to keep out of it as it happened to her and not him.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Ben confronts Luke with what he has been told and Luke tells Ben that James wants to meet him. Ben takes a hammer when he meets James and without Luke's presence, Ben threatens James, but James insists to Ben that he and Kathy were having an affair and she consented. As Ben about to attacks James, Luke rush in and pulls Ben off James, who tells Ben he knows he doesn't trust or believe Kathy. Kathy decides to leave Walford, especially when she finds out Ben met James, but Kathy opts to remain and gives Ben's relationship with Luke her blessing. However before they get back together, Luke ends the relationship when Ben discovers Project Dagmar that Luke is secretly working on - which reveals that it will change Albert Square with a block of flats that is to replace The Queen Vic. Later on that night, Kathy is shocked when Max kisses Fi in front of his girlfriend Carmel and tells him that he should be ashamed of himself. Shortly after Carmel leaves in tears, however, Kathy is shocked when James arrives to serve the Carters with an eviction notice; James casually greets Kathy hello and she leaves when he promises to see her later. Kathy later learns from Phil that Luke attacked Ben, and the trio later find out from Ian about James' plan - further discovering that Max had in fact been conspiring with James to exact revenge on Walford for being disbelieved over the fact that Bobby killed Lucy and how the impact had led him to be wrongfully imprisoned for Lucy's murder. Kathy is later angry with Ian when she finds out from Luke that Weyland owns the café. Kathy confronts Fi over what James did to her and about all the women James has destroyed, including her own mother. Kathy refuses to go into work and when she spills some hot food, Ian catches her making her hands sore through cleaning and Kathy breaks down to Ian, admitting she has not overcome what James has done to her. Ian arranges to meet James and tapes their conversation, where James initially tells Ian that he and Kathy loved each other, but then admits to raping Kathy and deduces Ian's plan when he attempts to flee; James has Ian restrained and deletes his recording, before threatening to further harm his family and tells him to send his best to Kathy. By the time Fi has started to learn what her father is really like, she asks Kathy about the rape and her version causes Fi to be physically sick. Fi eventually confronts James about Kathy's theory on the day after Christmas Eve, prompting him to disown his daughter. After safeguarding his documents that could expose Weyland & Co's illegitimate activities, which he showed Fi earlier on before disowning her, James visits Kathy in the cafe once more. They gradually talk about the past and Kathy soon learns that James' intent of conquering the square was all a ruse, and that his real plan is to use this opportunity to win her over by granting her control of his company - thus controlling the square in general. When James proposes they leave Walford to start anew, Kathy appears interested until she then points out that he is seeking to buy her silence as well. James denies this, but Kathy - undeterred by his manipulation tactics - stands up for herself and grabs James by the genitals, making it clear that her family and friends in Walford are all that matter to her. Upon threatening to cut James' gentles of and serve it to him in a sandwich, further making it clear that she will never submit to him in any circumstance, Kathy tells James that he is going to hell no matter how hard he tries to make amends for raping her or terrorizing the square. James leaves defeated and is later taken into custody when Fi, realizing that Kathy was telling the truth about her father, extracts the documents and delivers them to the police. Fi later departs Walford after disowning her father and undoing his control of the square, as well as making amends with Kathy by giving her back the cafe. Since then she has opened up Walford’s first gay bar and has had a relationship with Rocky.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Kathy Beale was one of the original twenty-three characters invented by the creators of "EastEnders", Tony Holland and Julia Smith. Kathy was a member of the first family of "EastEnders", the Beales and Fowlers. Holland took the inspiration for some of the series' earliest characters from his own London family and background. Kathy's original character outline as written by Smith and Holland appeared in an abridged form in their book, "EastEnders: The Inside Story".


title: Kathy Beale

text: Holland and Smith wanted Kathy to be attractive, warm, practical, tough, funny and sexy. More actresses were interviewed for the role of Kathy than any other original character. Each actress possessed some of the facets of personality wanted, but not a single one had all of them. Gillian Taylforth was an actress that Smith and Holland had encountered during an open evening they had attended at The Anna Scher Theatre in Islington, North London. They had been drawn to Taylforth because of her voice — "husky and adenoidal", which seemed at odds with her feminine appearance, which they described as "stunningly attractive". During the open evening, they considered Taylforth for the role of Sue Osman, but she was dismissed because she was blonde rather than brunette. They briefly considered her for the role of Kathy, but she was again dismissed because she was too young for the role. They instead decided "to bear her in mind for the future".


title: Kathy Beale

text: Despite this, during the casting period in 1984, Taylforth auditioned for the role of Sue Osman. She was unsuccessful and that part went to Sandy Ratcliff, however, Holland and Smith asked her back to audition for another role, the part of Kathy. Smith and Holland have commented that "she came into the room, bringing the whole of the 'East-end' in with her [...] In exactly half a minute she'd charmed the pants off them". She was considered perfect, apart from her age. Smith and Holland have commented in their book "Inside Story" that "[Taylforth] was too young! They had said so from the beginning. By rights, they should not even be interviewing her. But wasn't she perfect, apart from her age? So different from any other 'Kathy' they had seen. Fresher. More down to earth. Ages were discussed and a pocket-calculator produced. If Pete Beale had been her first boyfriend, wasn't it just possible that she could have a fourteen-year-old son? Julia and Tony were trying to talk themselves into it." Taylforth has commented on the audition process, "[Holland and Smith] whipped out a calculator and kept punching in numbers. 'We're trying to work out if you could be old enough to be Ian's Mum,' they said. I said, 'I can look older. I'll put my hair up. I'll have a few late nights and I promise I'll look old enough to be Ian's Mum'." According to Holland and Smith, Gillian Taylforth's "freshness and earthy charm" won them around and she was offered the part of Kathy.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Author Christine Geraghty has described Kathy as a character that could "be trusted by the audience to divine what is right and to hold firmly to that position". Described as a woman who naturally worked on behalf of the community, other characters frequently turned to Kathy for advice or support, and this was explored on-screen to greater effect in the 1980s when, as a result of the hardship she had faced in her youth, Kathy volunteered with the charity group The Samaritans. It has been noted that "as a result of becoming a counsellor for The Samaritans Kathy Beale 'in turn [...] increasingly [came] to adopt the role of expert advisor".


title: Kathy Beale

text: Hilary Kingsley, author of "The EastEnders Handbook", described Kathy in 1991 as "an attractive, bright, caring and highly moral woman, vulnerable but tough in some ways, streetwise, amusing, even witty [...] What she thinks is what she says.". She adds that she is "Blonde, good-looking, intelligent and industrious, on the surface Kathy's a very together lady. Underneath, though, things are very different." Kathy has been classified by Rupert Smith, author of "EastEnders: 20 years in Albert Square", as a "drama queen", a "strong passionate [woman] who [goes] to pieces where men are concerned and always [comes] back for more". He continued, "One woman above all others has taken it on the chin in "EastEnders", and that's Kathy." Author Kate Lock has noted that by the time of Kathy's last appearance, she had "acquired near-goddess status".


title: Kathy Beale

text: One of the most notable storylines involving Kathy was her rape by yuppie bar owner James Willmott-Brown, played by William Boyde. It was the second time that the character had been raped, as Kathy's backstory had revealed that she had been raped at the age of fourteen, resulting in a pregnancy — Kathy gave her baby daughter away for adoption, although these events were not seen on-screen, as Kathy was already in her 30s when the serial began. Taylforth has revealed that she was apprehensive about the storyline when it was originally pitched. She has commented to the "Walford Gazette", "I didn't think it was a great idea at first. That Kathy was being raped for the second time in her life bothered me. And second, I didn't think Wilmott-Brown was a very likely rapist. I loved working with William Boyde, and I thought he played it brilliantly. It was his idea to step up Wilmott-Brown's drinking in order for the rape to make some sense."


title: Kathy Beale

text: The storyline was set up during 1988, as Kathy found employment at James's wine bar, "The Dagmar", causing friction between Kathy and her husband Pete who "didn't like the pub, the clientele or the clothes Kathy felt she had to wear to look good for work". As James struggled with various personal and business issues simultaneously, he began to show an attraction to Kathy, leading to the storyline's eventual climax, Kathy's rape. Writer Colin Brake has commented that "all the pieces [were] in place [...] Pete was away [...] Willmott-Brown asked Kathy to stay after work for a drink. The situation got out of hand and what began as seduction ended in rape." The episodes covering the rape were written by Tony McHale and are considered by the writer Colin Brake as ""EastEnders" at its best". Some 19 million viewers tuned in to see Kathy attacked in The Dagmar wine bar's upstairs flat, on 7 July 1988, in episode 357, reportedly 2 million more than the average viewership at the time.


title: Kathy Beale

text: One of the episodes covering the rape received criticism for showing the police as unsympathetic and unhelpful to a rape victim. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Peter Imbert, said a scene in which Kathy was questioned following her rape was "out of date and would do nothing to encourage reporting this despicable crime". The story, however, continued in the next episode, when Kathy reached the police station and received very sympathetic treatment from a male detective and a WPC. Tony McHale had researched the subject in depth with the police and was determined to portray the broad range of ways that the police dealt with the serious subject of rape. A senior woman police officer later congratulated the programme on its even-handed and honest portrayal of the incident.


title: Kathy Beale

text: The storyline has generally been received well by critics. "The Guardian" newspaper described the storyline as "a slow-burn as the tension rose over weeks and months [...] which culminated in rape and then followed Kathy sensitively through the aftermath." This included the consequences for Willmott-Brown; the BBC maintains that with their rape storylines, "the consequences of the crime are always explored, both for the attacker and the victim." While in March 2008, Gareth McLean of "The Guardian" used Kathy Beale's rape as one of only two instances of a drama series that dealt with the subject "remotely realistically", the other being Sheila Grant's (Sue Johnston) rape in Channel 4's "Brookside". However, one prominent critic of the storyline was Mary Whitehouse of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. Following the airing of the rape episode in 1988, Whitehouse branded it "totally unsuitable for family viewing". She wrote to the then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, to try to stop the episode being repeated in the soap's weekly Sunday omnibus, suggesting that it violated the BBC's own code of practice.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Kathy was later reunited with James Willmott-Brown in 1992 in a special three-hander episode also featuring Pete. Written by Debbie Cook, this episode allowed Kathy to finally lay to rest the ghost of her rape and convince Pete that their marriage was truly over. Colin Brake has said that "it also gave Gillian Taylforth a terrific acting challenge". In the on-screen events, Kathy was shown to leave the serial for five months to stay with her brother and recover from the trauma of seeing James again; however, in reality, actress Gillian Taylforth had to be written out of the serial to go on maternity leave.


title: Kathy Beale

text: In 1993, Kathy was romantically paired with the character Phil Mitchell, played by Steve McFadden. Writer Colin Brake has revealed that this liaison had first been suggested by the "EastEnders" script department three years prior, in 1990, but the idea had been rejected in favour of Kathy getting involved with pub landlord Eddie Royle (Michael Melia).


title: Kathy Beale

text: Despite various obstacles, including objection from Kathy's son Ian (Adam Woodyatt), and the public unveiling of Phil's prior affair with his sister-in-law Sharon (Letitia Dean), Phil and Kathy married in 1995 and a baby was written into their narratives the following year; Kathy becoming a mother again for the third time at the age of 46. The storyline was used to spread a public message, when Kathy's baby son Ben contracted a rare form of meningitis, leaving him with impaired hearing and the threat of brain damage. Kathy was shown to "irrationally" blame herself for her son's condition. In 1996, Gillian Taylforth summarised her character's fears: "[Ben]'s not been very well since he was born and Kathy hasn't wanted to leave him for a minute." Ian McKee, journalist for the "Daily Record" added that "Ben fell ill when his mum was out for the evening. Irrationally, Kathy blames herself - but she won't trust him with anyone else" and according to Dr Richard Lansdown of London University's Institute of Child Health, "Such extreme anxiety is only natural [...] This constant checking is very, very common when children are seriously ill." Kathy's concern for Ben was shown to have a negative effect on her relationship with Phil, leading into the start of the couple's most notable storyline, Phil's descent into alcoholism and the consequences the condition has upon the sufferer's domestic life.


title: Kathy Beale

text: The relationship between alcohol abuse and domestic violence was explored between Phil and Kathy culminating in the slow deterioration of their marriage, which the BBC claims "gripped viewers" throughout 1997. It has been noted that "EastEnders" were attempting to spread the message that abusive relationships are transmitted from one generation to the next within this storyline. Phil is eventually shown to blame "his destructiveness on a response to self-hate: violence [...] the basis of his problem: his father had beaten him as a kid and he fears that he will do the same to his son."


title: Kathy Beale

text: In November 1997, the press revealed that after 13 years playing Kathy, Gillian Taylforth had opted not to renew her contract when it expired in March 1998. Taylforth commented, "I love "EastEnders", it's in my blood. But after 12 years I want a bit of a change. I want to spend more time with my family and consider other offers. It was an extremely difficult decision to make but I felt this was the best time to go. I've had alternative job offers in the past, but I've always stuck with EastEnders. It's been brilliant for me and I will miss it hugely." At the time, a BBC spokesperson would not confirm the departure saying, "Gilly is in discussions about taking a possible break. It is the policy that long-serving, valued, senior cast members are eligible for such breaks." However, her departure was later confirmed, with Taylforth saying that she made the decision to quit after she missed her daughter's sports day due to filming commitments on set. Barbara Windsor, who plays Kathy's mother-in-law Peggy Mitchell, said: "This is really sad. Gill is a wonderful actress and a very good friend." Steve McFadden, who plays Kathy's estranged husband Phil Mitchell, said: "I can't believe it. I've been with her all day and she never said a thing."


title: Kathy Beale

text: The character's exit storyline revolved around her broken marriage to Phil, a prominent storyline that had been heavily featured throughout 1997. After deciding to leave Walford with her son Ben for South Africa, Kathy found herself the object of desire from several Walford residents, all keen for her to stay and form a relationship. One of the men was Grant Mitchell, her husband Phil's brother, who Kathy shared a kiss with. Despite indicating to Phil that she was prepared to give their relationship one last try, he failed to rendezvous with her in time, and although he made it to the airport, he was persuaded to let her go by Ian. Kathy was shown to depart the serial on an aeroplane after a "poignant scene" showing her embracing her son Ian. The episodes marking Kathy's exit were screened in a one-hour special on Good Friday 10 April 1998. The episodes were also notable for being the last appearance of Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins). Despite the high-profile exits, the episodes were beaten in the ratings by rival soap "Coronation Street", which garnered 14 million viewers. It had been reported that "EastEnders"<nowiki>'</nowiki> producers had been hoping to topple the ratings success of "Coronation Street" popular "Free Deirdre" storyline, the jailing of the Street's Deirdre Rachid for a crime she didn't commit.


title: Kathy Beale

text: When Taylforth quit, she originally suggested that she was only taking a six-month break and would return in October 1998; however, this did not occur. It was reported in the press in August 1998, that only several months after her departure, "EastEnders" producers attempted to woo Taylforth back for a "week-long saga" to do a "Who's the daddy?" storyline, with Phil, Grant and Alex Healy all possible candidates for the father of Kathy's baby. Taylforth reportedly declined the offer in order to take other roles.


title: Kathy Beale

text: In a 2000 interview with the "Sunday Mirror" Taylforth commented further on her decision to leave the serial: "I left "EastEnders" because after 13 years I felt I really needed a break. I wanted to do other things and I knew I wasn't getting any younger. But throughout everything that has happened in my life I have had tremendous support from the people in "EastEnders". I love them so dearly. I still keep in touch with some of them, and my line when I left the show was, 'I won't say goodbye, just au revoir', and that is how I feel. It is nice that they have left the door open for Kathy to return."


title: Kathy Beale

text: After her final departure, numerous rumours circulated in the British press predicting the character's return to the soap. In 2005 it was reported that "EastEnders" producers were attempting to lure Gillian Taylforth back with the offer of a £200,000 a year pay cheque. Gillian said: "I've always wanted to go back because I love "EastEnders" — I have great friends in the cast and always enjoyed working with Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell)." However, in January 2006 it was announced that the character was being killed off-screen in a storyline to facilitate the return of her young son Ben to his father Phil Mitchell. Taylforth has commented: "I was a bit upset at first because it was 13 years of my life and I didn't like the thought of being killed off. I thought she might come back to see Ian and have some illness. But that's the way it goes."


title: Kathy Beale

text: In 2010, Taylforth said that she wished that Kathy could come back from the dead and that it was a mistake to kill her off. Earlier that year executive producer Diederick Santer revealed that he would like to have brought back Kathy from the dead but vowed not to revive deceased characters. Taylforth reiterated her desire to return to "EastEnders" in 2013 and that she heard a writer in 2011 saying that producers wanted her to return and asked her if she could think of a way to bring Kathy back. She revealed that producer John Yorke told her that killing off Kathy was "one of the biggest mistakes they've ever made", and the writer who had decided to kill off Kathy regretted it afterwards, though said it was a "good idea at the time". "EastEnders" spokespeople stated there were currently no plans for Taylforth to return and that some of the producers who had said they wanted Kathy to return had since left. In 2014, Taylforth revealed that she doubts whether Kathy is really dead and said that many EastEnders viewers have written with proposed storylines on how she could make a return to the show.


title: Kathy Beale

text: The character made an unannounced return during a live segment which aired on 19 February 2015 during "EastEnders" Live Week commemorating the 30th anniversary. Gillian Taylforth was initially hesitant about the storyline. "I couldn't understand how they could work around the fact that she could do that to her children" the actress explained. In September 2015, Treadwell-Collins said to the "Daily Mirror" that the story was inspired by the real life John Darwin disappearance case where John—also known as the Canoe man—with the help of his wife Anne faked his death in a canoe accident in March 2002 in order to claim the insurance. Kathy's husband Gavin Sullivan (Paul Nicholas) had convinced her to fake her death to keep her children safe.


title: Kathy Beale

text: During the "Children In Need" charity appeal of 1993, the BBC produced a special two-part edition of the popular science-fiction television programme "Doctor Who", entitled "Dimensions in Time". Part of the special was shot on the "EastEnders" set of Albert Square in Elstree. A scene from the programme, which was set in the future, showed a grey-haired Kathy Beale selling fruit and veg from Mark Fowler's stall with produce all priced with barcodes. Kathy, along with an elderly version of Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard), featured in promotional pictures with the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, and the "Children in Need" mascot, Pudsey Bear.


title: Kathy Beale

text: Kathy became one of the longest running characters on the show and Taylforth was the first cast member to appear in a total of 1,000 episodes.


title: Kathy Beale

text: In the book "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture", Christine Geraghty has likened Kathy to the characters Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) from "Coronation Street", Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) from "Dallas" and Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans) from "Dynasty" as they are associated "not merely with moral values but also the capacity to speak out when necessary in defence of the truth."


title: Kathy Beale

text: In a "character decoding" study performed in the 1980s, 93 viewers (64 women and 29 men) were surveyed (27 were undergraduate students, 33 were from the Oxford subject panel, and 33 were soap viewers who responded to advertisements in a soap magazine) on 25 characters from "EastEnders" to discover viewers' judgements and representations of the characters, through the construction of three-dimensional, multi-dimensional scaling space. The study found that the character of Kathy Beale was labelled in the "morality/potency" category - a moral character, family-oriented, warm, likable and steady.


title: Kathy Beale

text: In the book "Come on Down?: Popular Media Culture in Post-war Britain", Kathryn and Phillip Dodd have used Kathy as an example of an independent, "glamorous working-class woman". They suggest that the forging of strong, female working-class characters in soap operas is "a counterweight to the more usual celebration of masculine physicality and identification of the working class with that masculinity."


title: Kathy Beale

text: During a period of ratings decline and heavy media criticism aimed at "EastEnders" in 2005, Rupert Smith, "The Guardian" TV critic and author of "EastEnders: 20 years in Albert Square", stated that Kathy was one of "EastEnders" best characters, the type the show was lacking at the time. He described her, along with characters Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), Tiffany Mitchell (Martine McCutcheon), Bianca Jackson (Patsy Palmer), Janine Evans (Charlie Brooks) and Cindy Beale (Michelle Collins) as "strong women who can't control their appetites".


title: Kathy Beale

text: Writer and actress Jacquetta May, who played Rachel Kominski in "EastEnders" in the early 1990s, has commented on Kathy and questioned whether the events that happened in her fictional life reflected "any sort of true experience". In an article she comments, "Surely no woman's life could contain such a catalogue of disasters: slum childhood, two rapes, a drug-taking daughter, product of the first rape who tops herself, a broken marriage, disastrous affairs and now an alcoholic husband who endangered their son's life." She states that Kathy's biography is a "contrast between a realistic portrayal" of a woman and familiar stereotypes — Kathy "the good, long-suffering woman and victim".


title: Kathy Beale

text: In a study by the Stirling Media Research Institute about violence in the media, Phil and Kathy's abusive relationship was analysed. The explanation for Phil's alcoholism, his wife abuse, and the problems he has in relating to his son, was largely accepted as plausible. Women found the depiction of family life and domestic violence realistic and believable and felt that soap operas such as "EastEnders" should deal with important social issues. They judged soap operas as suitable locations for educating the public about social issues such as domestic violence. Phil's attendance at an AA and subsequent reconciliation with Kathy was viewed, leading some male participants to question the plausibility of the speedy reunion, "One session could hardly make Phil capable of going home and opening up his feelings to [Kathy]." Several focus groups attributed the need for "such a quick dramatic fix" as indicative of the ratings war with rival soap, "Coronation Street". Phil's reconciliation with Kathy was also seen as "implausible", though at the same time "it was clearly accepted that according to the conventions of soap opera, there are no permanent solutions." The study reported that much group discussion centred on the Alcoholics Anonymous group scene, which was, for the most part, seen as an accurate depiction of an AA group therapy session. In addition, Phil's portrayal of a suffering alcoholic was also seen as realistic and a "typical portrayal of bottled-up masculinity". Comparatively, male participants were generally dismissive towards Kathy: "She attracted little sympathy or understanding. Her tendency to take some responsibility for her own plight was not countered. Her tale of being abused by men and her history of rapes were at best mentioned in passing, at worst treated disparagingly. There was a quite widely shared sense of how men and women are characterised as radically different in "EastEnders" and other soap operas..." A scene in which Kathy and her close friend Pat Evans (Pam St Clement) show their competence as electricians, a scene that allowed the characters to "re-examine past mistakes and agree that life is hell, but you've got to keep struggling, mend the electrics ('wait for a man to do a job and you'll wait forever') and have a laugh" was felt, especially in middle-class male groups, "to be a superficial kind of feminism in line with how soap operas underscore gender differences." Gay men offered a major exception to this general indifference to Kathy's points of view; they readily espoused them.


title: Kathy Beale

text: On 6 November 2017, Gillian Taylforth won the "Outstanding Achievement" accolade at the "Inside Soap" Awards.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Daewoo Lacetti is a compact car manufactured and marketed globally by GM Korea since 2002. The first-generation Lacetti was available as a four-door sedan and five-door station wagon, styled by Pininfarina—and five-door hatchback styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The sedan and wagon were marketed as the Daewoo Nubira in some European markets and as the Suzuki Forenza in North America. The hatchback, was introduced in 2004 and marketed as Daewoo Lacetti5 in South Korea, Suzuki Reno in the United States. After the 2004 model year, it was marketed as Chevrolet Nubira and Lacetti in Europe.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In November 2008, the second-generation Lacetti was launched as the Daewoo Lacetti Premiere, a badge-engineered version of the Chevrolet Cruze, co-developed by GM Daewoo, Holden, and General Motors. It was marketed under the Daewoo marque until the beginning of 2011, when the brand was discontinued, and was thereafter marketed under the Chevrolet and Holden brands.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Lacetti was developed based on its predecessor Nubira under Daewoo before it was acquired by GM. The four-door sedan, designed by Pininfarina, was launched in South Korea on 25 November 2002, following a development period of two years and six months.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: A pre-production prototype of the five-door hatchback, styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro, was shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2003 with production starting in December. The hatchback featured a different exterior and interior design than the sedan.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: At the Geneva Motor Show in March 2004, Daewoo revealed the station wagon body variant penned by Pininfarina with the hatchback's updated interior and a facelifted derivative of the sedan's frontal styling. The facelift replaced the three-slot grille with a single item for a new full-length item featuring a bold horizontal bar capped in the center by the company's logo. The wagon's door handles ditch the lift-up variety from the sedan and hatchback for pullout versions.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: A facelift for the sedan was released on 25 March incorporating these new door handles, front-end styling and interior changes. The hatchback also received new door handles around this time.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The sedan was facelifted for some markets from 2007, receiving the same front end as the hatchback featured since its debut. This version was only produced in certain countries, such as Colombia, India or Thailand, and in 2013–2016 in Uzbekistan as the Daewoo Gentra.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In South Korea, the four-door Daewoo Lacetti was released in 2002. The five-door hatchback showed off only after the 2004 facelift of the sedan, which mainly included a new front grill, switching from a three-part corporate Daewoo grill to a simpler, Chevrolet-style grill. The hatchback name was Lacetti5, offering a specific design for the front, rear and dashboard.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The wagon version, called simply the Lacetti Wagon, was introduced in late 2007—though it was already sold in many other countries. It had the same dashboard as the hatchback, with the sedan front end. At the same time, GM Daewoo introduced the VM Motori diesel engines on the Lacetti range.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: When the Lacetti Premiere was introduced in November 2008, the sedan and wagon version sales were discontinued, leaving the only hatchback in the range, renamed Lacetti EX. The Lacetti EX was discontinued in October 2009.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Australia and New Zealand the Daewoo Lacetti was briefly sold between September 2003 and December 2004 as a four-door sedan. At this time, Daewoo withdrew from the Australian market. Fitted with the 1.8-liter engine rated at and , the Lacetti offered standard five-speed manual or optional four-speed automatic transmission. The single trim level, called SX, included are dual front airbags, air conditioning, power steering, keyless entry, power windows, CD player, and an alarm. The special edition SX Limited from October 2003 added anti-lock brakes, side impact airbags, alloy wheels, climate control air conditioning, six-stacker CD player, tilt/telescopic steering wheel, lumbar support for the front passenger seat, and leather trim.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: From 2005, the Lacetti (sedan and wagon) and Lacetti hatchback were sold together as the JF series Holden Viva. It was introduced at around the same time as the Daewoo Gentra-based Holden Barina. Unlike the Barina, however, the Viva was meant to be below the premium Holden Astra as a budget alternative.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: Despite the Viva's lower price compared to the Astra ( compared to ), the Astra continued to outsell the Viva by a factor of about two-to-one.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: With the release of the all new Holden Cruze in mid-2009 the Viva ceased to be sold in Australia. In New Zealand, where many cars are imported second-hand from Japan, several Japanese specification Chevrolet Optra sedans and wagons were also sold.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Lacetti was available in Canada named as the Chevrolet Optra in two models, a four-door hatchback (the Optra5), and an Optra wagon, all in LS or LT trim levels (2005 wagon only had base or LS trim levels). The sedan was available for model years 2004 and 2005, but was removed for 2006. All are powered by the 2.0-liter inline-four D-TEC engine, rated at at 5400 rpm and of torque at 4000 rpm, driving the front wheels through either a five-speed manual transmission or a four-speed automatic. Despite its compact size and the 2.0-liter engine, fuel economy was poor rated at for city and highway driving, respectively, which was worse than mid-size cars like the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, considering that the Optra was a compact car.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The main selling point of the Optra was its low price at $12,000 MSRP. The car was positioned as a versatile and fun to drive but affordable budget compact family car. The Optra slotted between the Cobalt and the Aveo, and it replaced the Daewoo Nubira.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: Brakes are disc, front and rear. Independent suspension, 15-inch wheels, and CD player were standard on the LS sedan, with optional ABS and air conditioning; the LT adds standard air conditioning and cruise control, standard fog lamps on both LS and LT, and an optional sunroof. The sedan is rated as an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Optra5 hatchback was added to the line-up for 2004 and was more contemporary in styling and equipment, with projector type headlights and fog lamps, clear taillight lenses, and blackout grille. In addition to the same options available on the sedan LS and LT models, an options package contained alloy wheels, sunroof, spoiler, leather steering wheel and shift knob, and steering wheel mounted controls for the eight-speaker audio system.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Optra wagon was also added to the line-up for 2005, sharing the sedan’s front styling. The wagon has standard alloy roof rails, 60/40 folding rear seat, and a 12-volt power outlet in the rear compartment, in addition to the same options available on the sedan LS and LT models.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In China, the cars are marketed as the Buick Excelle sedan or wagon and Excelle HRV (hatchback). The sedan, which is also assembled in China, features an updated exterior.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The successor to the Daewoo Lacetti-based "Buick Excelle" is based on the global GM Delta II platform, like the Opel Astra and Chevrolet Cruze and their derivatives. The development center at the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim, Germany, leads the development of this platform. This second generation hatchback Buick Excelle XT, making its debut in 2009, is actually a replica of the Opel Astra hatchback adapted to Chinese conditions. The corresponding sedan (Excelle GT) made its debut in China in 2010. A version of this sedan for North America was introduced for model year 2012 as Buick Verano, and as Opel Astra sedan in other parts of the world. The Lacetti-based first generation (Excelle) sedan, however, continued to be produced for the Chinese market until 2016.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Europe, the car was initially sold as the Daewoo Nubira, with the production model being introduced at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2003. However, by the end of 2004, it was rebadged Chevrolet Lacetti throughout the continent. As with its home market, in some European markets, the "Lacetti" name is also used for the entire range of sedan, station wagon and hatchback models on the same J-series platform. In Finland and Germany, for example, only the hatchback is sold under the Lacetti name.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The European models were initially only available with the following gasoline powered four-cylinder engines:


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Europe, the sedan version was initially sold as the Daewoo Nubira. However, in late 2003, it was announced that Daewoo would be rebranded Chevrolet in some European markets. The Chevrolet Nubira went on sale in early 2004, initially only in Eastern Europe. When Daewoo was rebranded Chevrolet across Europe by the end of 2004, the Chevrolet Nubira was renamed Chevrolet Lacetti in some markets for the 2005 model year, which expanded the Lacetti line-up to include both the sedan and station wagon versions in addition to the five-door hatchback version, in line with Korea.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The engines built for the Nubira and its badge-engineered twins are the same as in the Lacetti hatchback and its badge-engineered versions. The 1.8-liter "Family II" four-cylinder engine is sourced from the Australian car maker Holden.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In 2004, The Lacetti was launched in India and sold as the Optra and the sportsback version was sold as Optra S-RV (formerly known/sold as Chevrolet SRV), which the company planned to produce with a 2.0-liter diesel engine in the near future.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Optra was sold with two engine options, 1.6- and 1.8-liter. The 1.6-liter ecotec petrol version was available in three trim levels, the Elite, the Elite LS, and the high-end LT Royale, while the 1.8-liter petrol version was available in two levels, the LT and the LT AT (automatic transmission). The 1.6-liter petrol produced and allowed a top speed of , while the 1.8-liter petrol sibling was capable of producing and a limited top speed of . However, the 1.8-liter automatic was capable of .


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In 2007 GM India introduced a facelifted diesel-engined Optra called the Optra Magnum. The Magnum sported the family nose, and better interiors as compared to the petrol version, also a new 2.0-liter TCDi engine capable of producing . Subsequently the petrol version received the new nose treatment (as that of the Optra SRV, but with a slightly different front grill) and tail lights, and was sold as the Optra Magnum petrol.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The S-RV succumbed to competition from cheaper cars and was eventually discontinued in 2009. It had a 1.6-liter petrol engine with a maximum power output of .


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Pakistan, the car came in three trim levels, 1.6-liter SE and LS and the 1.8-liter CDX. SE trim models came with manual transmission only, whilst LS and CDX models came with five-speed manual or four-speed automatic transmissions. Sales however, were poorer than expected and all models were withdrawn from sale.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Japan, Suzuki briefly distributed the Lacetti as the Chevrolet Optra wagon. It was available in two trim levels, the LS and the LT. Both came with either a five-speed manual or 4-speed automatic transmission with a console shift. The Optra Wagon was powered by a 1.6 or 1.8-liter engine. For model years 2004 and 2005 the Lacetti sedan was also sold in Japan as the Chevrolet Optra LT. The Optra was limited in sales due to the exterior dimensions exceeding , thereby causing Japanese owners to pay a yearly tax for a vehicle that exceeds Japanese dimension regulations.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Mexico, the Lacetti came to the market in 2006 as Optra to replace the Chevrolet Cavalier, and it was sold only as a sedan. The Optra was phased out after the 2009 model year in favour of the Chevrolet Cruze, although for now, the Mexican Cruze is an imported model from South Korea.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Lacetti as a best seller was launched in Colombia, under the Chevrolet brand as Chevrolet Optra, in 2004 with the sedan version having the following engine options:


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In 2006 the hatchback version was introduced, with only the aforementioned 1.8-liter engine. By 2006, the 1.4-liter engine was replaced by the 1.6 L "Family I" E-TEC II, at 5800 rpm. In addition, the design of wheels, and the grille were updated for all models offered.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In 2009, the saloon version received a facelift marketed as Chevrolet Optra Advance, with a sportier interior and front styling similar to that of the hatchback, it was sold with GM's 1.6 and 1.8 engines, with the 5 Speed Manual Transmission and 4 Speed Automatic Transmission. Assembly at the Bogotá GM plant (GM Colmotores) ceased in 2013 due to the modernization of GM Colmotores lineup.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In South Africa, the Lacetti came to the market in 2004 as Chevrolet Optra, and it was sold only as a sedan. The Optra was one of the first models brought in when Chevrolet made its comeback into South Africa. The Optra was phased out after the 2009 model year in favour of the Chevrolet Cruze.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Singapore, the name "Chevrolet" has replaced the Daewoo nameplate after GM bought Daewoo. It still offers the same line-up as did GM Daewoo, naming the Optra sedan, Optra station wagon and Optra5 hatchback in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. In Indonesia, the sedan is simply called Optra or Optra Magnum for the facelift model, and Estate for the station wagon. The vehicles use the 1.6- or 1.8-liter engine with an automatic transmission option for selected models.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: Suzuki marketed a rebadged Lacetti as the Forenza and Reno beginning in the United States in 2004—following the end of Daewoo's North American operations in 2002 and replacing the Daewoo Nubira station wagon and sedan. The Forenza/Reno falls between the Aerio (later SX4) and the now-discontinued Verona. In the territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands, it was sold as a Chevrolet Optra, but it was only available as a sedan.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The US model line features the 2.0-liter four-cylinder D-TEC made by General Motors, developing a maximum power of at 5600 rpm.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Forenza and the Reno were discontinued within the 2008 model year, the Reno being replaced by the Suzuki SX4 sedan after the 2008 model year and the Forenza by the Chevrolet Cruze.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Chevrolet Optra entered the Iraqi market in 2004 with the 1.6-liter engine; a few years later the LS term version was used as a traffic police patrol vehicle.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In Uzbekistan, the Lacetti has been produced by GM Uzbekistan since 2008, in a plant located in Asaka, and marketed as the Chevrolet Lacetti. In 2013, the partner company Uz-Daewoo Avto began producing the facelifted sedan version as the new Daewoo Gentra. It is marketed throughout the CIS countries. In 2015 the car was renamed the "Ravon Gentra".


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: After UzAuto phased out the Ravon brand in 2020, the Ravon Gentra/R5 was renamed again as Chevrolet Lacetti. The Chevrolet Lacetti received the same facelift of the Daewoo Gentra.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The entire line of models were produced at the Avtotor plant in Kaliningrad with full cycle of manufacturing until 2012.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In 2014, UzDaewoo, GM's subdivision in Uzbekistan, started importing the Lacetti sedan as Daewoo Gentra. After license agreement between GM and Daewoo ended, UzDaewoo (now GM Uzbekistan) re-branded all of its lineup as Ravon, due to impossibility of using both Daewoo and Chevrolet names in Russia (Chevrolet withdrew from the Russian market in early 2015 due to the economic crisis).


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The second-generation, built on the GM Delta II platform, is sold in most markets as the Chevrolet Cruze. In South Korea it was originally branded as the Daewoo Lacetti Premiere, until the Daewoo brand was replaced by Chevrolet in 2011.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: For the Chinese successor of the Lacetti-based "Buick Excelle", see Buick Excelle XT and Buick Excelle GT, which are twins of Opel Astra hatchback and sedan respectively.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: Chinese versions also included the new SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture called Baojun 630 manufactured in Liuzhou, Guangxi, China. It was launched at the 2011 Shanghai Auto Show, and went on sale in August 2011.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The car has been used in the FIA's World Touring Car Championship from 2005 until 2012, and in the British Touring Car Championship from 2008 until 2011.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: The Chevrolet Lacetti was chosen as the new "reasonably-priced car" for "Top Gear"s "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment for series 8 in 2006, replacing the Suzuki Liana, which had ceased production. In this segment of the show, celebrity guests set timed laps of the "Top Gear" test track driving the Lacetti.


title: Daewoo Lacetti

text: In the first episode of series 15 of "Top Gear", broadcast on BBC2 on 27 June 2010, the Lacetti, that had been used for the power laps, was given a "Viking Burial" by presenter Richard Hammond. An industrial chimney was demolished, collapsing over and almost completely burying the car under rubble. Soon afterwards, the new reasonably priced car, a Kia Cee'd, was unveiled to viewers.


title: Robert Conquest

text: A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books included "The Great Terror: Stalin's Purges of the 1930s" (1968); "The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine (1986)"; and "" (1991). He was also the author of two novels and several collections of poetry.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest was born in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, to an American father, Robert Folger Wescott Conquest, and an English mother, Rosamund Alys Acworth. His father served in an American Ambulance Field Service unit with the French Army in World War I, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, with Silver Star in 1916.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest was educated at Winchester College, where he won an exhibition to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Magdalen College, Oxford. He took a gap year, spending time at the University of Grenoble and in Bulgaria, and returning to Oxford in 1937, where he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Carlton Club. He was awarded an MA in PPE and a DLitt in history.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In Lisbon on an American passport at the outbreak of the Second World War, Conquest returned to England. As the Communist Party of Great Britain denounced the war in 1939 as imperialist and capitalist, Conquest broke with it and was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry on 20 April 1940, serving with the regiment until 1946.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1943 he was posted to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (later part of University College London) to study Bulgarian. The following year he was posted to Bulgaria as a liaison officer to the Bulgarian forces fighting under Soviet command, attached to the Third Ukrainian Front, then to the Allied Control Commission. At the end of the war, he joined the Foreign Office, returning to the British Legation in Sofia where he remained as the press officer. In 1948 he left Bulgaria when he was recalled to London under a minor diplomatic cloud after he had helped smuggle two Bulgarians out of the country.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1948 Conquest joined the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), a "propaganda counter-offensive" unit created by the Labour Attlee government in order to "collect and summarize reliable information about Soviet and communist misdoings, to disseminate it to friendly journalists, politicians, and trade unionists, and to support, financially and otherwise, anticommunist publications." The IRD was also engaged in manipulating public opinion. Conquest was remembered there as a "brilliant, arrogant" figure who had 10 people reporting to him. He continued to work at the Foreign Office until 1956, becoming increasingly involved in the intellectual counter-offensive against communism.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1949 Conquest's assistant, Celia Kirwan (later Celia Goodman), approached George Orwell for information to help identify Soviet sympathisers. Orwell's list, discovered after her death in 2002, included "Guardian" and "Observer" journalists, as well as E. H. Carr and Charlie Chaplin. Conquest, like Orwell, fell for the beautiful Celia Kirwan, who inspired him to write several poems. One of his foreign office colleagues was Alan Maclean, brother of Donald Maclean, one of the Philby spy ring, who fled to Russia with Guy Burgess in 1951. When his brother defected, Alan resigned, then went to Macmillan and published a book of Conquest's poems. At the Foreign Office, Conquest wrote several papers that sowed the seeds for his later work. One, on the Soviet means of obtaining confessions, was elaborated on in "The Great Terror". Other papers were "Peaceful Co-existence in Soviet Propaganda and Theory", and "United Fronts – a Communist Tactic". In 1950 Conquest served briefly as First Secretary in the British Delegation to the United Nations.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1956 Conquest left the Foreign Office and became a freelance writer and historian. After he left, he says, the Information Research Department (IRD) suggested to him that he could combine some of the data he had gathered from Soviet publications into a book. During the 1960s he edited eight volumes of work produced by the IRD, published in London by the Bodley Head as the Soviet Studies Series. Many of his Foreign Office works were published this way. In the United States, the material was republished as The Contemporary Soviet Union Series by Frederick Praeger, who had previously published several books on communism at the request of the CIA, in addition to works by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Milovan Đilas, Howard Fast, and Charles Patrick Fitzgerald.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1962–1963 Conquest was literary editor of "The Spectator", but he resigned when he found the job interfering with his historical writing. His first books on the Soviet Union were "Common Sense About Russia" (1960), "The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities" (1960) and "Power and Policy in the USSR" (1961). His other early works on the Soviet Union included "Courage of Genius: The Pasternak Affair" (1961) and "Russia After Khrushchev" (1965).


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1968 Conquest published what became his best-known work, "The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties", the first comprehensive research of the Great Purge, which took place in the Soviet Union between 1934 and 1939. Many reviewers at the time were not impressed by his way of writing about the Great Terror, which was in the tradition of "great men who make history". The book was based mainly on information which had been made public, either officially or by individuals, during the so-called "Khrushchev Thaw" in the period 1956–64. It also drew on accounts by Russian and Ukrainian émigrés and exiles dating back to the 1930s, and on an analysis of official Soviet documents such as the Soviet census.


title: Robert Conquest

text: The most important aspect of the book was that it widened the understanding of the purges beyond the previous narrow focus on the "Moscow trials" of disgraced Communist Party of the Soviet Union leaders such as Nikolai Bukharin and Grigory Zinoviev, who were executed shortly thereafter. The question of why these leaders had pleaded guilty and confessed to various crimes at the trials had become a topic of discussion for a number of western writers, and helped inspire anti-Communist tracts such as George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon".


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest argued that the trials and executions of these former Communist leaders were a minor detail of the purges. By his estimates, Stalinist purges had led to the deaths of some 20 million people. He later stated that the total number of deaths could "hardly be lower than some thirteen to fifteen million."


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest sharply criticized Western intellectuals such as Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Jean-Paul Sartre, Walter Duranty, Sir Bernard Pares, Harold Laski, D. N. Pritt, Theodore Dreiser, Bertolt Brecht, Owen Lattimore, and Romain Rolland, as well as American ambassador Joseph Davies, accusing them of being dupes of Stalin and apologists of his regime. Conquest cites various comments made by them where, he argues, they were denying, excusing, or justifying various aspects of the purges.


title: Robert Conquest

text: After the opening up of the Soviet archives, detailed information was released that Conquest argued supported his conclusions. When Conquest's publisher asked him to expand and revise "The Great Terror", Conquest is famously said to have suggested the new version of the book be titled "I Told You So, You Fucking Fools." In fact, the mock title was jokingly proposed by Conquest's old friend, Sir Kingsley Amis. The new version was published in 1990 as "The Great Terror: A Reassessment"; . The American historian J. Arch Getty disagreed, writing in 1993 that the archives did not support Conquest's casualty figures. In 1995, investigative journalist Paul Lashmar suggested that the reputation of prominent academics such as Robert Conquest was built upon work derived from material provided by the IRD.


title: Robert Conquest

text: According to Denis Healey "The Great Terror" was an important influence, "but one which confirmed people in their views rather than converted them".


title: Robert Conquest

text: Many aspects of his book continue to be disputed by sovietologist historians and researchers on Russian and Soviet history, such as Stephen G. Wheatcroft, who insists that Conquest's victim totals for Stalinist repressions are too high, even in his reassessments. In 2000, Michael Ignatieff, whose family had emigrated from Russia as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution, wrote "One of the few unalloyed pleasures of old age is living long enough to see yourself vindicated. Robert Conquest is currently enjoying this pleasure." Conservative historian Paul Johnson, one of Thatcher's closest advisers, described Conquest as "our greatest living historian". And, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash, he was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1996 Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who had been previously attacked by Conquest for his book "Age of Extremes", while praising Conquest's "The Great Terror" "as a remarkable pioneer effort to assess the Stalin Terror", expressed the view that this work and others were now to be considered obsolete "simply because the archival sources are now available". As a result, he wrote, there was no need for "fragmentary sources" and "guesswork". "[W]hen better or more complete data are available, they must take the place of poor and incomplete ones." In 2002 Conquest replied to his critics:


title: Robert Conquest

text: They're still talking absolute balls. In the academy, there remains a feeling of, "Don't let's be too rude to Stalin. He was a bad guy, yes, but the Americans were bad guys too, and so was the British Empire."


title: Robert Conquest

text: They say [disapprovingly] that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too. A lot of people weren't Cold Warriors — and so much the worse for them.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1986 Conquest published "The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine", dealing with the collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR, under Stalin's direction in 1929–31, and the resulting famine, in which millions of peasants died due to starvation, deportation to labor camps, and execution. In this book, Conquest supported the view that the famine was a planned act of genocide. According to historians Stephen Wheatcroft and R. W. Davies, "Conquest holds that Stalin wanted the famine... and that the Ukrainian famine was deliberately inflicted for its own sake." Nevertheless, he wrote to them in a letter in 2003 that "Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine? No. What I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put 'Soviet interest' other than feeding the starving first thus consciously abetting it."


title: Robert Conquest

text: For the Trotskyists, Kirov's murder was the Stalinist equivalent of the Reichstag fire, deliberately started by the Nazis to justify the arrest of German Communists. The Trotskyist-Menshevik view became the dominant one among western historians, popularised in Robert Conquest's influential books.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In "The Great Terror", Conquest already undermined the official Soviet story of conspiracy and treason. Conquest placed the murder in 1934 of the Leningrad party boss, Sergei Kirov, one of Stalin's inner circle, as the key to the mechanism of terror.


title: Robert Conquest

text: He returned to this in "Stalin and the Kirov Murder" (1989), where he argued that Stalin not only sanctioned Kirov's assassination, but used it as a justification for the terror that culminated in 1937–38, though no evidence has been found to confirm Stalin's role in the murder.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In addition to his scholarly work, Conquest was a well-regarded poet whose poems have been published in various periodicals from 1937. In 1945 he was awarded the PEN Brazil Prize for his war poem "For the Death of a Poet" – about an army friend, the poet Drummond Allison, killed in Italy – and, in 1951, he received a Festival of Britain verse prize. During his lifetime, he had seven volumes of poetry and one of literary criticism published.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest was a major figure in a prominent British literary circle known as "The Movement" which also included Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. Movement poets, many of whom bristled at being so labeled, rejected the experiments of earlier practitioners such as Ezra Pound.


title: Robert Conquest

text: He edited, in 1956 and 1962, the influential "New Lines" anthologies, introducing works by them, as well as Thom Gunn, Dennis Enright, and others, to a wider public. He spent 1959–60 as visiting poet at the University of Buffalo. Several of his poems were published in "The New Oxford Book of Light Verse" (1978; compiled by Amis), under the pseudonyms "Stuart Howard-Jones", "Victor Gray" and "Ted Pauker".


title: Robert Conquest

text: It emerged from the pages of poet Philip Larkin's published letters that Conquest and Larkin shared an enthusiasm for pornography in the 1950s. When Larkin was in Hull, Conquest sent him judicious selections of the latest pornography, and, when he came down to London, Conquest took him on shopping trips to the Soho porn shops. On one occasion Conquest, in 1957, wrote a letter to Larkin purporting to come from the Vice Squad which had found the poet's name on a pornographic publisher's list. Larkin panicked and went to see his solicitor, convinced that he was going to lose his job as librarian at Hull University, before Conquest owned up. The true story of the joke became in 2008, "Mr Larkin's Awkward Day", a comedy radio play by Chris Harrald.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Soon after his expulsion from the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn met with Conquest, asking him to translate a 'little' poem of his into English verse. This was "Prussian Nights" – nearly two thousand lines in ballad metre – published in 1977.


title: Robert Conquest

text: A new "Collected Poems", edited by Elizabeth Conquest, was published in March 2020 by the Waywiser Press.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest had been a member of the British Interplanetary Society since the 1940s, and shared Amis's taste for science fiction. Starting from 1961, the two writers jointly edited "Spectrum", five anthologies of new sci-fi writing. Conquest also proposed to Amis a collaboration based on a draft comic novel that Conquest had completed. This was revised by Amis, then it appeared under both their names as "The Egyptologists" (1965). The novel is about a secret Egyptological London society that is really a husbands' organization serving as an alibi for philanderers. A reviewer in "The New York Times" felt that their "elaborate little jokes leave an unpleasant taste".


title: Robert Conquest

text: Later a film version of the novel was cancelled when its star, Peter Sellers, was called away to Hollywood. Conquest published a science-fiction novel, "A World of Difference" (1955).


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1984, Robert Conquest wrote, with Jon Manchip White, the fictional book "What to Do When the Russians Come: a Survivor's Guide" which, however, was intended to be a real survival manual in case of Soviet invasion. This book, as many other works of the mid-1980s in different media, like Sir John Hackett's "", the movie "Red Dawn", and the Milton Bradley game "Fortress America", starts from the premise that a Soviet ground-invasion of the United States could be imminent and that the Soviet Union was about to engulf the world.


title: Robert Conquest

text: It is widely accepted that the United States now faces a real possibility of succumbing to the power of an alien regime unless the right policies are pursued. [This book's aim] is, first, to show the American citizen clearly and factually what the results of this possible Soviet domination could be and how it would affect him or her personally; and second, to give some serious advice on how to survive."


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest supported the Reagan defense buildup and asked for an increase of expenses on US defense budget, claiming that in the nuclear field NATO was only possibly matching USSR military power:


title: Robert Conquest

text: We live in dangerous times. Such miscalculations are very possible. But they are not inevitable. The American people and their representatives have it in their power to prevent their country from undergoing the ordeal we have described. A democratic government, with all its distractions and disadvantages, ... It is not infallible, it is slow to learn, and it is willing to grasp at comfortable illusions; but it may yet act decisively"


title: Robert Conquest

text: "But why should we fear that such an ordeal may face us? The economic potential of the West in gross national product is far greater than that of the Soviet Union...In fact, the Soviet Union is economically far behind the United States. American technology is always a generation ahead of theirs. They have to turn to the United States for wheat. The Soviet economy is at a dead end. The Communist system has failed to win support in any of the countries of Eastern Europe. The Soviet idea has no attractions. On any calculation—of economic power or social advance or intellectual progress there could be no question of the Russians imposing their will. But in terms of actual military power, the West's advantage does not seem to have been made use of. It is at least matched, and many would say overmatched, in the nuclear field; the Western forces in Europe have less than half the striking power of their opponents. It is no good our being more advanced than they are if this is not translated into power—both military power and political willpower."


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1986 Conquest affirmed that "a science-fiction attitude is a great help in understanding the Soviet Union. It isn't so much whether they're good or bad, exactly; they're not bad or good as we'd be bad or good. It's far better to look at them as Martians than as people like us."


title: Robert Conquest

text: "Reflections on a Ravaged Century" is a book devoted to the psychological roots of fanaticism, in which Conquest argues that Communism and Nazism were equal and more twins than opposites.


title: Robert Conquest

text: There is much more in this book about communism than Nazism, partly because of Conquest's greater expertise on communism, and partly because comparatively few Western intellectuals became Nazis. He focuses mainly on attacks on intellectuals in the West who became communists because they felt or believed that this was "anti-fascism" or "anti-Nazism".


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest posited two laws of politics, apparently not referenced in any of his books but as observations he made in conversations while alive:


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest's first and second law are attested by at least two sources. On 14 February 2003, Andrew Brown wrote of Conquest's campaign against the expansion of university education that "[f]rom this period dates 'Conquest's Law', which states that 'Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands'. This was later supplemented with the balancing rule that every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents." In his 1991 "Memoirs", Kingsley Amis wrote of Conquest that "he was to point out that, while very 'progressive' on the subject of colonialism and other matters I was ignorant of, I was a sound reactionary about education, of which I had some understanding and experience. From my own and others' example he formulated his famous First Law, which runs, 'Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on subjects he knows about.' (The Second Law, more recent, says, 'Every organisation appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.')"


title: Robert Conquest

text: On 25 June 2003, John Derbyshire wrote in the "National Review Online"s blog "The Corner" that "[a]s best I can remember", Conquest conjectured three laws of politics:


title: Robert Conquest

text: Derbyshire commented: "Of the Second Law, Conquest gave the Church of England and Amnesty International as examples. Of the third, he noted that a bureaucracy sometimes actually "IS" controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies — e.g. the postwar British secret service." For these statements, Conquest would become well known among certain thinkers, especially online conservatives; however, Derbyshire cited no source for them and implied his memory was not certain on the matter. Indeed, the second law given here is O'Sullivan's first law, which was stated by John O'Sullivan in his article "O'Sullivan's First Law" in the 27 October 1989 print issue of the "National Review", in which he also references Derbyshire's Conquest's third law as Conquest's second law:


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest was married four times, first in 1942 to Joan Watkins, with whom he had two sons. They divorced in 1948. There followed a marriage to Tatiana Mihailova (1948–1962), whom he had helped escape from Bulgaria. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1951. In 1962 he married Caroleen MacFarlane; they divorced in 1978. That year he began dating Elizabeth Neece Wingate, a lecturer in English and the daughter of a United States Air Force colonel. He and Wingate married in 1979. When he died in 2015, he had several grandchildren from his sons and stepdaughter.


title: Robert Conquest

text: In 1981 Conquest moved to California to take up a post as Senior Research Fellow and Scholar-Curator of the Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States Collection at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he remained a Fellow. In 1985 he signed a petition in support of the anti-Communist Contras (Nicaragua). He was a fellow of the Columbia University's Russian Institute, and of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; a distinguished visiting scholar at The Heritage Foundation; a research associate of Harvard University's Ukrainian Research Institute. In 1990 he presented "Red Empire", a seven-part mini-series on the Soviet Union produced by Yorkshire Television.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest died in 2015 in Stanford, California, at the age of 98, of respiratory failure as a result of Parkinson's disease.


title: Robert Conquest

text: Conquest was a Fellow of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature, and the British Interplanetary Society, and a Member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.


title: Chhau dance

text: Chhau dance, also spelled Chhou dance, is a semi classical Indian dance with martial and folk traditions. It is found in three styles named after the location where they are performed, i.e. the "Purulia Chhau" of West Bengal, the "Seraikella Chhau" of Jharkhand and the "Mayurbhanj Chhau" of Odisha.


title: Chhau dance

text: The dance ranges from celebrating martial arts, acrobatics and athletics performed in festive themes of a folk dance, to a structured dance with religious themes found in Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism. The costumes vary between the styles, with Purulia and Serakeilla using masks to identify the character. The stories enacted by Chhau dancers include those from the Hindu epics the "Ramayana" and the "Mahabharata", the Puranas and other Indian literature.


title: Chhau dance

text: The dance is traditionally an all males troupe, regionally celebrated particularly during spring every year, and may be a syncretic dance form that emerged from a fusion of classical Hindu dances and the traditions of ancient regional tribes. The dance is amazing and brings together people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in a festive and religious spirit.


title: Chhau dance

text: Chhau is a dance style originating from the regions of East India. It may have been derived from Sanskrit "Chāya" (shadow, image or mask). Others link it to the Sanskrit root "Chadma" (disguise), yet others such as Sitakant Mahapatra suggest it is derived from "Chhauni" (military camp, armor, stealth) in Odia language.


title: Chhau dance

text: The Chhau dance is mainly performed during festivals in the region of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, especially the spring festival of Chaitra Parva and in which the whole community participates. The Purulia Chhau dance is celebrated during the Sun festival.


title: Chhau dance

text: Masks form an integral part of Chhau dance in Purulia and Seraikella styles. The knowledge of dance, music and mask-making is transmitted orally. The Chhau dance found in northern Odisha does not use mask during the dance, but they do when the artists first appear on the stage for introduction to the audience.


title: Chhau dance

text: The two styles of Chhau dance that use masks, blend within it forms of both dance and martial practices employing mock combat techniques (called "khel"), stylized gaits of birds and animals (called "chalis" and "topkas") and movements based on the chores of village housewives (called "uflis"). This form of the Chhau dance, states Mohan Khokar, has no ritual or ceremonial meaning, it is a form of community celebration and entertainment.


title: Chhau dance

text: The dance is performed by male dancers, at night in an open space, called "akhada" or "asar". The dance is rhythmic and set to traditional folk music, played on the reed pipes "mohuri" and shehnai. A variety of drums accompany the music ensemble including the dhol (a cylindrical drum), "dhumsa" (a large kettle drum) and "kharka" or "chad-chadi". The themes for these dances include local legends, folklore and episodes from the "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" and other abstract themes.


title: Chhau dance

text: The precursors of Chhau dance (especially Purulia style) were not only "Paika" and Natua, but "Nachni" dance also played an important role in giving Chhau its present identity. Chhau dance borrows the female gaits and movements from the "Nachni" dance almost exclusively (Bhattacharya, 1983, Chakravarti, 2001, Kishore, 1985). The female dance elements in Chhau introduced the aspects of "Lasya Bhava" from the Natya Shastra that brought elegance, sensuality, and beauty in the dance form, whereas, the virile male dance movement is attributed to the Shiva's "tandava" style of dance (Bose 1991). There are different interpretations to "tandava" and "lasya". I have above-mentioned the most commonly accepted definition of "tandava" and "lasya" above. Bose foregrounds the debate between the relation of "lasya" and "tandava" critically in his analysis of dance in Sanskrit texts. See Bose, Mandakranta.


title: Chhau dance

text: The Seraikella Chhau developed in Seraikela, when it was under the rule of Kalinga's Gajapati Rule the present day administrative headquarters of the Seraikela Kharsawan district of Jharkhand, the Purulia Chhau in Purulia district of West Bengal and the Mayurbhanj Chhau in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. The most prominent difference among the three subgenres is regarding the use of masks. While, the Seraikela and Purulia subgenres of Chhau use masks during the dance, the Mayurbhanj Chhau uses none.


title: Chhau dance

text: The Seraikella Chhau's technique and repertoire were developed by the erstwhile nobility of this region who were both its performers and choreographers, and in the modern era people from all backgrounds dance it. The Seraikella Chhau is performed with symbolic masks, and the acting establishes the role the actor is playing. The Purulia Chhau uses extensive masks shaped in the form of the character being played; for example, a lion character has a face mask of lion and body costumes too with the actor walking on all fours. These masks are crafted by potters who make clay images of Hindu gods and goddesses and is primarily sourced from the Purulia district of West Bengal. In the Mayurbhanj Chhau is performed without masks and is technically similar to the Seraikella Chhau.


title: Chhau dance

text: In 2010, the Chhau dance was inscribed in the UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.


title: Chhau dance

text: The Government of Odisha established the Government Chhau Dance Centre in 1960 in Seraikella and the Mayurbhanj Chhau Nritya Pratisthan at Baripada in 1962. These institutions engage in training involving local gurus, artists, patrons and representatives of Chhau institutions and sponsor performances. The Chaitra Parva festival, significant to the Chhau Dance, is also sponsored by the state government. The Sangeet Natak Akademi has established a National Centre for Chhau Dance at Baripada, Odisha.


title: Chhau dance

text: Purulia Chhau Dance is listed on UNESCO's world heritage list of dances. The main difference between the Purulia Chhau and Mayurbhanj Chhau is in the use of the mask. Purulia Chhau uses masks in dance, but Mayurbhanj Chhau does not have masks thereby adding facial expression with body movements and gestures. Traditionally, the chhau dance is held during mid-march when one agricultural circle ends and a new circle begins. Purulia Chhau dancers wear the earthy and theatrical mask which represent the mythological characters. After making the shape of mask with clay, it is coloured and decorated with Shola and other things.


title: Chhau dance

text: The Chhau mask of Purulia is registered under Geographical Indications. As the basic difference of Purulia Chhau the mask is unique and traditional.


title: Chhau dance

text: These chhau masks are made by the artists by the Sutradhar community. The making of a mask goes through various stages. 8-10 layers of soft paper, immersed in diluted glue, are pasted one after another on the mould before the mud mould is dusted with fine ash powder. The facial features are made of clay. A special layer of mud and cloth is applied and the mask is then sun-dried. After this, the mould is polished and the second round of sun drying is done before separating the layers of cloth and paper from the mould. After finishing and drilling of holes for the nose and eyes, the mask is colored and decorated.


title: Natalie Brown (actress)

text: Brown landed her first print campaign for Bonne Bell at age 16 and went on to become the Heinz Ketchup girl. She also modeled for Noxema and Max Factor, and studied fine arts at York University.


title: Natalie Brown (actress)

text: She played talent agent Sophie Parker on the television sitcom "Sophie", which ran for two seasons, and grieving mother Carol Haplin on six of the eight episodes of the ABC series "Happy Town". Her other credits include "ReGenesis", "Naked Josh", "Mutant X", "", "Something Beneath", "Dawn of the Dead", "Welcome to Mooseport", "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "MTV's Undressed", "Tracker", "Flashpoint", "Dark Matter" and "The Strain". In the 2016 Hallmark original movie "For Love & Honor", she played a dean at a military school.


title: Natalie Brown (actress)

text: She is also known in Canada for her work in television commercials, particularly those for Baileys Irish Cream, Salon Selectives, Canada Post, and Yoplait.


title: Tezz

text: Tezz () is a 2012 Indian action thriller film directed by Priyadarshan. It stars Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Zayed Khan, Sameera Reddy and Boman Irani. veteran actor Mohanlal appears in an extended cameo appearance. Upon release, the film received mixed reviews from audiences.


title: Tezz

text: Aakash Rana is an illegal immigrant married to British-Indian citizen Nikita living as a successful engineer. He is eventually caught and deported from the UK, thus crushing his dreams of an ideal life.


title: Tezz

text: Four years later, Aakash returns with a vengeance on his mind and teams up with his former employees Aadil Khan and Megha to wreak some havoc. What follows is a bomb threat on a train and a tense railway control officer Sanjay Raina and anti-terrorism officer Arjun Khanna trying every trick in the book to avert the disaster and to apprehend the culprits. Sanjay Raina tries his best to save his daughter Piya, and the passengers in the train who are thrown in the mix are police officer Shivan Menon and his team of police force, who are escorting a prisoner on the same ill-fated train. Aakash demands 10 million euros to tell them how to disarm the bomb. The ministry does not want to give the money, but Khanna convinces them that the money will be given back and is a way to lure the terrorists.


title: Tezz

text: After following Aakash's instructions and dropping the money in a river, he walks away. Megha gets the money and tries to get away. She evades the cops after a vicious chase, but unfortunately, she is killed by a van in an intersection. Khanna finds out that Khan is one of the bombers and chases him. Khan is shot in the leg, but he gets away after jumping from the bridge and landing on a jet ski driven by Aakash. Aakash once again demands money and asks it to be left in a dustbin. The dustbin falls inward, and Aakash runs away with the money even though the police attempt to pursue him.


title: Tezz

text: Khanna and his team find out where Aadil is and go to arrest him. Aadil commits suicide with a bomb, almost killing Khanna. Aakash calls Raina and tells him that a note has been left at a restaurant called Delhi Darbar that tells how to defuse the bomb. However, the restaurant catches on fire, and the letter is burnt. Aakash visits Nikita and his son, and they arrange to flight out of the UK that night. Khanna visits Nikita and tells her who her husband is. After changing the plan (that they should leave the UK via train because the police have found out about his plan of leaving via plane), he goes to the train station. There he sees a video of Raina asking the bomber to call again as the letter was burnt.


title: Tezz

text: Aakash calls Raina and tells him that the bomb was not connected to the wheels and the train will not explode if stopped. Raina stops the train, and everyone disembarks safely. Nikita, who is helping Khanna now, goes to the train station and sees Aakash and the news that the bomb threat was a hoax. She lets Aakash go, but Khanna finds out as Aakash's son calls him Daddy. Khanna chases him, and they fight. Aakash please to Khanna to let him go and explains why he took such drastic actions. Realizing that Aakash was a victim of deportation and wants to just be with his family again at peace, Khanna stays silent (hinting he will let him leave scot free). However, the police arrive; after seeing that Aakash had a gun, they shoot him.


title: Tezz

text: In the end, Nikita receives a letter Aakash had written. It stated that the money (which Aakash asked for defusing the bomb) was in Aakash's bank locker. He also states that she should give half the money to Megha's brother and Adil's mother. He asks her to tell his son that what he did was to get justice. Finally, Aakash tells Nikita that if they ever meet in the next life, the end of their love story would be much better and bids her goodbye.


title: Tezz

text: Filming was done primarily in London and Birmingham. The English dialogues mainly spoken by the actors have been dubbed in Hindi.


title: Tezz

text: The film score was composed by the musical duo Sajid–Wajid, and the lyrics were penned by Shabbir Ahmed and Jalees Sherwani. It was released by Eros Music and Venus Records & Tapes. The music launch was held in Delhi on 30 March.


title: Tezz

text: The theatrical trailer was released on 4 January 2012. The film was released on 27 April 2012 in 1950 screens.


title: Tezz

text: "Tezz" opened to a good opening of 85% in multiplexes, and occupancy rose as the day progressed. Single screens were better as expected, but even there occupancy remained up around 95%. That was a very good opening keeping in mind the recent box office performance of Ajay Devgn.


title: Tezz

text: The movie received mixed reviews. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave 3.5 out 5 and says, "TEZZ is a taut, entertaining action spectacle. Those with an appetite for well-made thrillers should lap it up!" Jaidev Hemmady of "Movie Talkies" gave the film 3.5 out 5 stars and said, "Tricks & Thrills Galore! The overall racy pace of the movie and the nail-biting chase sequences. Apart from the few scenes, where the pace of the movie drops, the film overall lives up to its title 'Tezz'." Subhash K. Jha of IANS gave 3 out of 5 Stars saying "Not quite edge-of-the-seat, the thrills in Tezz are engaging enough to keep us watching".


title: Tezz

text: Kunal Guha of Yahoo Movies gave the movie 1/2 out of 5 and calls this "an epic fail of bomb diffusion by Priyadarshan". Blessy Chettiar of DNA rated Tezz with 1.5 out of possible five stars and wrote in her review "May be Priyadarshan should stick to mindless comedies, so we can be sure we’re in safe territory. You won't be missing much if you skipped Tezz". Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN gives 1.5 out of 5 and says Tezz is "awfully boring for a film that promises speed and thrills". Srijana Mitra Das of ToI gave it three stars out of five.


title: Tezz

text: Daily Bhaskar returned a 2.5 out of 5 and said, "Overall, Tezz deserves a one-time watch as it doesn't disappoint". Mid-Day gave it 2 out of 5 and said it has "a predictable plot and lack of pace makes this an entirely forgettable film."


The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction is a list of the 100 best English-language books of the 20th century compiled by American literary critic Larry McCaffery. The list was created largely in response to the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list (1999), which McCaffery considered out of touch with 20th-century fiction. McCaffery wrote that he saw his list "as a means of sharing with readers my own views about what books are going to be read 100 or 1000 years from now".


title: 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction

text: The list includes many books not included in the Modern Library list, including five of the top ten: Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", Robert Coover's "The Public Burning", Samuel Beckett's "Trilogy" ("Molloy", "Malone Dies" and "The Unnamable"), Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans", and William S. Burrough's "The Nova Trilogy". Topping the list is Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel "Pale Fire", which McCaffery called the "most audaciously conceived novel of the century."


text: Not counting the tetralogies of Rikki Ducornet (#35) and Gene Wolfe (#78), the most cited author is James Joyce, who has written four works on the list: "Ulysses" (#2), "Finnegans Wake" (#10), "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (#21), and "Dubliners" (#63). Robert Coover and William H. Gass each have three works on the list, while Samuel Delany, Don DeLillo, William Faulkner, Raymond Federman, William Gaddis, Vladimir Nabokov, and William Vollmann have two apiece.


text: Altogether, there are 34 titles in common between the Modern Library list and the Greatest Hits list:


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverport of Memphis, Tennessee. It was a center of cotton planter culture in the 19th century.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The population was 15,205 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Greenwood Micropolitan Statistical Area. Greenwood developed at the confluence of the Tallahatchie and the Yalobusha rivers, which form the Yazoo River.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The flood plain of the Mississippi River has long been an area rich in vegetation and wildlife, fed by the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries. Long before Europeans migrated to America, the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations settled in the Delta's bottomlands and throughout what is now central Mississippi. They were descended from indigenous peoples who had lived in the area for thousands of years. The Mississippian culture had built earthwork mounds in this area and throughout the Mississippi Valley, beginning about 950 CE. Their culture thrived for hundreds of years.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: In the nineteenth century, the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southeast suffered increasing encroachment on their territory by European-American settlers from the United States. Under pressure from the United States government, in 1830 the Choctaw principal chief Greenwood LeFlore and other Choctaw leaders signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, ceding most of their remaining land to the United States in exchange for land in Indian Territory, what is now southeastern Oklahoma. The government opened the land for sale and settlement by European Americans. LeFlore came to regret his decision on land cession, saying in 1843 that he was "sorry to say that the benefits realized from [the treaty] by my people were by no means equal to what I had a right to expect, nor to what they were justly entitled."


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The first Euro-American settlement on the banks of the Yazoo River was a trading post founded in 1834 by Colonel Dr. John J. Dilliard and known as Dilliard's Landing. The settlement had competition from Greenwood Leflore's rival landing called Point Leflore, located three miles up the Yazoo River. The rivalry ended when Captain James Dilliard donated parcels in exchange for a commitment from the townsmen to maintain an all-weather turnpike to the hill section to the east, along with a stagecoach road to the more established settlements to the northwest.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The settlement was incorporated as "Greenwood" in 1844, named after Chief Greenwood LeFlore. The success of the city, founded during a strong international demand for cotton, was based on its strategic location in the heart of the Delta: on the easternmost point of the alluvial plain, and astride the Tallahatchie and Yazoo rivers. The city served as a shipping point for cotton to major markets in New Orleans, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The construction of railroads through the area in the 1880s revitalized the city; two rail lines ran to downtown Greenwood close to the Yazoo River, and shortened transportation to markets. Greenwood again emerged as a prime shipping point for cotton. Downtown's Front Street, bordering the Yazoo, was dominated by cotton factors and related businesses, earning that section the name 'Cotton Row'.


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: The city continued to prosper well into the 1940s. Cotton production suffered in Mississippi during the infestation of the boll weevil in the early 20th century; however, for many years the bridge over the Yazoo displayed the sign "World's Largest Inland Long Staple Cotton Market".


title: Greenwood, Mississippi

text: Cotton cultivation and processing became largely mechanized in the first half of the 20th century, displacing thousands of sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Since the late 20th century, some Mississippi farmers have begun to replace cotton with corn and soybeans as commodity crops; with the textile manufacturing industry having shifted overseas, farmers can gain stronger prices for the newer crops, used mostly as animal feed.