title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing. He studied visual arts and theatre as part of his degree at Lancaster University and graduated in 1985. Serkis was a member of The County College and part of the student radio station Bailrigg FM. He joined the Nuffield Studio, getting involved in designing and producing plays.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Having agreed to act in a couple of productions towards the end of his first year, Serkis played the lead role in Barrie Keeffe's play "Gotcha" as a rebellious teenager holding a teacher hostage. As a result, he changed his major subject to acting, constructing his Independent Studies Degree around acting and set design, studying Konstantin Stanislavski and Bertolt Brecht, and including minor modules in art and visual graphics. In his final year at Lancaster he adapted Raymond Briggs's graphic novel "The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman", a satire about the Falklands War, as a one-man show, which he performed to acclaim.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In his third year at university, Serkis joined the backstage team at the local Duke's Playhouse to earn his Equity card. On graduating, although advised to take a one-year post-graduate acting course, he joined Dukes as an actor. Under director Jonathan Petherbridge, who used workshops based on the methods of Augusto Boal, he spent 18 months acting in a broad range of productions from Brecht, Shakespeare and modern British playwrights.


title: Andy Serkis

text: After 16 months, and having gained his Equity card, Serkis joined a series of touring companies, including productions of: "Bouncers" opposite Hull Truck; Florizel in "The Winter's Tale"; and the fool in "King Lear" with director Max Stafford-Clark. In the early 1990s he settled in London, and took a role in April de Angelis' Hush (Royal Court) as "Dogboy". The Royal Court Theatre's production of "Mojo," and Wilson Milam's production of "Hurlyburly" (1997) at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, with Rupert Graves and David Tennant. Serkis also developed a career in television, appearing in small roles such as Greville in an episode of "The Darling Buds of May" (1992). Serkis joined director Mike Leigh's ensemble for two film productions, and appeared in the romantic comedy "Loop" (1997) alongside Susannah York. Serkis portrayed Victorian choreograper John D'Auban in "Topsy-Turvy", a 1999 film about Gilbert and Sullivan's creation of "The Mikado". In 1999, Serkis played Bill Sikes in ITV's adaption of "Oliver Twist". He appeared alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in "The Jolly Boys' Last Stand" in 2000.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis first came to wide public notice for his performance as Sméagol / Gollum, in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy (2001–2003), for which he provided motion capture movements and voice for the CGI character. His work on "The Lord of the Rings" started a debate on the legitimacy of CGI-assisted acting. Some critics felt Serkis should have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, since his voice, body language and facial expressions were used.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis has performed motion capture work in several other films, including the title character in the 2005 version of King Kong (in which he also played the ship's cook in live action) and as Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011), "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" (2014), and "War for the Planet of the Apes" (2017). He also worked with game developers Ninja Theory on the 2007 release "Heavenly Sword", providing the motion capture and voice for King Bohan (the game's main villain).


title: Andy Serkis

text: In 2006, Serkis starred as serial killer Ian Brady in the BAFTA-nominated "Longford", co-starring Samantha Morton as Myra Hindley and Jim Broadbent as Lord Longford. That same year, Serkis appeared in the role of Mr. Grin in the film rendition of Anthony Horowitz's "Alex Rider" novel "Stormbreaker". He also acted in the film "The Prestige" as Mr. Alley (assistant to Nikola Tesla), as the voice of one of the henchrats in the Aardman Animations film "Flushed Away" named Spike, and appeared in Jim Threapleton's improvised feature film "Extraordinary Rendition", which premiered in 2007. In 2007, he appeared in "Sugarhouse", a low-budget independently made film, playing local crime lord Hoodwink, who terrorises an east London housing estate. For the role, Serkis shaved his head and had sessions lasting 20 hours each to have temporary tattoos stencilled onto his body. The film premiered at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival and released in the UK on 24 August. Also that year, Serkis provided the voiceover for "Monkey Life", on Five broadcast for three weeks from 13 to 31 August 2007. This series was about Monkey World, the popular ape and monkey sanctuary and zoo near Wool, Dorset. In the joint BBC/HBO production "Einstein and Eddington", (2008) Serkis played Albert Einstein, following the development of his theory of relativity, while David Tennant played scientist Sir Arthur Eddington. In 2008, Serkis appeared as Rigaud in the BBC Television adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit" and as Capricorn in "Inkheart", the film adaptation of Cornelia Funke's novel. In 2010, Serkis played 1970s new wave singer Ian Dury in "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll".


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis reunited with Peter Jackson, as a cast member in Jackson's and Steven Spielberg's "Tintin" trilogy, based on "The Adventures of Tintin". Serkis supplied the voice and motion capture performance of Captain Haddock (adopting a Scottish accent) as well as his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. Filming began in January 2009 and the film was released in 2011. Filming was due to begin in September 2008, but was delayed due to Universal pulling out of backing the project.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In 2009, Serkis voiced the role of the demon Screwtape in Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre audio adaptation of C. S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters". In 2010, Serkis was cast as William Hare, with Simon Pegg as Burke, in the John Landis black comedy film "Burke and Hare" based on the Burke and Hare murders in Scotland in 1828. He also featured in the TV series "The Accused", in "Liam's Story", written by Danny Brocklehurst and Jimmy McGovern. He played Caesar in the 20th Century Fox science-fiction film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". Serkis was acclaimed for his performance as Caesar in 2011, and in a high-profile campaign by 20th Century Fox for him to be honoured with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, his co-star James Franco stated: "Andy Serkis is the undisputed master of the newest kind of acting called 'performance capture,' and it is time that Serkis gets credit for the innovative artist that he is." In 2010, Serkis played Monkey, the lead character along with Lindsay Shaw in the videogame "".


title: Andy Serkis

text: In January 2011, it was confirmed that Serkis would reprise the role of Gollum in "" the first film in the three-part "The Hobbit" films. It was released in 2012, and the follow-ups were released in 2013 and 2014. He was also the trilogy's second unit director, which included directing aerial shots and battle scenes. He was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals. In 2014, Serkis reprised his role as Caesar in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes", and again in 2017 for "War for the Planet of the Apes", the last of the trilogy.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In Gareth Edwards' 2014 science-fiction monster film "Godzilla", Serkis was the consultant on the film's motion capture sequences in order to "control the souls" of the creatures. Serkis played Ulysses Klaue in Marvel Studios' "" (2015), and was also a motion capture consultant on the film. He reprised the role in Marvel Studios' "Black Panther" (2018), and provided the voice in the sixth episode of Marvel's "What If...?". He played Supreme Leader Snoke in "" (2015) and reprised the role in "" (2017), and "" (2019). Serkis appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Past in the 2019 BBC/FX three-part miniseries "A Christmas Carol". In 2019, it was announced that Serkis would play Alfred Pennyworth in "The Batman" (2022).


title: Andy Serkis

text: In late 2015, it was announced that Serkis was working on a modern film adaptation of Rumpelstiltskin, titled "Steelskin". In addition to starring in the film, Serkis will serve as producer and director.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In 2021, he received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performer in a Daytime Fiction Program for his role as Mayor of Mistrinaut, the father of his real life daughter Ruby's character, in the Netflix fantasy series "The Letter for the King". Also for Netflix, Serkis is scheduled to star alongside Idris Elba and Cynthia Erivo in a new TV movie of Elba's show, "Luther".


title: Andy Serkis

text: In 2022, Serkis returned to the "Star Wars" franchise in a different, non-CGI role in the Disney+ television series "Andor", as Kino Loy.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In 2011, Serkis founded The Imaginarium Studios with film producer Jonathan Cavendish. The Imaginarium is a production company and creative digital studio based in Ealing, London and is dedicated to invention of believable, emotionally engaging digital characters using Performance Capture technology, in which Serkis specialises. On 20 October 2012, the studio acquired rights to "The Bone Season" by Samantha Shannon and a new motion capture adaptation of "Animal Farm", which Serkis has confirmed is his next film he will be directing.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis has served as the second unit director for "The Hobbit" films and made his directorial debut with "Breathe". He also directed and starred in the film, "". In 2021, Serkis directed the sequel to "Venom", titled, "." It was released on 1 October in the US and 15 October in the UK. In 2022, he was set to direct "Animal Farm" an animated adaptation of George Orwell's novel of the same name.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis made an appearance in the music video for Neneh Cherry's "Woman", portraying an abusive boyfriend, in 1996. After portraying Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" series, he published a memoir about his experiences, titled "Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic", published in late 2004. In 2015, Serkis collaborated with rock band Coldplay in the making of the music video for "Adventure of a Lifetime". The group performed as chimpanzees with Serkis acting as a performance capture consultant.


title: Andy Serkis

text: In December 2018, he appeared in a video for People's Vote as UK Prime Minister Theresa May using the voice of Gollum, spoofing May's Brexit deal. He also appears in the BBC Earth programme, "Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors".


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis, together with fellow "Lord of the Rings" castmates Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban and Elijah Wood, plus writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson, on 1 May 2020 joined Josh Gad's YouTube series "Reunited Apart" which reunites the cast of popular movies through video-conferencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and promotes donations to non-profit charities.


title: Andy Serkis

text: During the COVID-19 lockdown, on VE Day, Serkis read the entire book of "The Hobbit" to raise money for NHS Charities Together and Best Beginnings, a pregnancy charity of which he has been an ambassador. More than 650,000 people tuned in worldwide, and Serkis raised more than £283,000 ($351,000). On 2 July 2020, HarperCollinsUK announced that Serkis would professionally narrate "The Hobbit" again to be published for Audible. The audiobook was released on 3 September 2020 in the UK, published by HarperCollins, and 21 September in the US, published by Recorded Books. The cover art, by Alan Lee, was drawn specially for the release.


title: Andy Serkis

text: On 7 July 2021, HarperCollinsUK and Recorded Books announced Serkis would follow up his narration of "The Hobbit" with a professional recording of all three "The Lord of the Rings" novels that were released on 16 September. The CDs were released on 14 October 2021.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis and producer Andrew Levitas will release a seven-part comic book series in 2022, titled "Eternus", about Heracles, the son of Zeus, trying to identify Zeus's killer. The series will be published by Thunder Books.


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis was born to Catholic parents, and though he has been an atheist since his teenage years, he is "drawn to the karmic possibilities of energy transference", specifically "the idea that your energy lives on after you".


title: Andy Serkis

text: Serkis married actress Lorraine Ashbourne in July 2002. He lives in Crouch End, North London with Ashbourne and their three children: Ruby (b. 1998), Sonny (b. 2000) and Louis (b. 2004), all of whom are actors. Louis and Ruby starred in the 2019 film "The Kid Who Would Be King" and the 2020 Netflix series "The Letter for the King" respectively. Serkis also starred alongside Ruby, and they played father and daughter. Louis also voiced Bhoot in "", which was directed by and co-starred his father as Baloo.


title: Sex and the City

text: Sex and the City is an American romantic comedy-drama television series created by Darren Star for HBO. An adaptation of Candace Bushnell's newspaper column and 1996 book anthology of the same name, the series premiered in the United States on June 6, 1998, and concluded on February 22, 2004, with 94 episodes broadcast over six seasons. Throughout its development, the series received contributions from various producers, screenwriters, and directors, principally Michael Patrick King.


title: Sex and the City

text: "Sex and the City" has received both acclaim and criticism for its subjects and characters, and is credited with helping to increase HBO's popularity as a network. The series has won several accolades, including seven of its 54 Emmy Award nominations, eight of its 24 Golden Globe Award nominations, and three of its 11 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.


title: Sex and the City

text: The series placed fifth on "Entertainment Weekly" "New TV Classics" list, and has been listed as one of the best television series of all time by "Time" in 2007 and "TV Guide" in 2013. The series still airs in syndication worldwide. It spawned two feature films, "Sex and the City" (2008) and "Sex and the City 2" (2010), and a prequel television series commissioned by The CW, "The Carrie Diaries" (2013–14).


title: Sex and the City

text: A sequel series titled "And Just Like That..." premiered on HBO Max on December 9, 2021. The series features Parker, Davis and Nixon reprising their roles, with Cattrall choosing not to return partly due to her long standing and ongoing feud with Parker.


title: Sex and the City

text: Set in New York City, the series follows the lives of four women—three in their mid-thirties and one in her forties—who, despite their different natures and ever-changing sex lives, remain inseparable and confide in each other. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker (as Carrie Bradshaw) and co-starring Kim Cattrall (as Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (as Charlotte York), and Cynthia Nixon (as Miranda Hobbes), the series had multiple continuing storylines that tackled relevant and modern social issues such as sexuality, safe sex, promiscuity, and femininity, while exploring the difference between friendships and romantic relationships. The show's protagonist Carrie Bradshaw narrates the series, which follows the better portion of the four women's early lives. It was the writers' way of analyzing social life—from sex to relationships—through each of their four very diverse, individual views.


title: Sex and the City

text: The show is based on writer Candace Bushnell's column "Sex and the City" published in "The New York Observer," which was later compiled into a book of the same name. Bushnell has said in several interviews that the Carrie Bradshaw in her columns is her alter ego; when she started the column she wrote from her first-person perspective, but later invented Carrie, who was introduced as Bushnell's friend, so her parents would not be aware that they were reading about her sex life. Bushnell and the television version of Carrie (who had no last name in the column) have the same initials, a flourish emphasizing their connection. Moreover, like Bushnell, Carrie writes columns for the fictional "New York Star" which are also compiled into a book later in the series, and later becomes a writer for "Vogue".


title: Sex and the City

text: Bushnell worked with television producer Darren Star, whom she had met while profiling him for "Vogue", to adapt the columns for television. HBO and ABC were interested in the series, but Star decided to offer it to HBO for more creative freedom. Star wrote the pilot with Parker in mind as Carrie. According to Parker, "I was flattered but didn't want to do it. He convinced me, begged me to do it, and I signed a contract." The pilot episode was subsequently shot in June 1997, a year before the series premiered. However, Parker disliked the pilot, saying "I hated the look, the clothes ... I didn't think it worked" and feared it would end her career. She wanted to get out of the contract, offering to work in three HBO movies unpaid. Though Star would not release her, he listened to her concerns and implemented major changes before shooting the first season. Parker said: "The funny thing, after the first episode of season one, I never looked back and the rest is history. I never thought, though, that the show would become what it has become."


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the narrator and main protagonist, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, with each episode structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column "Sex and the City" for the fictitious paper, the "New York Star." A member of the New York glitterati, she is a club/bar/restaurant staple known for her unique fashion sense and lives in a studio apartment in an Upper East Side brownstone. Stanford Blatch, a gay talent agent from an aristocratic family (played by Willie Garson), is Carrie's best friend outside of the other three women.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie is entangled with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), a prominent businessman, an aficionado of jazz and cigars, and a smooth talker who is quite friendly with the ladies. Carrie and Big engage in a tumultuous, on-and-off-again relationship, and he is the reason for many of Carrie's breakdowns as he never seems ready to fully commit to her. He is once-divorced by the time the series opens. (In a running joke, whenever Carrie is about to introduce Mr. Big on-camera to another character, she is interrupted before she can say his name, which is John James Preston, revealed in the final episode (Season 6, Episode 20)).


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie and Big break up a second time in Season 2 when he leaves New York for a work trip to Paris for the summer and does not show willingness for Carrie to accompany him nor to continue a long-distance relationship, citing commitment issues. Carrie is heartbroken and some months later runs into Big at a party in the Hamptons. He is accompanied by his 20-something year-old girlfriend, Natasha, whom he met in Paris. Despite this, Carrie attempts to be friends with Big. However, this goes awry when he tells her that he and Natasha are getting married, something he'd never considered with Carrie.


title: Sex and the City

text: In season 3, Carrie meets and is instantly attracted to up-and-coming Manhattan furniture designer Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) who becomes her boyfriend. Aidan is more traditional and patient about relationships than many of Carrie's other love interests, and for a while they are happy together. At a furniture show, the pair run into Natasha and Big, who confides to Carrie that he made a mistake marrying Natasha and wants out. Soon afterward, Big and Carrie begin an affair, which ends only when Natasha catches Carrie at Big's apartment and falls down the stairs while chasing after Carrie. Carrie ends up taking her to the hospital and breaks up with Big.


title: Sex and the City

text: Wracked with guilt, Carrie tells Aidan of the affair on the day of Charlotte's wedding to Trey, and Aidan breaks up with her. Aidan and Carrie reunite in Season 4, when Aidan opens a bar with Miranda's ex, Steve. Carrie realizes she is still in love with Aidan and wins him back. He struggles to trust her, particularly as Mr. Big has gotten divorced from Natasha, and he and Carrie maintain a platonic friendship. Carrie stands firm on her friendship with Big, even inviting him up to Aidan's cabin after a girl had broken up with him. Though it's clear that Aidan is the country mouse and Carrie is the city mouse, they keep trying to meld their lives.


title: Sex and the City

text: When Carrie's building goes co-op, Aidan offers to buy her apartment (and the one next door) so they can move in together. She agrees and later finds an engagement ring in his gym bag. Aidan later proposes, and Carrie accepts, though she's not sure it's the right thing.


title: Sex and the City

text: Aidan is initially patient with Carrie's reluctance to set a wedding date but soon begins to push her, suggesting they get married in Hawaii. Carrie has a panic attack whilst trying on wedding dresses with Miranda, and again when Aidan is knocking down the wall between her apartment and the one next door. She confesses to Aidan that she's not ready and needs more time. He agrees to slow things down but, at a Black and White ball not long afterward, he pressures her to commit, making it clear that he still doesn't trust that she's over Big. Carrie cannot commit, and they break up soon afterward.


title: Sex and the City

text: After their affair, over seasons four, five and six, Carrie and Big become real friends, and she thinks she's put her feelings for him in the past. But when Big comes to town in the final season to get "a little heart thing" done, she realizes she still has feelings for him. When Big has a medical hiccup, Carrie takes care of him, and suddenly Big's heart opens to her. It's short-lived however and Carrie decides she's finished with his inability to commit and finished with him.


title: Sex and the City

text: The famous artist Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) becomes Carrie's lover in the final season. Despite their age difference, he sweeps her off her feet with huge romantic gestures and shows her foreign pockets of New York she has never seen before.


title: Sex and the City

text: Aleksandr invites Carrie to move to Paris with him for his work, which is doubly meaningful for Carrie, since it's a reminder of something Big wouldn't do. The rest of the women are not keen on Aleksandr, particularly Miranda, who feels that he is controlling and that Carrie is different around him.


title: Sex and the City

text: On the night before Carrie leaves, Mr. Big turns up at her home, apologizing for how he acted after his heart surgery, and clearly wanting to get closer. The two argue in the street with Carrie accusing him of turning up whenever she's happy to ruin things for her. She tells him she's moving to Paris and to leave her alone.


title: Sex and the City

text: When Carrie arrives in Paris, she finds Aleksandr frequently absent with work on his art show. She is left to wander the streets of Paris alone day after day and begins to regret her decision. She calls Miranda and tells her that she's lonely because Alek is neglecting her, and that she's been thinking about Big.


title: Sex and the City

text: Meanwhile, back in New York, Charlotte hears a message Mr. Big leaves Carrie on her answering machine admitting that he loves her. Charlotte invites Big to the coffee shop where he enlists the help of Carrie's friends, asking if they think he has a chance. Miranda, armed with the information from Carrie's call, simply says, "Go get our girl", and Big goes to Paris to win her back.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie, having once again been abandoned by Aleksandr (having given up the opportunity to go to a party with some new friends to accompany him to a preview of his show), has it out with him in their hotel room. Aleksandr accidentally smacks Carrie in the face and breaks her diamond necklace.


title: Sex and the City

text: As Carrie is in the lobby, trying to obtain a room for the night, Big walks in. They see each other, he tells her she's "the one" (something she's been waiting for their entire relationship), and he takes her home to New York.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) has had a conventional, privileged Episcopalian Connecticut upbringing and works in an art gallery. Charlotte is a classic over-achiever and perfectionist: a "straight A" student who attended Smith College, was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma (note that there are no sororities at the real Smith College) majoring in art history with a minor in finance. During the series, it is also revealed that Charlotte was voted homecoming queen, prom queen, "most popular", student body president, and track team captain, in addition to being an active cheerleader and teen model.


title: Sex and the City

text: She is the antithesis of Samantha: optimistic, hopelessly romantic, and a believer in true love and soul mates. She places the most emphasis on emotional love as opposed to lust. From the beginning, Charlotte is searching for her "knight in shining armor", and nothing shakes her belief of finding "the one", getting married, and starting a family. All her dating activity during the show is in pursuit of a long-term, monogamous boyfriend with a view to marriage. As such, she typically dates men of "pedigree" and money (bankers, doctors, lawyers, etc.).


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte can be a dark horse, and we learn that she once had a dalliance with an Orthodox Jewish artist, she dressed in drag for a portrait, and she allowed an artist to paint a picture of her vulva. She can be an "East Side Princess" sometimes, and she and Samantha occasionally come to blows over their differing opinions about love and sex.


title: Sex and the City

text: In season 3, Charlotte decides she will be married that year and sets about canvassing her married friends to set her up on dates. One married friend usurps her blind date to try and start an affair with her. Horrified, she dashes into the street and trips in front of a taxi, carrying Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan), an attractive, old-money, Scottish-American cardiologist with pedigree, a Park Avenue apartment and country estate in Connecticut. They fall in love at first sight, and he appears to be everything she has always wanted. Things move quickly and Charlotte, convinced he is the one, suggests they marry. He agrees, and they are married very shortly afterward (with the help of wedding planner Anthony Marentino; a gay Sicilian who is as forceful as Charlotte is timid).


title: Sex and the City

text: Wishing to "do things the right way," Charlotte has withheld having sex with Trey, hoping for a romantic and traditional wedding night. On the evening before the big day, she gets drunk with the other women and goes to Trey for sex. Unfortunately, it does not go well; Trey reveals he suffers from impotence (though he won't say the word).


title: Sex and the City

text: While concerned, Charlotte presses ahead with the wedding. Although, minutes before waling down the aisle, she confides in Carrie about what happened the night before and nearly does not go through with the marriage. As the marriage begins things do not get any better in their intimate relationship, and Trey refuses to address matters either physically or psychologically, resisting their marriage counselor's advice. Matters are not helped by Trey's overbearing mother Bunny (Frances Sternhagen), a manipulative sort who intrudes on Trey and Charlotte's relationship and apartment on a regular basis. Not long into the marriage, on a weekend trip to the MacDougal country estate, Charlotte, frustrated by Trey's lack of sexual attention, kisses the hunky gardener, and is caught by a relative. Though Trey suggests they can stay together and have separate lives, Charlotte won't accept this. She and Trey separate, and she moves back into her old apartment.


title: Sex and the City

text: While separated, Trey suddenly gets his mojo back and they mend their sexual relationship. But it takes Charlotte getting fed up with being a slave to "the penis" that convinces Trey to grow up and invite Charlotte to move back in, which she does. All seems to be well, and soon Trey tells Charlotte he's ready to try for a baby. Having no luck with natural method of conception, Charlotte seeks fertility treatment and is told she has a very low chance of becoming pregnant. Seeking other options, she begins hormone injections and looks into adopting a Chinese baby girl, which Bunny does not approve of.


title: Sex and the City

text: A combination of these factors once again ignites old tensions with Trey and Bunny, culminating in Trey's deciding he no longer wants a family. Charlotte tries to adjust to this change, but is clearly upset, since having a husband and family were her dream. Trey finally tells Charlotte that she shouldn't have to give up her dream for him. Trey lets Charlotte keep their apartment after he moves out. However, Bunny is not content to let Charlotte keep the apartment and the apartment becomes a contentious aspect of the divorce proceedings.


title: Sex and the City

text: When Charlotte's marriage ends, she meets Harry Goldenblatt (Evan Handler), her Jewish divorce lawyer, at the beginning of season 5. She is not attracted to him initially but, spurred on by Anthony, she starts a purely physical relationship with Harry. Harry is the opposite of Trey: short, bald, hairy, uncouth but funny, passionate, and attentive. Their sexual relationship is fulfilling, and eventually they begin dating properly. However, Harry says he cannot be serious with Charlotte because she isn't a Jew.


title: Sex and the City

text: Believing Harry to be her future, Charlotte converts to Judaism and this sees her struggle with losing her Christian faith and ideologies including Christmas and Easter. After her conversion, Charlotte celebrates her first Shabbat with Harry but loses her temper when he appears to not appreciate all her efforts. The argument quickly devolves into Charlotte's badgering Harry to propose and, feeling pressured, he storms out, and they break up, but not before revealing that Charlotte's dream was in reach after all, that he'd bought a ring.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte is heartbroken but tries to move on with her life. Some time later, at a singles event at the synagogue, she bumps into Harry. She tells him she loves him and doesn't care if he never marries her as long as they can be together. Having missed her, too, Harry proposes, and they marry in a traditional Jewish ceremony.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte, against all the odds, becomes pregnant after acupuncture therapy but loses the baby very early on. Charlotte is crushed, but they later go on to adopt a baby girl, Lily, from China, and it is revealed during "" that Charlotte later naturally conceives and gives birth to the couple's second daughter, Rose.


title: Sex and the City

text: The oldest and most sexually confident of the foursome, Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) is an independent businesswoman with a career in public relations (PR). She is confident, strong, and extremely outspoken, and calls herself a "try-sexual" (meaning she'll try anything once). Early on in the show, Samantha declares she has given up on relationships and has decided to just have sex "like a man", that is: without emotions or feelings, and purely for physical gratification.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha has numerous, extremely brief sexual relationships throughout the show, including a lesbian relationship with an artist named Maria (Sônia Braga). This is her first stab at monogamy, but she soon gets bored and goes back to her old ways. Later, she wins the PR business for hotel magnate Richard Wright (James Remar), who is her male equivalent: good-looking, sexually carefree, and not interested in long-term relationships. She and Richard soon end up together and Samantha feels herself falling for him and is no longer attracted to other men.


title: Sex and the City

text: Frightened by this, she attempts to hide her feelings but Richard is also falling for her. He pursues her with expensive gifts and romantic gestures, and despite her reluctance, they begin a monogamous relationship. Not long afterward, Samantha becomes suspicious of Richard and catches him cheating on her, which breaks her heart. They reunite not long afterward when Richard apologizes and showers her with expensive gifts. Samantha initially resists and trashes his reputation all over town but soon she gives in and takes him back. Soon after, Samantha develops jealousy and is unable to trust Richard around other women. She decides to end the relationship before he breaks her heart again.


title: Sex and the City

text: In the final season, Samantha seduces young waiter Jerry/Smith Jerrod (Jason Lewis), a much younger struggling actor. Samantha and Smith have intense sexual chemistry, but she treats him as just another casual fling, although she gives him PR help to bolster his acting career. He mentions being a recovering alcoholic who attends AA. Samantha isn't looking for anything serious but she is bothered that Smith seems too immature for her. Just when she starts being jealous of Carrie's relationship with the worldly Aleksandr, she runs into Richard Wright at a party she attends with Smith. She and Richard have a brief sexual encounter, but it's clear she's upset it wasn't what she thought she wanted. Samantha cries in the elevator, both for the meaningless sex with Richard and for hurting Smith, but she's surprised to find Smith waiting for her in the lobby.


title: Sex and the City

text: Smith manages to win Samantha's heart thanks to the strength of their physical connection, and the fact that he just won't put up with her attitude. When Samantha is diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes chemotherapy treatments, she tries to push him away, but Smith won't be budged. He's there for her, no matter what. When she loses her hair, Smith shaves his head to support her. When she loses her sex drive due to chemo, she is willing to give him his sexual freedom when he's shooting a movie on location. Smith is patient, however, and refuses. When Smith flies back to surprise Samantha in the middle of the night and tell her he loves her, she doesn't respond in kind, she tells him he's meant more to her than any man she's ever known.


title: Sex and the City

text: They remain together and, in the first movie, it is revealed that Samantha has moved to Los Angeles with Smith to further his career and become his manager/agent. However, she breaks up with him in the end because as much as she loves him, she feels she's made their relationship and his career first priority ahead of herself. And she loves herself too much to do that. Plus, she misses having a smorgasbord of men, and she misses her life in New York. She and Smith stay friends.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a career-minded lawyer with cynical views on relationships and men, something she struggles with throughout the show. A 1990 Harvard Law School graduate from the Philadelphia area, she is Carrie's confidante and voice of reason.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie sets up Miranda on a blind date with her geeky friend Skipper, but he is too sweet and passive for Miranda.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda's main relationship is with bartender Steve Brady (David Eigenberg), whom she meets by chance one night. They have a one-night stand, but Steve pursues Miranda, eventually becoming her boyfriend.


title: Sex and the City

text: Steve and Miranda have a great relationship, but Steve feels uncomfortable with Miranda's success and money given that he makes a low wage. Things come to a head when Miranda attempts to buy Steve a suit to wear to an event at her law firm. He refuses, maxes out his credit cards to buy it, but then returns it and breaks up with her, saying that she deserves someone who is more on her level. Miranda is crushed and wonders if she is being punished for being a financially successful career woman.


title: Sex and the City

text: Later, in season 2, Miranda runs from Steve when she sees him on the street, but he goes to her house to confront her. They start hanging out as friends but eventually end up getting back together, and Steve moves into Miranda's apartment. Steve is keen to move things forward in their relationship by having a baby, but Miranda cites her career as a barrier to this as she is on partner track at her law firm. Instead, they agree to get a puppy, which proves to be a disaster as she feels she is doing all the work, and Steve behaves like an overgrown child. They break up.


title: Sex and the City

text: Steve takes Miranda's criticisms to heart and later opens his own bar with Carrie's ex Aidan Shaw. Miranda runs into Steve, who tells her about the bar and thanks her for spurring him on. They begin a friendship of sorts.


title: Sex and the City

text: In season 4, we discover that Steve has testicular cancer, and Miranda sets out to "help" Steve, realizing he doesn't have healthcare. She helps him through his operation and subsequent treatment, and they become close.


title: Sex and the City

text: Steve confides that he is depressed about losing a testicle. Feeling sorry for him, Miranda has sex with him. Soon afterward, Miranda discovers she is pregnant (something she thought was impossible, as she had been diagnosed with a "lazy ovary").


title: Sex and the City

text: At the same time, Charlotte is struggling to get pregnant with Trey's baby and is furious when she discovers that Miranda is not only pregnant but is planning to have an abortion. At the clinic with Carrie, Miranda decides she cannot go through with the procedure and decides to keep the baby. She later gives birth to a son whom she names Brady (Steve's last name).


title: Sex and the City

text: She and Steve share custody, and raise him with the help of Miranda's hired housekeeper/nanny Magda, an older Ukrainian/Eastern European woman who remains a constant in Miranda's life. The show charts Miranda's struggle as a single, working professional mother and her feelings at losing her old single life.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda later realizes she is still in love with Steve. Unfortunately, before she can confess this to Steve, he announces he has a new girlfriend, Debbie—a much younger girl from his native Queens area of New York. Not wishing to rock the boat, Miranda decides not to tell Steve, and things remain platonic between them.


title: Sex and the City

text: Soon afterward, a new man moves into Miranda's building: Robert Leeds, an attractive African-American doctor who works for the New York Knicks basketball team. He is divorced, handsome, and makes it clear that he is interested in Miranda. They start a relationship that becomes serious when Robert tells Miranda he loves her (albeit by giving her a giant cookie with the words, "I Love You", written on it in chocolate chips).


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda feels unable to say it back to him, though, and in a moment of epiphany at Brady's first birthday party, she blurts out to Steve that she loves him and is sorry for losing him. Steve reassures her that he loves her too, and soon afterward they break up with their respective partners and get back together.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda and Steve decide to marry in a low-key ceremony in a community garden. Living together in Miranda's one-bedroom apartment (in the same building as her now-hostile ex, Robert) proves to be cramped, and they decide to buy a bigger place and eventually move to a house in Brooklyn (much to Miranda's initial dismay).


title: Sex and the City

text: In the final episodes of season 6, Miranda and Steve care for Steve's mother Mary, who is suffering from dementia/Alzheimer's. Miranda tells Steve that his mother can come stay with them in the Brooklyn house and even bathes her when Mary has a bad episode. Magda comments to Miranda that the things she does for Mary are what's called love.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie Bradshaw lives in Manhattan and writes a column called "Sex and the City". At a birthday party for Miranda, Carrie and her friends talk about having sex "like men", meaning without emotional attachment. She puts the theory to test and sleeps with a man who had previously broken her heart many times. Only this time she treats him like he had treated her and discovers that he seemed quite eager to see her again the next time they meet. Carrie discusses her relationships candidly with her best friend Standford Blatch who is gay and perpetually looking for love.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie has many chance encounters with a handsome businessman whom Samantha refers to as "Mr. Big". They begin to date, but Carrie is dismayed to find out he is still seeing other people. Although he eventually agrees to exclusivity, he doesn't introduce Carrie to his mother and won't refer to her as "the one", so rather than going on a planned vacation with him, Carrie breaks it off.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie sets up Miranda with her friend Skipper. Miranda and he date on and off; he is more laid back while Miranda is more forceful. After they break up, Miranda sees him with another woman and feels compelled to resume their relationship, but they again break up when he wants exclusivity and she does not.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte dates a marriage-minded man but they clash over china patterns. She declines to have anal sex with another boyfriend and also consents to pose nude for a famous painter.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha sleeps with an artist who likes to videotape his encounters, with Charlotte's doorman, with a married couple, and with others. When she meets James, who seems utterly perfect for her, she's heartbroken to discover that he has an extremely small penis.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie dates a baseball player while on the rebound but breaks it off when she realizes she's not over Big. She then dates a sell-out filmmaker, a shoplifter, and a nice guy she scares away by snooping, and then takes up with Big again. She at first keeps this from her friends. Her and Big's relationship is rocky, and when he announces that he might have to move to Paris for a year but doesn't overtly invite Carrie to come with him, they break up a second time. Carrie then tries without success to convert a friend-with-benefits to something more, dates a writer with a great family but who is always "early" in bed, and then a recovering alcoholic who uses Carrie to replace his old addiction. She then runs into Big, returned from Paris, and his new 20-something fiancée, Natasha (played by Bridget Moynahan).


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda dates a dirty talker, fakes it with an ophthalmologist, and tries to adjust to a guy who likes to watch porn during sex. By the time she meets Steve, the bartender, she's unwilling to believe he is as nice as he seems. They start dating but the differences in their schedules and their finances lead to a breakup. She winds up back in bed with Steve, but not before dating a guy who wants to get caught, a Peeping Tom in the next building, and a divorced dad.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte encounters a legendary purveyor of cunnilingus, a handy actor next door, a widower on the make, a man who undergoes adult circumcision, a famous actor, a too-effeminate pastry chef, a shoe salesman with a foot fetish, and a 20-something guy who gives her crabs.


title: Sex and the City

text: Despite a brief attempt at couples therapy, Samantha breaks up with James. She then sleeps with a litigator, a salsa dancer, her personal trainer, a sports fan who can only rally when his team does well, and Charlotte's brother. She then meets a man whose penis is too big even for her.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie starts off dating a politician, followed by a bisexual man. Big marries Natasha, and Carrie meets Aidan, a furniture maker. They have a virtually flaw-free relationship until Carrie and Big begin an affair. When Natasha catches Carrie in Natasha and Big's apartment, Carrie and Big's affair ends as do eventually both Big's marriage and Carrie's relationship with Aidan.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda and Steve move in together. He tells Miranda he'd like them to have a baby, but a puppy purchase instead alerts Miranda to the fact that they're very different when it comes to maturity. Steve moves out and Miranda makes partner at her law firm. She also goes on to date a phone sex guy, a fake ER doctor, a guy who doesn't swallow his food, and a police detective.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte, looking for a husband, dates an investment banker with an anger management problem, a photographer who gets her into menswear, a bad kisser, and a climax name caller. She then meets Trey MacDougal; despite an awkward "proposal", the discovery of his low libido and inability to perform sexually the night before their marriage, and conflict with his domineering mother, the two marry. They begin their marriage with a sexless honeymoon, and as sex remains an ongoing problem in their relationship, the two eventually separate.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha sleeps with a firefighter, a short man, her assistant, a black guy with a disapproving sister, a recreational Viagra user, a guy who tastes bad, Trey's Scottish cousin, a dildo model, and a college-aged virgin. She also has a menopause scare, gets tested for HIV, and buys a new apartment in the Meatpacking District, where she has to make peace with the transgender women on her street.


title: Sex and the City

text: After Carrie's break-ups with Big and Aidan, she dates a guy who still lives at home, teaches a class at the Learning Annex on how to meet men, gets mugged, and tries to apologize to Natasha. She and Big also make an attempt at being friends.


title: Sex and the City

text: After a chance meeting with Aidan at the opening of a bar he co-owns, Carrie convinces him to restart their relationship. He moves into her apartment after purchasing it when her building goes co-op and then proposes. Despite her misgivings, Carrie accepts the proposal and then eventually realizes she's not ready for marriage. Despite discussing her concerns and initially agreeing to give her more time, Aidan soon pressures Carrie for marriage. She realizes this is because he does not trust her, given her past affair with Big. They break up and he moves out, and Carrie purchases her apartment after Charlotte lends her the down payment in the form of the engagement ring she received from Trey. At the end of Season Four, Carrie discovers that Big has sold his apartment and is moving to Napa, California.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte and Trey are living apart but continuing to have marital relations; they eventually reconcile and Charlotte moves back into their shared apartment. They decide to try for a baby but realize Charlotte is reproductively challenged; after fertility treatments and discussing adoption, their marriage breaks apart under the strain and they decide to divorce.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda supports Steve through testicular cancer and surgery. Later, when he feels emasculated by the surgery, they have sex and Miranda gets pregnant. She initially considers an abortion, which is particularly distressing to Charlotte, as she deals with her struggles to get pregnant, but Miranda decides to keep the baby.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha flirts with a priest, has nude photos taken of herself, tries to have a relationship with a lesbian, and sleeps with a baby talker, a wrestling coach, and a farmer. She then lands a big PR account with resolutely single hotel magnate Richard Wright. They begin a relationship that starts out as purely sexual but becomes something more to both of them, and they attempt monogamy. However, she eventually catches him cheating, and they break up.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie spends time by herself in Season Five; she fears this means she will be fired from writing her sex column, but instead a publisher wants to turn the columns into a book. A book tour lands her in San Francisco, where she reunites briefly with Big. In New York, she meets Jack Berger, a fellow author with whom she feels sparks, but who is attached.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha tries again with Richard but finds herself constantly paranoid. On a trip to Atlantic City with Richard and the girls, she cannot overcome her lack of trust in him and breaks it off for good.


title: Sex and the City

text: Miranda is now mother to son Brady and finds it difficult to work, date, and carry on her previous lifestyle. Steve is supportive, and she falls into bed with him one afternoon, making her question her feelings for him.


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte has a run-in with her former mother-in-law over the legalities of the apartment she shared with Trey, and she hires Harry Goldenblatt as her divorce attorney. Despite his physical shortcomings she finds herself attracted to him, and they begin a sexual relationship. She soon finds that she is developing real feelings for him. Harry, however, reveals that he must marry within his Jewish faith, causing Charlotte to actually consider conversion.


title: Sex and the City

text: Carrie begins dating Jack Berger, who is termed her best 'mental match' of all her relationships. However, his struggles as an author and her success with her upcoming book cause too much conflict between them, and they break up. Big returns to New York for angioplasty, and Carrie realizes she still has feelings for him; she also realizes he still cannot fully commit. After he returns to Napa, she meets Aleksandr, a famous Russian artist. Aleksandr seems to be attentive to her in a way that Big never was, and he asks her to come to Paris with him. She does, briefly, but realizes how inattentive he is when working, and she breaks it off with him just as Big arrives in Paris, looking for her, ready to finally commit to her being "the one".


title: Sex and the City

text: Charlotte decides that life with Harry, who accepts her fertility issues, would be worth converting to Judaism. After this process, she presses Harry to "set the date" in an insulting way and he breaks it off with her. However, they run into each other at a mixer and, after her tearful apology, rekindle their relationship and eventually marry. After fertility treatments fail, they decide to adopt, and eventually learn they have been approved to adopt a child from China.


title: Sex and the City

text: Once Miranda realizes she's still in love with Steve, he begins a serious relationship with someone else (Debbie), and so she does the same with Robert (played by Blair Underwood). However, at their son Brady's first birthday party, they reveal their feelings for each other and renew their relationship. Miranda proposes to Steve and they marry in a community park. Needing more room for their growing family, she consents to moving to Brooklyn, where they buy a brownstone. After Steve's mother Mary (played by Anne Meara) is revealed to have suffered a stroke and subsequent memory loss, she moves in with the couple.


title: Sex and the City

text: Samantha begins a relationship with a much younger waiter, Jerry Jerrod, who turns out to be a struggling actor. She uses her PR skills to help his career, even changing his name to Smith Jerrod. Despite trying to keep their relationship as casual as her others, she develops true feelings for him. Smith supports her after she is diagnosed with breast cancer, shaving his own head in sympathy after catching her shaving her head when chemotherapy makes her hair fall out. He also insists on waiting for her when her treatment diminishes her sex drive. When he flies home from his movie shoot just to tell her that he loves her, she replies, "You have meant more to me than any man I've ever known."


title: Sex and the City

text: The season and the series concludes with the four girlfriends reunited in New York City, and with Carrie receiving a phone call from Big (which finally reveals his first name, John), telling her that his Napa house is up for sale and he is headed back to New York. Carrie's final voiceover states: "The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you "you" love, well, that's just fabulous."


title: Sex and the City

text: Celebrity Net Worth reported that Sarah Jessica Parker earned around $50 million for the first three seasons of the HBO show, and she became a producer—started making $3.2 million per episode for seasons 4-6, which angered her costar Kim Cattrall. “I felt after six years, it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of Sex and the City. When they didn’t seem keen on that, I thought it was time to move on”, Cattrall said in 2004.


title: Sex and the City

text: "Sex and the City" premiered on HBO on June 6, 1998, and was one of the highest-rated dramas of the season.


title: Sex and the City

text: Over the course of its six seasons, "Sex and the City" was nominated for over 50 Emmy Awards, and won seven: two for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (Jennifer McNamara), one for Costumes, one for Outstanding Comedy Series, one for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, one for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Sarah Jessica Parker), and one for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Cynthia Nixon).


title: Sex and the City

text: The show has also been nominated for 24 Golden Globe Awards, and won eight. In 2007, it was listed as one of "TIME" magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All-"TIME"". "Entertainment Weekly" put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "The clothes from SATC raise your cosmos! A toast to the wonderful wardrobe from "Sex and the City", which taught us that no flower is too big, no skirt too short, and no shoe too expensive."


title: Sex and the City

text: For its 65th anniversary, "TV Guide" picked "My Motherboard, My Self" as the eighth best episode of the 21st century.


title: Sex and the City

text: "The New York Times" in 2013 credited "Sex and the City" and its costume designer Patricia Field with "starting crazes for nameplate necklaces, Manolo Blahnik shoes, flower corsages and visible bra straps". Field described the show's influence as "like sitting at the bottom of an atom bomb". A 2018 feature in "The Guardian" on the show's lasting influence quoted fashion editor Chelsea Fairless: "I would venture to say that the mix of high fashion and fast fashion that Patricia Field brought to the show influenced most people who work in fashion in one way or another." It also pointed to fan accounts on Instagram like "Every outfit on Sex and the City" and "Carrie Dragshaw" as a testament to the continued popular appeal of the show's fashion.


title: Sex and the City

text: Criticism has been expressed about the influence the show has on adolescents and how the images displayed on the show affect the way women and young girls view themselves.


title: Sex and the City

text: Tanya Gold of "The Daily Telegraph" stated, ""Sex and the City" is to feminism what sugar is to dental care. The first clue is in the opening credits of the television show. Carrie is standing in a New York street in a ballet skirt, the sort that toddlers wear. She is dressed, unmistakably, as a child. And, because she is sex columnist on a newspaper, a bus wearing a huge photo of her in a tiny dress trundles past. 'Carrie Bradshaw knows good sex,' says the bus. And there, before any dialogue hits your ears, you have the two woeful female archetypes that "Sex and the City" loves—woman as sex object and woman as child ... In another [episode], Carrie realizes she is homeless because she has spent $40,000 on shoes and does not have a deposit for an apartment. (In this crisis, she cries and borrows the money for the deposit—what child would do anything else?)."


title: Sex and the City

text: In addition to obsessing about finding and keeping a man, the lead character also routinely hides her true thoughts and feelings from said man. The show uses voiceovers to reveal Carrie's inner thought life, which is often in conflict with how she is expressing herself externally. As pop culture expert Ashli L. Dykes points out, "... [the] fear that men will no longer find a woman attractive if she reveals her true self is in contrast to the relationships among the four main female characters..."


title: Sex and the City

text: Academic critics, however, disagree on whether "Sex and the City" was truly anti-feminist, feminist, or post-feminist. Some argue whatever label is applied to the show, it offered an important contribution "to ongoing dialogue" and that because it "shows women in a world where they can be feminine, attractive, and feminist at the same time ... the series gives a forum to a renewed postfeminist debate."


title: Sex and the City

text: Andrea Press criticised the show for how it handled topics such as unexpected pregnancy, stating that it contrasts with feminist progressive thought. In one episode, Miranda is faced with an unexpected pregnancy, which causes Carrie to reflect on her own experience of pregnancy and abortion. Press argued that Carrie's shame when sharing this story with her boyfriend serves to "undermine" the hard-fought freedoms that allowed her choice with "multiple critical perspectives toward the act" Press also wrote that, while the show is lauded as a champion of progressive feminism, its characters adhere to a strongly traditional view of female gender roles with a focus on appearance, glamour, and consumerism. The outfits the characters wear are as important as the storyline itself (and sometimes are the storyline itself). A central message of the show is that consumption is key, and we are fed constant marketing messages throughout the series.


title: Sex and the City

text: In retrospective analysis of the show, critics have generally reassessed Carrie Bradshaw as an unsympathetic protagonist, despite the show's portrayal of her as a positive figure. In 2013, "Glamour" magazine called Carrie "the worst" character on the show, saying that "her brattiness and self-absorption eclipsed her redeeming qualities and even her awesome shoes." In a 2010 retrospective about the previous two decades in pop culture, ABC News named Carrie one of the ten worst characters of the past twenty years, calling her a "snippy, self-righteous Manhattan snob" and citing the character's actions in "Sex and the City 2" as evidence that she was beyond personal growth or redemption. Emily Nussbaum of "The New Yorker", looking back on the show a decade after it went off the air, argued Bradshaw was "the unacknowledged first female anti-hero on television," who began as a "happy, curious explorer, out companionably smoking with modellizers," but from the second season on she "spun out, becoming anxious, obsessive, and, despite her charm, wildly self-centered." Nussbaum also asserted that it is only over time that the show's reputation has "shrunk and faded," largely due to disappointment that the show "gave in" to the limits of romantic comedy toward the end of the series. Until then, Nussbaum writes, "Sex and the City" "was sharp, iconoclastic television." In answer to the question of why the show is now "so often portrayed as a set of empty, static cartoons, an embarrassment to womankind," Nussbaum wrote: "It's a classic misunderstanding, I think, stemming from an unexamined hierarchy: the assumption that anything stylized (or formulaic, or pleasurable, or funny, or feminine, or explicit about sex rather than about violence, or made collaboratively) must be inferior." Nussbaum also pushed against criticism of "Sex and the City" as anti-feminist, arguing for a more complex view of the characters as situated within different waves of feminism: "Miranda and Carrie were second-wave feminists, who believed in egalitarianism; Charlotte and Samantha were third-wave feminists, focused on exploiting the power of femininity, from opposing angles."


title: Sex and the City

text: A 2018 article in "The Guardian" entitled "'That show was as white as it gets!': Sex and the City's problematic legacy", pointed to the lack of any non-white series regulars and "racial insensitivities" in the show like Carrie's "ghetto gold" reference or Samantha's wearing an afro wig to cover her baldness from chemotherapy. It also referenced the #wokecharlotte memes which gained popularity on social media in 2017, in which Charlotte chastises Carrie for comments that retrospectively appear insensitive and ignorant (i.e. Carrie's calling bisexuality a "layover on the way to Gay Town", or Samantha using transphobic language to refer to the sex workers outside her apartment). The creator of the memes stated that "it is satisfying to see the show get called out for the stuff that wouldn't hold up in 2017. It's true that it was progressive for its time but that doesn't mean contemporary viewers should be dismissive of some of its more problematic content." On the 20th anniversary of the show's premiere, "The Guardian" published an opinion piece by Rebecca Nicholson arguing that the show should not be discounted because of its retrospective flaws, but should still be appreciated for the fact that "it was, and is, a brilliant, daring, pioneering show."


title: Sex and the City

text: Season one of "Sex and the City" aired on HBO from June to August 1998. Season two was broadcast from June until October 1999. Season three aired from June until October 2000. Season four was broadcast in two parts: from June until August 2001, and then in January and February 2002. Season five, truncated due to Parker's pregnancy, aired on HBO during the summer of 2002. The twenty episodes of the final season, season six, aired in two parts: from June until September 2003 and during January and February 2004.


title: Sex and the City

text: "Sex and the City" is currently syndicated in the US by HBO corporate sibling (under Warner Bros. Discovery) Warner Bros. Television Distribution. CBS Studios (successors to Rysher Entertainment and Paramount Domestic Television) and their distribution arm own international rights. The series was filmed with traditional broadcast syndication in mind during its run, and pre-planned scenes with different dialogue and content were created specifically for syndication, along with appropriate cuts of each episode to fit a 22-minute timeslot which includes advertising.


title: Sex and the City

text: The United States cable channel HBO was the original broadcaster; HBO Max now carries the original run of the entire series as originally aired. TBS and WGN America were the first US channels to syndicate the show and utilize the secondary syndicated cut of the series; it also aired on broadcast stations for several seasons. As of 2021, E! continues to occasionally broadcast the syndicated version of the series.


title: Sex and the City

text: In February 2021, a remastered high-definition version of the series was released on HBO Max. The film negatives were rescanned at 4K resolution and reformatted to a by extending the sides of the frame.


title: Sex and the City

text: In Canada cable channel Bravo aired the first run of the show every Saturday at 11:00 PM, a few weeks behind the U.S. HBO broadcast (the series pre-dated the 2008 existence of HBO Canada).


title: Sex and the City

text: In Australia, the Nine Network aired the first run of the show every Monday between 9:30 pm and 11:00 pm. After 2004 the cable channel W aired it until summer 2008 when Arena started airing it in a block with "Will & Grace" with promos stating "all the good guys are gay". The series was repeated on Network Ten from 2005 to 2010, and on Eleven (later known today as 10 Peach) from February 2011. It currently airs in syndication on the cable channel Fox Showcase and occasionally plays marathons on the cable channel Binge, which plays back-to-back episodes of several TV shows.


title: Sex and the City

text: In Ireland, TV3 premiered "Sex and the City" in February 1999. Since 2006, repeats of the series aired on 3e.


title: Sex and the City

text: Channel 4 originally aired the series in the UK with the first episode shown on 3 February 1999. As of August 2009 a double bill of the show airs each weeknight at 10:30 pm on Comedy Central and a double bill airs on Wednesdays from 9 pm on 5*. From 2015, the show has been repeated on CBS Drama. Starting on February 26, 2018, the series returned to Channel 4 on its music-oriented channel, 4Music.


title: Sex and the City

text: All six seasons of "Sex and the City" have been released commercially on DVD, with season six being split into two parts. They have been released officially in region 1 (Americas), region 2 (Europe & Middle East), region 3 (Korea), and region 4 (Oceania & South Pacific) formats. In addition to their region encoding, releases vary depending on the region in which they were released.


title: Sex and the City

text: In addition to standard single-season DVD box sets of the show, limited edition collectors' editions have been released that include all six seasons in one complete set. These also vary among regions (and the regions are defined differently). While Europe got a complete set that came with special "shoebox" packaging (a reference to Carrie Bradshaw's love for shoes), the US and Canada version came packaged in a more traditional fold-out suede case and with an additional bonus DVD that includes many special features. Mexico and Oceania's edition come packaged in a beauty case.


title: Sex and the City

text: As well as missing out on some special features, many in Europe had trouble with the region 2 edition of the season 1 DVD. The season was not converted into a PAL video signal; it instead remained in its original American NTSC format, which caused compatibility problems with some European television sets and DVD players. All subsequent Region 2 DVD releases of the program were appropriately transferred to PAL video using the original film prints, and season 1 has since been re-released in PAL format.


title: Sex and the City

text: Outside the US, "Sex and the City" boxed sets were released through Paramount Pictures. American and Canadian DVDs were released through the program's original broadcasters, HBO. In Australia, single editions have been released, wherein each disc is sold separately. In South Korea, complete, six-season, special DVD shoebox sets were released. In Brazil, the first and fifth seasons were released on DVD Dual, but all other seasons were released in DVD box sets.


title: Sex and the City

text: Selected episodes are also available as part of the "Sex and the City Essentials" DVD collection. These are four separately-packaged discs containing three selected episodes that fit a common theme.


title: Sex and the City

text: The high-definition remastered series including the two films was released on Blu-ray on November 2, 2021.


title: Sex and the City

text: A feature film based on "Sex and the City", written, produced and directed by Michael Patrick King, was released in May 2008. The four lead actresses returned to reprise their roles, as did Chris Noth, Evan Handler, David Eigenberg, Jason Lewis, Mario Cantone and Willie Garson. In addition, Jennifer Hudson appears in the film as Carrie's assistant. The film is set four years after the series finale. The film was released to mixed reviews by critics; at the box office, it was the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the year. The film was released on DVD on September 23, 2008.


title: Sex and the City

text: "Sex and the City 2" was released in May 2010. The film stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall, and Noth, who reprised their roles again, as well as Handler, Eigenberg, Lewis, Cantone and Garson. It also features cameos from Liza Minnelli, Miley Cyrus, and Penélope Cruz. The film is set two years after the events of the first film. It was critically panned but a commercial success at the box office.


title: Sex and the City

text: It was rumoured in 2016 that a script for the third and final film had been approved. However, on September 28, 2017, Parker said to "Extra" that the film had been cancelled, stating, "I'm disappointed. We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script and story. It's not just disappointing that we don't get to tell the story and have that experience, but more so for that audience that has been so vocal in wanting another movie." It was reported that Cattrall did not want to be involved in the film after learning of storylines involving Mr. Big dying of a heart attack and Samantha receiving sexting and nude pictures from Miranda's teenage son Brady.


title: Sex and the City

text: The third movie plot was later readapted as the 2021 television series "And Just Like That…", with Cattrall not returning, as agreed.


title: Sex and the City

text: "The Carrie Diaries" is a prequel to the original series, based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell. The series premiered on The CW on January 14, 2013. AnnaSophia Robb plays the role of young Carrie Bradshaw. On May 8, 2014, The CW cancelled "The Carrie Diaries" after two seasons.


title: Sex and the City

text: The Brazilian television series "" was adapted from the original series and released on September 16, 2014. The version introduced some differences: the four ladies were black actresses, and the show takes place in the suburbs.


title: Sex and the City

text: In December 2020, it was reported that a sequel to the original series was in development at HBO Max, possibly without Kim Cattrall's character returning.


title: Sex and the City

text: In January 2021, the "Sex and the City" revival, titled as "And Just Like That..." was officially confirmed at HBO Max as a 10 episodes limited series, and with Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis returning. In May 2021, it was announced that Sara Ramirez joined the cast.


title: Superman

text: Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book "Action Comics" #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and published April 18, 1938). Superman has been adapted to a number of other media, which includes radio serials, novels, films, television shows, theater, and video games.


title: Superman

text: Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton and was named Kal-El. As a baby, his parents sent him to Earth in a small spaceship moments before Krypton was destroyed in a natural cataclysm. His ship landed in the American countryside, near the fictional town of Smallville. He was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent. Clark developed various superhuman abilities, such as incredible strength and impervious skin. His adoptive parents advised him to use his abilities for the benefit of humanity, and he decided to fight crime. To protect his personal life, he changes into a colorful costume and uses the alias "Superman" when fighting crime. Clark resides in the fictional American city of Metropolis, where he works as a journalist for the "Daily Planet". Superman's supporting characters include his love interest and fellow journalist Lois Lane, "Daily Planet" photographer Jimmy Olsen and editor-in-chief Perry White, and enemies such as Brainiac, Darkseid, General Zod, and his archenemy Lex Luthor.


title: Superman

text: Superman is the archetype of the superhero: he wears an outlandish costume, uses a codename, and fights evil with the aid of extraordinary abilities. Although there are earlier characters who arguably fit this definition, it was Superman who popularized the superhero genre and established its conventions. He was the best-selling superhero in American comic books up until the 1980s.


title: Superman

text: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met in 1932 while attending Glenville High School in Cleveland and bonded over their admiration of fiction. Siegel aspired to become a writer and Shuster aspired to become an illustrator. Siegel wrote amateur science fiction stories, which he self-published as a magazine called "Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization". His friend Shuster often provided illustrations for his work. In January 1933, Siegel published a short story in his magazine titled "The Reign of the Superman". The titular character is a homeless man named Bill Dunn who is tricked by an evil scientist into consuming an experimental drug. The drug gives Dunn the powers of mind-reading, mind-control, and clairvoyance. He uses these powers maliciously for profit and amusement, but then the drug wears off, leaving him a powerless vagrant again. Shuster provided illustrations, depicting Dunn as a bald man.


title: Superman

text: Siegel and Shuster shifted to making comic strips, with a focus on adventure and comedy. They wanted to become syndicated newspaper strip authors, so they showed their ideas to various newspaper editors. However, the newspaper editors told them that their ideas were insufficiently sensational. If they wanted to make a successful comic strip, it had to be something more sensational than anything else on the market. This prompted Siegel to revisit Superman as a comic strip character. Siegel modified Superman's powers to make him even more sensational: Like Bill Dunn, the second prototype of Superman is given powers against his will by an unscrupulous scientist, but instead of psychic abilities, he acquires superhuman strength and bullet-proof skin. Additionally, this new Superman was a crime-fighting hero instead of a villain, because Siegel noted that comic strips with heroic protagonists tended to be more successful. In later years, Siegel once recalled that this Superman wore a "bat-like" cape in some panels, but typically he and Shuster agreed there was no costume yet, and there is none apparent in the surviving artwork.


title: Superman

text: Siegel and Shuster showed this second concept of Superman to Consolidated Book Publishers, based in Chicago. In May 1933, Consolidated had published a proto-comic book titled "Detective Dan: Secret Operative 48". It contained all-original stories as opposed to reprints of newspaper strips, which was a novelty at the time. Siegel and Shuster put together a comic book in a similar format called "The Superman". A delegation from Consolidated visited Cleveland that summer on a business trip and Siegel and Shuster took the opportunity to present their work in person. Although Consolidated expressed interest, they later pulled out of the comics business without ever offering a book deal because the sales of "Detective Dan" were disappointing.


title: Superman

text: Siegel believed publishers kept rejecting them because he and Shuster were young and unknown, so he looked for an established artist to replace Shuster. When Siegel told Shuster what he was doing, Shuster reacted by burning their rejected Superman comic, sparing only the cover. They continued collaborating on other projects, but for the time being Shuster was through with Superman.


title: Superman

text: Siegel wrote to numerous artists. The first response came in July 1933 from Leo O'Mealia, who drew the "Fu Manchu" strip for the Bell Syndicate. In the script that Siegel sent to O'Mealia, Superman's origin story changes: He is a "scientist-adventurer" from the far future when humanity has naturally evolved "superpowers". Just before the Earth explodes, he escapes in a time-machine to the modern era, whereupon he immediately begins using his superpowers to fight crime. O'Mealia produced a few strips and showed them to his newspaper syndicate, but they were rejected. O'Mealia did not send to Siegel any copies of his strips, and they have been lost.


title: Superman

text: In June 1934, Siegel found another partner: an artist in Chicago named Russell Keaton. Keaton drew the "Buck Rogers" and "Skyroads" comic strips. In the script that Siegel sent Keaton in June, Superman's origin story further evolved: In the distant future, when Earth is on the verge of exploding due to "giant cataclysms", the last surviving man sends his three-year-old son back in time to the year 1935. The time-machine appears on a road where it is discovered by motorists Sam and Molly Kent. They leave the boy in an orphanage, but the staff struggle to control him because he has superhuman strength and impenetrable skin. The Kents adopt the boy and name him Clark, and teach him that he must use his fantastic natural gifts for the benefit of humanity. In November, Siegel sent Keaton an extension of his script: an adventure where Superman foils a conspiracy to kidnap a star football player. The extended script mentions that Clark puts on a special "uniform" when assuming the identity of Superman, but it is not described. Keaton produced two weeks' worth of strips based on Siegel's script. In November, Keaton showed his strips to a newspaper syndicate, but they too were rejected, and he abandoned the project.


title: Superman

text: Siegel and Shuster reconciled and resumed developing Superman together. The character became an alien from the planet Krypton. Shuster designed the now-familiar costume: tights with an "S" on the chest, over-shorts, and a cape. They made Clark Kent a journalist who pretends to be timid, and conceived his colleague Lois Lane, who is attracted to the bold and mighty Superman but does not realize that he and Kent are the same person.


title: Superman

text: In June 1935 Siegel and Shuster finally found work with National Allied Publications, a comic magazine publishing company in New York owned by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. Wheeler-Nicholson published two of their strips in "New Fun Comics" #6 (1935): "Henri Duval" and "Doctor Occult". Siegel and Shuster also showed him Superman and asked him to market Superman to the newspapers on their behalf. In October, Wheeler-Nicholson offered to publish Superman in one of his own magazines. Siegel and Shuster refused his offer because Wheeler-Nicholson had demonstrated himself to be an irresponsible businessman. He had been slow to respond to their letters and hadn't paid them for their work in "New Fun Comics" #6. They chose to keep marketing Superman to newspaper syndicates themselves. Despite the erratic pay, Siegel and Shuster kept working for Wheeler-Nicholson because he was the only publisher who was buying their work, and over the years they produced other adventure strips for his magazines.


title: Superman

text: Wheeler-Nicholson's financial difficulties continued to mount. In 1936, he formed a joint corporation with Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz called Detective Comics, Inc. in order to release his third magazine, which was titled "Detective Comics". Siegel and Shuster produced stories for "Detective Comics" too, such as "Slam Bradley". Wheeler-Nicholson fell into deep debt to Donenfeld and Liebowitz, and in early January 1938, Donenfeld and Liebowitz petitioned Wheeler-Nicholson's company into bankruptcy and seized it.


title: Superman

text: In early December 1937, Siegel visited Liebowitz in New York, and Liebowitz asked Siegel to produce some comics for an upcoming comic anthology magazine called "Action Comics". Siegel proposed some new stories, but not Superman. Siegel and Shuster were, at the time, negotiating a deal with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate for Superman. In early January 1938, Siegel had a three-way telephone conversation with Liebowitz and an employee of McClure named Max Gaines. Gaines informed Siegel that McClure had rejected Superman, and asked if he could forward their Superman strips to Liebowitz so that Liebowitz could consider them for "Action Comics". Siegel agreed. Liebowitz and his colleagues were impressed by the strips, and they asked Siegel and Shuster to develop the strips into 13 pages for "Action Comics". Having grown tired of rejections, Siegel and Shuster accepted the offer; at least now they would see Superman published. Siegel and Shuster submitted their work in late February and were paid $130 () for their work ($10 per page). In early March they signed a contract (at Liebowitz's request) in which they gave away the copyright for Superman to Detective Comics, Inc. This was normal practice in the business, and Siegel and Shuster had given away the copyrights to their previous works as well (see the Copyright issues section of this article for more details on this matter).


title: Superman

text: The duo's revised version of Superman appeared in the first issue of "Action Comics", which was published on April 18, 1938. The issue was a huge success thanks to Superman's feature.


title: Superman

text: Siegel and Shuster read pulp science-fiction and adventure magazines, and many stories featured characters with fantastical abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and superhuman strength. One character in particular was John Carter of Mars from the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. John Carter is a human who is transported to Mars, where the lower gravity makes him stronger than the natives and allows him to leap great distances. Another influence was Philip Wylie's 1930 novel "Gladiator", featuring a protagonist named Hugo Danner who had similar powers.


title: Superman

text: Superman's stance and devil-may-care attitude were influenced by the characters of Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in adventure films such as "The Mark of Zorro" and "Robin Hood". The name of Superman's home city, Metropolis, was taken from the 1927 film of the same name. Popeye cartoons were also an influence.


title: Superman

text: The name "Clark Kent" was created by taking the first names of actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor. "Clark" was also inspired by explorer William Clark especially when coming up with the names "Lois and Clark" a nod to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, American explorers who discovered the Pacific Ocean.


title: Superman

text: Clark Kent's harmless facade and dual identity were inspired by the protagonists of such movies as Don Diego de la Vega in "The Mark of Zorro" and Sir Percy Blakeney in "The Scarlet Pimpernel". Siegel thought this would make for interesting dramatic contrast and good humor. Another inspiration was slapstick comedian Harold Lloyd. The archetypal Lloyd character was a mild-mannered man who finds himself abused by bullies but later in the story snaps and fights back furiously.


title: Superman

text: Kent is a journalist because Siegel often imagined himself becoming one after leaving school. The love triangle between Lois Lane, Clark, and Superman was inspired by Siegel's own awkwardness with girls.


title: Superman

text: The pair collected comic strips in their youth, with a favorite being Winsor McCay's fantastical "Little Nemo". Shuster remarked on the artists who played an important part in the development of his own style: "Alex Raymond and Burne Hogarth were my idols – also Milt Caniff, Hal Foster, and Roy Crane." Shuster taught himself to draw by tracing over the art in the strips and magazines they collected.


title: Superman

text: As a boy, Shuster was interested in fitness culture and a fan of strongmen such as Siegmund Breitbart and Joseph Greenstein. He collected fitness magazines and manuals and used their photographs as visual references for his art.


title: Superman

text: The visual design of Superman came from multiple influences. The tight-fitting suit and shorts were inspired by the costumes of wrestlers, boxers, and strongmen. In early concept art, Shuster gave Superman laced sandals like those of strongmen and classical heroes, but these were eventually changed to red boots. The costumes of Douglas Fairbanks were also an influence. The emblem on his chest was inspired by heraldic crests. Many pulp action heroes such as swashbucklers wore capes. Superman's face was based on Johnny Weissmuller with touches derived from the comic-strip character Dick Tracy and from the work of cartoonist Roy Crane.


title: Superman

text: The word "superman" was commonly used in the 1920s and 1930s to describe men of great ability, most often athletes and politicians. It occasionally appeared in pulp fiction stories as well, such as "The Superman of Dr. Jukes". It is unclear whether Siegel and Shuster were influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the "Übermensch"; they never acknowledged as much.


title: Superman

text: Since 1938, Superman stories have been regularly published in periodical comic books published by DC Comics. The first and oldest of these is "Action Comics", which began in April 1938. "Action Comics" was initially an anthology magazine, but it eventually became dedicated to Superman stories. The second oldest periodical is "Superman", which began in June 1939. "Action Comics" and "Superman" have been published without interruption (ignoring changes to the title and numbering scheme). A number of other shorter-lived Superman periodicals have been published over the years. Superman is part of the DC Universe, which is a shared setting of superhero characters owned by DC Comics, and consequently he frequently appears in stories alongside the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman, and others.


title: Superman

text: Superman has sold more comic books over his publication history than any other American superhero character. Exact sales figures for the early decades of Superman comic books are hard to find because, like most publishers at the time, DC Comics concealed this data from its competitors and thereby the general public as well, but given the general market trends at the time, sales of "Action Comics" and "Superman" probably peaked in the mid-1940s and thereafter steadily declined. Sales data first became public in 1960, and showed that Superman was the best-selling comic book character of the 1960s and 1970s. Sales rose again starting in 1987. "Superman" #75 (Nov 1992) sold over 23 million copies, making it the best-selling issue of a comic book of all time, thanks to a media sensation over the supposedly permanent death of the character in that issue. Sales declined from that point on. In March 2018, "Action Comics" sold just 51,534 copies, although such low figures are normal for superhero comic books in general (for comparison, "Amazing Spider-Man" #797 sold only 128,189 copies). The comic books are today considered a niche aspect of the Superman franchise due to low readership, though they remain influential as creative engines for the movies and television shows. Comic book stories can be produced quickly and cheaply, and are thus an ideal medium for experimentation.


title: Superman

text: Whereas comic books in the 1950s were read by children, since the 1990s the average reader has been an adult. A major reason for this shift was DC Comics' decision in the 1970s to sell its comic books to specialty stores instead of traditional magazine retailers (supermarkets, newsstands, etc.) — a model called "direct distribution". This made comic books less accessible to children.


title: Superman

text: Beginning in January 1939, a "Superman" daily comic strip appeared in newspapers, syndicated through the McClure Syndicate. A color Sunday version was added that November. Jerry Siegel wrote most of the strips until he was conscripted in 1943. The Sunday strips had a narrative continuity separate from the daily strips, possibly because Siegel had to delegate the Sunday strips to ghostwriters. By 1941, the newspaper strips had an estimated readership of 20 million. Joe Shuster drew the early strips, then passed the job to Wayne Boring. From 1949 to 1956, the newspaper strips were drawn by Win Mortimer. The strip ended in May 1966, but was revived from 1977 to 1983 to coincide with a series of movies released by Warner Bros.


title: Superman

text: Initially, Siegel was allowed to write Superman more or less as he saw fit because nobody had anticipated the success and rapid expansion of the franchise. But soon Siegel and Shuster's work was put under careful oversight for fear of trouble with censors. Siegel was forced to tone down the violence and social crusading that characterized his early stories. Editor Whitney Ellsworth, hired in 1940, dictated that Superman not kill. Sexuality was banned, and colorfully outlandish villains such as Ultra-Humanite and Toyman were thought to be less nightmarish for young readers.


title: Superman

text: Mort Weisinger was the editor on Superman comics from 1941 to 1970, his tenure briefly interrupted by military service. Siegel and his fellow writers had developed the character with little thought of building a coherent mythology, but as the number of Superman titles and the pool of writers grew, Weisinger demanded a more disciplined approach. Weisinger assigned story ideas, and the logic of Superman's powers, his origin, the locales, and his relationships with his growing cast of supporting characters were carefully planned. Elements such as Bizarro, his cousin Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, the Fortress of Solitude, alternate varieties of kryptonite, robot doppelgangers, and Krypto were introduced during this era. The complicated universe built under Weisinger was beguiling to devoted readers but alienating to casuals. Weisinger favored lighthearted stories over serious drama, and avoided sensitive subjects such as the Vietnam War and the American civil rights movement because he feared his right-wing views would alienate his left-leaning writers and readers. Weisinger also introduced letters columns in 1958 to encourage feedback and build intimacy with readers.


title: Superman

text: Weisinger retired in 1970 and Julius Schwartz took over. By his own admission, Weisinger had grown out of touch with newer readers. Schwartz updated Superman by making Clark Kent a television anchor, and he retired overused plot elements such as kryptonite and robot doppelgangers. Schwartz also scaled Superman's powers down to a level closer to Siegel's original. These changes would eventually be reversed by later writers. Schwartz allowed stories with serious drama such as "For the Man Who Has Everything" ("Superman Annual" #11), in which the villain Mongul torments Superman with an illusion of happy family life on a living Krypton.


title: Superman

text: Schwartz retired from DC Comics in 1986 and was succeeded by Mike Carlin as an editor on Superman comics. His retirement coincided with DC Comics' decision to reboot the DC Universe with the companywide-crossover storyline "Crisis on Infinite Earths". Writer John Byrne rewrote the Superman mythos, again reducing Superman's powers, which writers had slowly re-strengthened, and revised many supporting characters, such as making Lex Luthor a billionaire industrialist rather than a mad scientist, and making Supergirl an artificial shapeshifting organism because DC wanted Superman to be the sole surviving Kryptonian.


title: Superman

text: Carlin was promoted to Executive Editor for the DC Universe books in 1996, a position he held until 2002. K.C. Carlson took his place as editor of the Superman comics.


title: Superman

text: In the earlier decades of Superman comics, artists were expected to conform to a certain "house style". Joe Shuster defined the aesthetic style of Superman in the 1940s. After Shuster left National, Wayne Boring succeeded him as the principal artist on Superman comic books. He redrew Superman taller and more detailed. Around 1955, Curt Swan in turn succeeded Boring. The 1980s saw a boom in the diversity of comic book art and now there is no single "house style" in Superman comics.


title: Superman

text: The first adaptation of Superman beyond comic books was a radio show, "The Adventures of Superman", which ran from 1940 to 1951 for 2,088 episodes, most of which were aimed at children. The episodes were initially 15 minutes long, but after 1949 they were lengthened to 30 minutes. Most episodes were done live. Bud Collyer was the voice actor for Superman in most episodes. The show was produced by Robert Maxwell and Allen Ducovny, who were employees of Superman, Inc. and Detective Comics, Inc. respectively.


title: Superman

text: In 1966 Superman had a Tony-nominated musical play produced on Broadway. "It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman" featured music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and book by David Newman and Robert Benton. Actor Bob Holiday performed as Clark Kent/Superman and actress Patricia Marand performed as Lois Lane.


title: Superman

text: DC Comics trademarked the Superman chest logo in August 1938. Jack Liebowitz established Superman, Inc. in October 1939 to develop the franchise beyond the comic books. Superman, Inc. merged with DC Comics in October 1946. After DC Comics merged with Warner Communications in 1967, licensing for Superman was handled by the Licensing Corporation of America.


title: Superman

text: The Licensing Letter (an American market research firm) estimated that Superman licensed merchandise made $634 million in sales globally in 2018 (43.3% of this revenue came from the North American market). For comparison, in the same year, Spider-Man merchandise made $1.075 billion and Star Wars merchandise made $1.923 billion globally.


title: Superman

text: The earliest paraphernalia appeared in 1939: a button proclaiming membership in the Supermen of America club. The first toy was a wooden doll in 1939 made by the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company. "Superman" #5 (May 1940) carried an advertisement for a "Krypto-Raygun", which was a gun-shaped device that could project images on a wall. The majority of Superman merchandise is targeted at children, but since the 1970s, adults have been increasingly targeted because the comic book readership has gotten older.


title: Superman

text: During World War II, Superman was used to support the war effort. "Action Comics" and "Superman" carried messages urging readers to buy war bonds and participate in scrap drives.


title: Superman

text: In a contract dated 1 March 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster gave away the copyright to Superman to their employer, DC Comics (then known as Detective Comics, Inc.) prior to Superman's first publication in April. Contrary to popular perception, the $130 that DC Comics paid them was for their first Superman story, not the copyright to the character — that, they gave away for free. This was normal practice in the comic magazine industry and they had done the same with their previous published works (Slam Bradley, Doctor Occult, etc.), but Superman became far more popular and valuable than they anticipated and they much regretted giving him away. DC Comics retained Siegel and Shuster, and they were paid well because they were popular with the readers. Between 1938 and 1947, DC Comics paid them together at least $401,194.85 (equivalent to $ in ).


title: Superman

text: Siegel wrote most of the magazine and daily newspaper stories until he was conscripted into the army in 1943, whereupon the task was passed to ghostwriters. While Siegel was serving in Hawaii, DC Comics published a story featuring a child version of Superman called "Superboy", which was based on a script Siegel had submitted several years before. Siegel was furious because DC Comics did this without having bought the character.


title: Superman

text: After Siegel's discharge from the Army, he and Shuster sued DC Comics in 1947 for the rights to Superman and Superboy. The judge ruled that Superman belonged to DC Comics, but that Superboy was a separate entity that belonged to Siegel. Siegel and Shuster settled out-of-court with DC Comics, which paid the pair $94,013.16 () in exchange for the full rights to both Superman and Superboy. DC Comics then fired Siegel and Shuster.


title: Superman

text: In 1965, Siegel and Shuster attempted to regain rights to Superman using the renewal option in the Copyright Act of 1909, but the court ruled Siegel and Shuster had transferred the renewal rights to DC Comics in 1938. Siegel and Shuster appealed, but the appeals court upheld this decision. DC Comics fired Siegel when he filed this second lawsuit.


title: Superman

text: In 1975, Siegel and a number of other comic book writers and artists launched a public campaign for better compensation and treatment of comic creators. Warner Brothers agreed to give Siegel and Shuster a yearly stipend, full medical benefits, and credit their names in all future Superman productions in exchange for never contesting ownership of Superman. Siegel and Shuster upheld this bargain.


title: Superman

text: Shuster died in 1992. DC Comics offered Shuster's heirs a stipend in exchange for never challenging ownership of Superman, which they accepted for some years.


title: Superman

text: Siegel died in 1996. His heirs attempted to take the rights to Superman using the termination provision of the Copyright Act of 1976. DC Comics negotiated an agreement wherein it would pay the Siegel heirs several million dollars and a yearly stipend of $500,000 in exchange for permanently granting DC the rights to Superman. DC Comics also agreed to insert the line "By Special Arrangement with the Jerry Siegel Family" in all future Superman productions. The Siegels accepted DC's offer in an October 2001 letter.


title: Superman

text: Copyright lawyer and movie producer Marc Toberoff then struck a deal with the heirs of both Siegel and Shuster to help them get the rights to Superman in exchange for signing the rights over to his production company, Pacific Pictures. Both groups accepted. The Siegel heirs called off their deal with DC Comics and in 2004 sued DC for the rights to Superman and Superboy. In 2008, the judge ruled in favor of the Siegels. DC Comics appealed the decision, and the appeals court ruled in favor of DC, arguing that the October 2001 letter was binding. In 2003, the Shuster heirs served a termination notice for Shuster's grant of his half of the copyright to Superman. DC Comics sued the Shuster heirs in 2010, and the court ruled in DC's favor on the grounds that the 1992 agreement with the Shuster heirs barred them from terminating the grant.