title: David Arquette

text: David Arquette (born September 8, 1971) is an American actor and former professional wrestler. He is best known for his role as Dewey Riley in the slasher film franchise "Scream", for which he won a Teen Choice Award and two Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. As a professional wrestler, he is best remembered for his 2000 stint in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), where he won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and headlined the Slamboree pay-per-view event; he has received praise in recent times for his work on the independent circuit.


title: David Arquette

text: A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid-1990s after starring in several Hollywood films aside from the "Scream" franchise, such as "Wild Bill", "Never Been Kissed", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "See Spot Run" and "Eight Legged Freaks". He has since had several television roles, such as Jason Ventress on ABC's "In Case of Emergency". Arquette has also voiced Skully on the Disney Channel animated series "Jake and the Never Land Pirates", and executive produced the game show "Celebrity Name Game", for which he received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette was born in a Subud commune in Bentonville, Virginia. He is the youngest child of Brenda "Mardi" Olivia (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theatre operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor. Arquette's paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Arquette's mother was Jewish (from a family that emigrated from Poland) while his father was a convert from Catholic Christianity to Islam; through him, David is distantly related to explorer Meriwether Lewis. His father, whose family's surname was originally Arcouet, was of part French-Canadian descent. Arquette's four siblings, Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia, and Alexis, all became actors as well. The Arquettes had an unusual upbringing, with a father who occasionally had issues with substance abuse. Their mother died of breast cancer.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette appeared in a number of movies in the 1990s, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992), "Airheads" (1994) and "Never Been Kissed" (1999). He had guest spots on television shows like "Blossom" (1992), "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1992) and "Friends" (1996). Arquette achieved his biggest success in the horror/slasher film franchise "Scream". It was during the filming of the first film in 1996 that he first met his future wife, Courteney Cox. The couple married in 1999; together, they appeared in a 2003 advertisement for Coke and formed the production company Coquette (both a portmanteau of their last names and a word meaning a flirty woman), which has produced a number of films and television series, including "Daisy Does America", "Dirt" and "Cougar Town". Arquette guest starred alongside Cox on "Cougar Town" in 2012.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette appeared in the Sega video game "ESPN NFL 2K5", voicing himself as a "celebrity adversary" and manager of his own team, the Los Angeles Locos, as well as appearing as an unlockable character in Season Mode. He also appeared in the 2001 EA video game "SSX Tricky", as the voice of lead character Eddie. He also starred in "See Spot Run" in 2001. Arquette starred in the 2007 ABC comedy series "In Case of Emergency", which was canceled after one season. Since then, he has appeared in the 2008 film "Hamlet 2" and reprised his role in "Scream 4", again acting alongside Cox. He appeared alongside his sister in the TV show "Medium" in January 2011.


title: David Arquette

text: He appeared in Rascal Flatts' music video for their song "Why Wait" in 2010. Arquette, a well known horror fan, made his directorial debut with 2007's "The Tripper" and has signed on to direct "Glutton", a 3D psychological thriller. The film began shooting in July 2011 in Canada. Arquette appeared on the 13th season of "Dancing with the Stars", partnered with two-time champion Kym Johnson. He was eliminated on November 1, 2011. On October 7, 2013, Arquette's new show "Dream School", in which he plays a mentor to high risk kids in L.A., premiered on the Sundance Channel. In 2017, he starred in the reboot of "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" as Captain Barnabus. In May 2020, it was confirmed that Arquette would be reprising his role as Dewey Riley for the fifth "Scream" film, which was directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The film was released on January 14, 2022.


title: David Arquette

text: In 2000, after filming the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) movie "Ready to Rumble", Arquette was brought into WCW storylines. He made his first appearance on the April 12, 2000, episode of "Thunder", sitting in the crowd before leaping into the ring to take part in a worked confrontation with Eric Bischoff and his New Blood stable. Afterwards, he formed an alliance with Chris Kanyon and then reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion Diamond Dallas Page, and with their help, he defeated Bischoff in a singles match on the April 24 episode of "Nitro". On the following episode of "Thunder", Arquette teamed with Page in a match against Bischoff and Jeff Jarrett, with the stipulation that whichever man got the pin would take the championship. Arquette pinned Bischoff again in the match's finish, winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in the process.


title: David Arquette

text: During his time as champion, Arquette was mostly used as comic relief. He only appeared on two shows as champion, the May 1 "Nitro" and May 7 Slamboree pay-per-view. During the former, a vignette was shown, filmed on the set of Arquette's film "3000 Miles to Graceland", which also featured his wife Courteney Cox and their co-star Kurt Russell. In the vignette, Cox informs Russell that Arquette is the WCW World Heavyweight Champion, causing Russell to laugh and walk off and Arquette to chase after him with a steel chair. In another portion of the show, Arquette was seen backstage trembling in fear and attempting to "give back" the championship belt. However, he did successfully defend the title against Tank Abbott with help from Page.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette held the title for 12 days until the Slamboree pay-per-view on May 7, 2000, when he was booked to defend the championship against Jarrett and Page in a Triple Cage match, the same match featured in the climax of "Ready to Rumble". In the end, he turned on Page and gave the victory to Jarrett. After Slamboree, Arquette cut a promo on the May 8 episode of "Nitro", explaining that his entire friendship with Page and title run was a "swerve". Page subsequently ran down to the ring and hit him with a "Diamond Cutter". Arquette made one final appearance with WCW at the New Blood Rising pay-per-view on August 13, when he interfered in a match between Buff Bagwell and Kanyon.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette was against the idea of becoming the WCW World Heavyweight Champion, believing that fans like himself would detest a non-wrestler winning the title. Vince Russo, who was the head booker for WCW at the time, insisted that Arquette becoming the champion would be good for the company and for publicity, and Arquette reluctantly agreed to the angle. All the money he made during his WCW tenure was donated to the families of Owen Hart (who died in a freak accident), Brian Pillman (who died from an undiagnosed heart condition), and Darren Drozdov (who became a quadriplegic after an in-ring accident). After the World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment (WWF/WWE) purchased WCW, Arquette's championship run was listed as the top reason for the "failure" of "Nitro" in a list published by "WWE Magazine". Gene Okerlund stated in a 2009 interview on WCW's history that "once Arquette won the title, it might as well been thrown in the trash" due to losing what little credibility it had left at that point, and Arquette's reign as champion has been criticized in other WWE media in the years since, despite the fact that the then-WWF itself briefly booked Vince McMahon as WWF Champion months before Arquette's title win.


title: David Arquette

text: On the December 13, 2010, episode of "Raw", Arquette made his WWE debut by teaming with Alex Riley in a handicap match against Randy Orton, which they lost.


title: David Arquette

text: In 2018, Arquette said during an interview at "The Wendy Williams Show" years after his controversial WCW title win he has been trolled for 18 years on the Internet and he wants people to have respect for his name in professional wrestling. He began training with professional wrestler Peter Avalon for his return. On July 15, 2018, Arquette made his return to professional wrestling making his debut for Championship Wrestling from Hollywood (CWFH) in a losing effort against RJ City.


title: David Arquette

text: On October 6, 2018, Arquette teamed with RJ City to defeat the team of Halal Beefcake (Idris Abraham and Joe Coleman) in a tag team match at Border City Wrestling's 25th Anniversary show in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The event was filmed by Impact Wrestling to air as a One Night Only pay-per-view in November 2018. On November 16, 2018, Arquette wrestled Nick Gage in a deathmatch at Joey Janela's LA Confidential event. During the match, he suffered a severe cut in the neck, causing him to bleed profusely. After the match, he went to a hospital and was operated on. Arquette would later state that he was done with deathmatches.


title: David Arquette

text: On May 23, 2019, Arquette made his debut on "Being the Elite", where he attempted to convince Nick and Matt Jackson to allow him to enter the Over the Budget Battle Royal at AEW Double or Nothing. Neither of them recognised him at first, however they eventually recalled his WCW World Heavyweight Championship reign but still refused to let him compete, instead, giving him a double Superkick.


title: David Arquette

text: In May 2007, Image Comics (in conjunction with Raw Studios) published "David Arquette's the Tripper", which was adapted for the comic book medium by artist Nat Jones and writer Joe Harris, with whom Arquette shared writing duties. Propr Collection is a clothing line run by Arquette and Ben Harper. Arquette was briefly in a band by the name of Ear2000, who contributed a song to the "Scream 2" and "Scream 3" . The group, whose style blended hip hop and rock, has since broken up. Arquette has also been a part of Washington's Red Museum and recorded "Post Empire" with the band, which was released in 2011.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette is part owner of Bootsy Bellows, an exclusive nightclub in Los Angeles. The club is named for Arquette's mother, a burlesque dancer who performed by that name.


title: David Arquette

text: David is a certified Bob Ross instructor, so he was trained in the landscape painting technique popularized by the famous painter. Arquette purchased the rights to Bozo the Clown in 2021 and has plans to revive the character.


title: David Arquette

text: The band the Black Math Experiment released "You Cannot Kill David Arquette", a tongue in cheek song about Arquette's acting and wrestling career. Arquette himself helped promote the band on MTV's "Total Request Live" and during his promotional tour for "The Tripper". He also used the band's music for the B-roll in the DVD of "The Tripper". In "", when United States and Canada go to war, the countries begin bombing celebrities' houses, the Arquette family being one of them. Arquette has appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" many times, including multiple times as the show's celebrity intern.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette married actress Courteney Cox on June 12, 1999. They have a daughter, Coco Arquette, born in 2004. Jennifer Aniston is Coco's godmother. On October 11, 2010, the media announced that Arquette and Cox were having a trial separation, but "still love each other deeply." In June 2012, Arquette filed for divorce after nearly two years of separation from Cox. The divorce became final in May 2013. He started dating "Entertainment Tonight" correspondent Christina McLarty in 2011. They announced they were expecting their first child together in November 2013. McLarty gave birth to the couple's son in 2014. The couple announced their engagement in July 2014. They were married on April 12, 2015. McLarty gave birth to their second son in 2017.


title: David Arquette

text: Arquette checked into a rehabilitation center for treatment of "alcohol and other issues" on January 1, 2011. On April 8, 2011, Arquette announced on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that he had reached the 100-day sober milestone. Later that year, Arquette said he had been sober for over nine months. In June 2012, while in Israel to film an episode of the travel show "Trippin", Arquette belatedly celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall. The presiding rabbi was Shmuel Rabinovitch.


title: David Berkowitz

text: David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer who pleaded guilty to eight shootings that began in New York City on July 29, 1976.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz grew up in New York City and served in the United States Army. Using a .44 Special caliber Bulldog revolver, he killed six people and wounded seven others by July 1977, terrorizing New Yorkers and gaining worldwide notoriety. Berkowitz eluded the biggest police manhunt in the city's history while leaving letters that mocked the police and promised further crimes, which were highly publicized by the press.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz was arrested on August 10, 1977, and subsequently indicted for eight shootings. He confessed to all of them, and initially claimed to have been obeying the orders of a demon manifested in the form of a dog belonging to his neighbor "Sam". After being found mentally competent to stand trial, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences in state prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. He subsequently admitted that the dog-and-devil story was a hoax. In the course of further police investigations, Berkowitz was also implicated in many unsolved arsons in the city.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Intense media coverage of the case lent a kind of celebrity status to Berkowitz, which many observers noted that he seemed to enjoy. In response, the New York State Legislature enacted new statutes, known popularly as "Son of Sam laws", designed to keep criminals from financially profiting from the publicity created by their crimes. The statutes have remained law in New York State despite various legal challenges, and similar laws have been enacted in several other states.


title: David Berkowitz

text: During the mid-1990s Berkowitz, by then professing to be a converted evangelical Christian, amended his confession to claim that he had been a member of a violent Satanic cult that orchestrated the incidents as ritual murder. A new investigation of the murders began in 1996 but was suspended indefinitely after inconclusive findings.


title: David Berkowitz

text: David Berkowitz was born Richard David Falco on June 1, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York. Within a few days of his birth, his biological mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Broder, gave the child away. Broder had started a relationship three years previously with a married man named Joseph Klineman, who became Richard's biological father. Although her reasons for giving Richard away are unknown, writers have surmised that Klineman threatened to abandon her if she kept the baby and used his name. Broder had grown up as part of an impoverished Jewish family, and was working as a waitress. Prior to meeting Klineman, in 1936, she had married Tony Falco, an Italian American. After a marriage of less than four years, Falco left her for another woman.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The infant Richard was adopted by Pearl and Nathan Berkowitz of the Bronx. The Jewish American couple were hardware store retailers of modest means, and childless in middle age. They reversed the order of the boy's first and middle names and gave him their own surname, raising young David Richard Berkowitz as their only child.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Journalist John Vincent Sanders wrote that Berkowitz' childhood was "somewhat troubled". Although of above-average intelligence, he lost interest in his education at an early age and became infatuated with petty larceny and starting fires. Neighbors and relatives would recall Berkowitz as difficult, spoiled, and a bully. His adoptive parents consulted at least one psychotherapist due to his misconduct, but his misbehavior never resulted in a legal intervention or serious mention in his school records. He attended Public School #123 and Public School #77.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz's adoptive mother died of breast cancer when he was fourteen years old, and his home life became strained in later years, particularly because he disliked his adoptive father's second wife. Berkowitz lived with his father while attending Christopher Columbus High School (graduating in 1971) and college in a four-and-a-half-room apartment at 170 Dreiser Loop in Co-op City from 1967 to 1971.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In 1971, at age 17, Berkowitz joined the United States Army and served at Fort Knox in the U.S. and with an infantry division in South Korea. After an honorable discharge in June 1974, he located his birth mother, Betty. After a few visits, she disclosed the details of his birth. The news greatly disturbed Berkowitz, and he was particularly distraught by the array of reluctant father figures. Forensic anthropologist Elliott Leyton described Berkowitz' discovery of his birth details as the "primary crisis" of his life, a revelation that shattered his sense of identity. His communication with his birth mother later lapsed, but for a time he remained in communication with his half-sister, Roslyn.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz attended Bronx Community College for one year, enrolling in the spring of 1975. In 1976 he went to work as a driver for the Co-Op City Taxi Company. He subsequently had several non-professional jobs, and at the time of his arrest was working as a letter sorter for the United States Postal Service.


title: David Berkowitz

text: During the mid-1970s, Berkowitz started to commit violent crimes. He bungled his first attempt at murder using a knife, then switched to a handgun and began a lengthy crime spree throughout the New York boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, seeking young female victims. He was purportedly most attracted to white women with long dark wavy hair. All but one of the crime scenes involved two victims; he infamously committed some of his attacks while the women sat with boyfriends in parked cars. Berkowitz exhibited an enduring enjoyment of his activities, often returning to the scenes of his crimes.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz claimed that when he was 22 years old he committed his first attack on Christmas Eve 1975, when he used a hunting knife to stab two women in Co-op City. The first alleged victim, a Hispanic woman, was never identified by police. The second was 15-year-old Michelle Forman, a sophomore at Truman High School, whom he stabbed six times on a bridge near Dreiser Loop and whose injuries were serious enough for her to be hospitalized for a week. Berkowitz was not suspected of these crimes, and soon afterward he relocated to an apartment in Yonkers.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The first shooting attributed to Berkowitz occurred in the Pelham Bay neighborhood of the Bronx. At about 1:10 a.m. on July 29, 1976, Donna Lauria (18), an emergency medical technician, and her friend Jody Valenti (19), a nurse, were sitting in Valenti's double-parked Oldsmobile discussing their evening at Peachtree's, a New Rochelle discotheque. Lauria opened the car door to leave and noticed a man quickly approaching. Startled and angered by the man's sudden appearance, she said, "Now what is this…" The man produced a gun from the paper bag that he carried and crouched. Bracing one elbow on his knee, he aimed his weapon with both hands and fired. Lauria was struck by one bullet that killed her instantly. Valenti was shot in her thigh, and a third bullet missed both women. The shooter turned and walked away quickly.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Valenti survived her injury and said that she did not recognize the killer. She described him as a white male in his thirties with a fair complexion, about tall and weighing about . His hair was short, dark, and curly in a "mod style". This description was repeated by Lauria's father, who claimed to have seen a similar man sitting in a yellow compact car parked nearby. Neighbors gave corroborating reports to police that an unfamiliar yellow compact car had been cruising the area for hours before the shooting. Years later, in 1993, an imprisoned Berkowitz admitted in an interview with journalist Maury Terry that he had shot Lauria and Valenti.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On October 23, 1976, a similar shooting occurred in a secluded residential area of Flushing, Queens, next to Bowne Park. Carl Denaro (20), a Citibank security guard, and Rosemary Keenan (18), a Queens College student, were sitting in Keenan's parked car when the windows suddenly shattered. "I felt the car ," Denaro said later. Keenan quickly started the car and sped away for help. The panicked couple did not realize that someone had been shooting at them, even though Denaro was bleeding from a bullet wound to his head. Keenan had only superficial injuries from the broken glass, but Denaro eventually needed a metal plate to replace a portion of his skull. Neither victim saw the attacker.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Police determined that the bullets embedded in Keenan's car were .44 caliber, but they were so deformed that they thought it unlikely that they could ever be linked to a particular weapon. Because Denaro had shoulder-length hair, police later speculated that the shooter had mistaken him for a woman. Keenan's father was a 20-year veteran police detective of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), causing an intense investigation. As with the Lauria–Valenti shooting, however, there seemed not to be any tangible motive for the shooting; police made little progress with the case. Many details of the Denaro–Keenan shooting were very similar to the Lauria–Valenti case, but police did not initially associate them, partly because the shootings occurred in different boroughs and were investigated by different police precincts.


title: David Berkowitz

text: High school students Donna DeMasi (16) and Joanne Lomino (18) walked home from a movie shortly after midnight on November 27, 1976. They were chatting on the porch of Lomino's home in Floral Park when a young man dressed in military fatigues approached them and began to ask directions.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In a high-pitched voice he said, "Can you tell me how to get...", but then quickly produced a revolver. He shot each of the victims once and, as they fell to the ground injured, he fired several more times, striking the apartment building before running away. A neighbor heard the gunshots, rushed out of the apartment building, and saw a blond man run past gripping a pistol in his left hand. DeMasi had been shot in the neck, but the wound was not life-threatening. Lomino was hit in the back and hospitalized in serious condition; she was ultimately rendered paraplegic.


title: David Berkowitz

text: At about 12:40 a.m. on January 30, 1977, secretary Christine Freund (26) and her fiancé, bartender John Diel (30), were sitting in Diel's car near the Forest Hills LIRR station in Queens, preparing to drive to a dance hall after having seen the movie "Rocky". Three gunshots penetrated the car. In a panic, Diel drove away for help. He suffered minor superficial injuries, but Freund was shot twice and died several hours later at the hospital. Neither victim had seen their attacker.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Police made the first public acknowledgment that the Freund–Diel shooting was similar to earlier incidents, and that the crimes might be connected. All the victims had been struck with .44 caliber bullets, and the shootings seemed to target young women with long dark hair. NYPD sergeant Richard Conlon stated that police were "leaning towards a connection in all these cases." Composite sketches were released of the black-haired Lauria–Valenti suspect and the blond Lomino–DeMasi suspect, and Conlon noted that police were looking for multiple suspects, not just one.


title: David Berkowitz

text: At about 7:30 p.m. on March 8, 1977, Columbia University student Virginia Voskerichian (19) was walking home from school when she was confronted by an armed man. She lived about a block from where Freund had been shot. In a desperate move to defend herself, Voskerichian lifted her textbooks between herself and her killer, but the makeshift shield was penetrated. The bullet struck her head and ultimately killed her.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In a March 10, 1977, press conference, NYPD officials and Mayor Abraham Beame declared that the same .44 Bulldog revolver had fired the shots that killed Lauria and Voskerichian. Official documents were later revealed, however, saying that while police strongly suspected that the same .44 Bulldog had been used in the shootings, the evidence was actually inconclusive.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The crimes were discussed by the local media virtually every day. Circulation increased dramatically for the "New York Post" and the "Daily News", tabloid newspapers with graphic crime reporting and commentary. Foreign media featured many of the reports as well, including front page articles of newspapers such as the Vatican's "L'Osservatore Romano", the Hebrew newspaper "Maariv", and the Soviet "Izvestia".


title: David Berkowitz

text: At about 3:00 a.m. on April 17, 1977, Alexander Esau (20), a tow truck operator, and Valentina Suriani (18), a Lehman College student and an aspiring actress and model, were sitting in a car belonging to Esau's brother on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road in the Bronx, about a block from Suriani's home and only a few blocks away from the scene of the Lauria–Valenti shooting. A resident of a nearby building heard four shots and called the police. Suriani, who was sitting on the driver's seat, was shot once and Esau twice, both in the head. Suriani died at the scene, and Esau died in the hospital several hours later without being able to describe his attacker(s).


title: David Berkowitz

text: Police said that the weapon used for the crime was the same as the one which they had suspected in the earlier shootings. In 1993, Berkowitz confirmed that he was behind the shooting.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Police discovered a handwritten letter near the bodies of Esau and Suriani, written mostly in block capitals with a few lower-case letters, and addressed to NYPD Captain Joseph Borrelli. With this letter, Berkowitz identified himself as "Son of Sam" for the first time. The press had previously dubbed the killer "the .44 Caliber Killer" because of his weapon of choice. The letter was initially withheld from the public, but some of its contents were revealed to the press and the name "Son of Sam" quickly replaced the old name.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The letter expressed the killer's determination to continue his work, and taunted police for their fruitless efforts to capture him. In full, with misspellings intact, the letter read:


title: David Berkowitz

text: At the time, police speculated that the letter-writer might be familiar with Scottish English. The phrase "me hoot it urts sonny boy" was taken as a Scottish-accented version of "my "heart", it "hurts", sonny boy". The police also hypothesized that the shooter blamed a dark-haired nurse for his father's death due to the "too many heart attacks" phrase, and the facts that Lauria was a medical technician and Valenti was studying to be a nurse.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The killer's unusual attitude towards the police and the media received widespread scrutiny. Psychologists observed that many serial killers gain gratification by eluding pursuers and observers; the feeling of control over media, law enforcement, and even entire populations provides a source of social power for them. After consulting with several psychiatrists, police released a psychological profile of their suspect on May 26, 1977. He was described as "neurotic" who probably had paranoid schizophrenia, and believed himself to be a victim of demonic possession.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On May 30, 1977, "Daily News" columnist Jimmy Breslin received a handwritten letter from someone who claimed to be the .44 Caliber Killer. The letter was postmarked early that same day in Englewood, New Jersey. On the reverse of the envelope, neatly hand-printed in four precisely centered lines, were the words: "Blood and Family – Darkness and Death – Absolute Depravity – .44". The letter inside read:


title: David Berkowitz

text: Underneath the "Son of Sam" was a logo or sketch that combined several symbols. The writer's question, "What will you have for July 29?" was considered an ominous threat: July 29 would be the anniversary of the Lauria-Valenti shooting. Breslin notified police, who thought that the letter was probably from someone with knowledge of the shootings. The Breslin letter was sophisticated in its wording and presentation, especially when compared to the crudely written first letter, and police suspected that it might have been created in an art studio or similar professional location by someone with expertise in printing, calligraphy, or graphic design. The unusual writing caused the police to speculate that the killer was a comic-book letterer, and they asked staff members of DC Comics whether they recognized the lettering. The "Wicked King Wicker" reference caused police to arrange a private screening of "The Wicker Man", a 1973 horror movie.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The "Daily News" published the letter a week later (after agreeing with police to withhold portions of the text) and Breslin urged the killer to surrender. The dramatic article made that day's paper the highest-selling edition of the "Daily News" to date—more than 1.1 million copies were sold. Police received thousands of tips based on references in the publicized portions of the letter, all of which proved useless. As all of the shooting victims to date had long dark hair, thousands of women in New York City acquired short cuts or brightly colored dyes and beauty supply stores had trouble meeting the demand for wigs.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On June 26, 1977, Salvatore Lupo (20), a mechanic's helper, and Judy Placido (17), a recent high school graduate, had left the Elephas discotheque in Bayside, Queens, and were sitting in Lupo's parked car at about 3:00 a.m. when three gunshots blasted through the vehicle. Lupo was wounded in the right forearm, while Placido was shot in the right temple, shoulder, and back of the neck; both victims survived their injuries. Lupo told police that they had been discussing the Son of Sam case only moments before the shooting.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Neither Lupo nor Placido had seen their attacker, but two witnesses reported a tall, dark-haired man in a leisure suit fleeing from the area; one claimed to see him leave in a car and even supplied a partial license plate number.


title: David Berkowitz

text: With the first anniversary of the initial .44 caliber shootings approaching, police established a sizable dragnet that emphasized past hunting grounds in Queens and the Bronx. However, the next and final .44 shooting occurred in Brooklyn.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Early on July 31, 1977, secretary Stacy Moskowitz and clothing salesman Robert Violante, both 20, were sitting in Violante's car, which was parked under a streetlight near a city park in Bath Beach, on their first date. They were kissing when a man approached within three feet (90 cm) of the passenger side of the car and fired four rounds, striking both victims in the head before he escaped into the park. Violante lost his left eye; Moskowitz, the only blonde victim of Berkowitz, died from her injuries.


title: David Berkowitz

text: That night, Detective John Falotico was awakened at home and told to report to the 10th Homicide Division at the 60th Precinct station house in Coney Island. He was given two weeks to work on the Moskowitz and Violante case as a normal murder investigation—if it could not be solved in that timeframe, it was to be given to the Son of Sam task force.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Local resident Cacilia Davis was walking her dog at the scene of the Moskowitz-Violante shooting when she saw patrol officer Michael Cataneo ticketing a car that was parked near a fire hydrant. Moments after the traffic police had left, a young man walked past her from the area of the car and seemed to study her with some interest. Davis felt concerned because he was wielding in his hand some kind of "dark object". She ran to her home only to hear shots fired behind her in the street. Davis remained silent about this experience for four days until she finally contacted police, who closely checked every car that had been ticketed in the area that night. Berkowitz's yellow 1970 Ford Galaxie was among the cars that they investigated.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On August 9, 1977, NYPD detective James Justis telephoned the Yonkers Police Department to ask them to schedule an interview with Berkowitz. The Yonkers police dispatcher who first took Justis' call was Wheat Carr, the daughter of Sam Carr and sister of Berkowitz's alleged cult confederates John and Michael Carr. As soon as Justis mentioned Berkowitz' name to Wheat, she said, "Let me tell you about him. I know him. He lives right behind me." She also informed Justis that Berkowitz had shot and wounded their black Labrador Retriever, Harvey, and that was her father's, Sam's dog. When Justis heard "Sam", he had a very good feeling that Berkowitz was their suspect.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Justis asked Yonkers police for some help tracking down Berkowitz. According to Mike Novotny, a Yonkers police sergeant, the department had their own suspicions about Berkowitz in connection with strange crimes in their jurisdiction which were referred to in one of the Son of Sam letters. Yonkers investigators even told Justis that Berkowitz might be the Son of Sam.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The following day, on August 10, 1977, police investigated Berkowitz' car, which was parked outside his apartment building at 35 Pine Street, Yonkers. They saw a gun in the back seat, searched the car, and found a duffel bag filled with ammunition, maps of the crime scenes, and a threatening letter addressed to Inspector Timothy Dowd of the Son of Sam task force. Police decided to wait for Berkowitz to leave the apartment rather than risk a violent confrontation in the building's narrow hallway; they also waited to obtain a search warrant for the apartment, worried that their search might be challenged in court. The initial search of the vehicle was based on the handgun that was visible in the back seat, although possession of such a gun was legal in New York State and required no special permit. The warrant still had not arrived when Berkowitz exited the apartment building at about 10:00 p.m. and entered his car. Detective John Falotico approached the driver's side of the car and pointed his gun close to Berkowitz' temple, while Detective Sgt. William Gardella pointed his gun from the passenger's side.


title: David Berkowitz

text: A paper bag containing a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver of the type that was identified in ballistics tests was found next to Berkowitz in the car. Berkowitz then stated flatly, "Well, you got me." As described in "Son of Sam" (1981) by Lawrence D. Klausner, Falotico remembered the big, inexplicable smile on the man's face:


title: David Berkowitz

text: An alternate version claims that Berkowitz' first words were reported to be, "Well, you got me. How come it took you such a long time?" Falotico was officially credited by the NYPD as the arresting officer of the Son of Sam.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Police searched Berkowitz' apartment and found it in disarray, with Satanic graffiti on the walls. They also found diaries that he had kept since he was aged 21—three stenographer's notebooks nearly all-full wherein Berkowitz meticulously noted hundreds of arsons that he claimed to have set throughout New York City. Some sources speculate that this number might be over 1,400.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Soon after Berkowitz' arrest, the address of the apartment building was changed from 35 Pine Street to 42 Pine Street in an attempt to end its notoriety. Berkowitz was briefly held in a Yonkers police station before being transported directly to the 60th Precinct in Coney Island, where the Son of Sam task force was located. At about 1:00 a.m., Mayor Beame arrived to see the suspect personally. After a brief and wordless encounter, he announced to the media: "The people of the City of New York can rest easy because of the fact that the police have captured a man whom they believe to be the Son of Sam."


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz was interrogated for about thirty minutes in the early morning of August 11, 1977. He quickly confessed to the shootings and expressed an interest in pleading guilty. The investigation was led by John Keenan, who took the confession.


title: David Berkowitz

text: During questioning, Berkowitz claimed that his neighbor's dog was one of the reasons that he killed, stating that the dog demanded the blood of pretty young girls. He said that the "Sam" mentioned in the first letter was his former neighbor Sam Carr, and that Harvey, Carr's black Labrador, was possessed by an ancient demon which issued irresistible commands that Berkowitz kill people.


title: David Berkowitz

text: A few weeks after his capture, Berkowitz was permitted to communicate with the press. In a letter to the "New York Post" dated September 19, 1977, he alluded to his original story of demonic possession, but closed with a warning that has been interpreted by some investigators as an admission of criminal accomplices: "There are other Sons out there, God help the world." At a press conference in February 1979, however, Berkowitz declared that his previous claims of demonic possession were a hoax. Berkowitz later stated in a series of meetings with his special court-appointed psychiatrist David Abrahamsen that he had long contemplated murder to get revenge on a world that he felt had rejected and hurt him.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Three separate mental health examinations determined that Berkowitz was competent to stand trial. Despite this, defense lawyers advised Berkowitz to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but he refused. Berkowitz appeared calm in court on May 8, 1978, as he pleaded guilty to all of the shootings.


title: David Berkowitz

text: At his sentencing two weeks later, Berkowitz caused an uproar when he attempted to jump out of a window of the seventh-floor courtroom. After he was restrained, he repeatedly chanted, "Stacy [his last victim] was a whore" and shouted, "I'd kill her again! I'd kill them all again!" The court ordered another psychiatric examination before sentencing could proceed. During the evaluation, Berkowitz drew a sketch of a jailed man surrounded by numerous walls; at the bottom he wrote, "I am not well. Not well at all". Nonetheless, Berkowitz was again found competent to stand trial.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On June 12, 1978, Berkowitz was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison for each murder, to be served consecutively. He was ordered to serve time in Attica Correctional Facility, a supermax prison in upstate New York. Despite prosecutors' objections, the terms of Berkowitz's guilty plea made him eligible for parole in 25 years.


title: David Berkowitz

text: After his arrest, Berkowitz was initially confined to a psychiatric ward in Kings County Hospital, where the staff reported that he seemed remarkably troubled by his new environment.


title: David Berkowitz

text: On the day after his sentencing, he was taken first to Sing Sing prison, then to the upstate Clinton Correctional Facility for psychiatric and physical examinations. Two more months were spent at the Central New York Psychiatric Center in Marcy before his admission to Attica prison. Berkowitz served about a decade in Attica until he was relocated () to Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, where he remained for many years. Later, he was transferred to Shawangunk Correctional Facility in Ulster County. Berkowitz described his life in Attica Correctional Facility as a "nightmare".


title: David Berkowitz

text: In 1979, there was an attempt on Berkowitz' life in which the left side of his neck was slashed from front to back, resulting in a wound that required more than fifty stitches to close. Berkowitz refused to identify his assailant, and he claimed only that he was grateful for the attack: It brought a sense of justice or, in Berkowitz' own words, "the punishment I deserve".


title: David Berkowitz

text: In 1987, Berkowitz became an evangelical Christian in prison. According to his personal testimony, his moment of conversion occurred after reading Psalm 34:6 from a Bible given to him by a fellow inmate. He says he is no longer to be referred to as the "Son of Sam" but the "Son of Hope."


title: David Berkowitz

text: Soon after his imprisonment, Berkowitz invited Malachi Martin, an exorcist, to help him compose an autobiography, but the offer was not accepted. During later years, Berkowitz developed his memoirs with assistance from fellow evangelicals. His statements were released as a 1998 interview video, "Son of Hope", with a more extensive work released in book form, entitled "Son of Hope: The Prison Journals of David Berkowitz" (2006). Berkowitz does not receive any royalties or profit from any sales of his works. He has continued to write essays on faith and repentance for evangelical websites.


title: David Berkowitz

text: A website is maintained on Berkowitz' behalf by a church group, since he is not allowed access to a computer. Berkowitz stays involved with prison ministry, and regularly counsels troubled inmates. While in the Sullivan facility, he pursued education and graduated with honors from Sullivan Community College.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz is entitled to a parole hearing every two years as mandated by state law, though he has consistently refused to ask for his release, sometimes skipping the hearings altogether. Before his first parole hearing in 2002, Berkowitz sent a letter to New York Governor George Pataki demanding that it be canceled. He wrote, "In all honesty, I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life. I have, with God's help, long ago come to terms with my situation and I have accepted my punishment." Officials at the Sullivan facility rejected his demand.


title: David Berkowitz

text: At his 2016 hearing at Shawangunk, New York, Berkowitz stated that while parole was "unrealistic", he felt he had improved himself behind bars, adding: "I feel I am no risk, whatsoever." His lawyer, Mark Heller, noted that prison staff considered Berkowitz to be a "model prisoner." Commissioners denied a parole. His most recent parole hearing, scheduled for May 2020, was indefinitely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In 2002, during the D.C. sniper attacks, Berkowitz wrote a letter telling the sniper to "stop hurting innocent people." He made his comments in a three-page letter to Fox News personality Rita Cosby after she wrote to him seeking his comment on the sniper attacks.


title: David Berkowitz

text: During June 2005, Berkowitz sued one of his previous lawyers for the misappropriation of a large number of letters, photographs, and other personal possessions. Hugo Harmatz, a New Jersey attorney, had represented Berkowitz in an earlier legal effort to prevent the "National Enquirer" from buying one of his letters. Harmatz then self-published his own collection of letters and memorabilia—"Dear David" (2005)—which he had obtained from Berkowitz during their consultations. Berkowitz stated that he would drop the lawsuit only if the attorney signed over all the money he made to the victims' families. In October 2006, Berkowitz and Harmatz settled out of court, with Harmatz agreeing to return the disputed items and to donate part of his book profits to the New York State Crime Victims Board.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In 1979, Berkowitz mailed a book about witchcraft to police in North Dakota. He had underlined several passages and written a few marginal notes, including the phrase: "Arliss Perry, Hunted, Stalked and Slain. Followed to Calif. Stanford University." The reference was to Arlis Perry, a 19-year-old North Dakota newlywed who had been murdered at Stanford on October 12, 1974. Her death, and the notorious abuse of her corpse in a chapel on campus, was a widely reported case. Berkowitz mentioned the Perry attack in other letters, suggesting that he knew details of it from the perpetrator himself. Local police investigators interviewed him but by 2004 had concluded he had "nothing of value to offer." The Perry case was solved in 2018.


title: David Berkowitz

text: After his admission to Sullivan prison, Berkowitz began to claim that he had joined a Satanic cult in the spring of 1975. In 1993, he made these claims known when he announced to the press that he had killed only three of the Son of Sam victims: Lauria, Esau, and Suriani. In his revised version of the events, Berkowitz said that other shooters were involved and that he fired the gun only in the first attack (Lauria and Valenti) and the sixth (Esau and Suriani). He said that he and several other cult members were involved in every incident by planning the events, providing early surveillance of the victims, and acting as lookouts and drivers at the crime scenes. Berkowitz stated that he could not divulge the names of most of his accomplices without putting his family directly at risk.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Among Berkowitz' alleged unnamed associates was a female cult member who he claims fired the gun at Denaro and Keenan; Berkowitz attributed their survival to the alleged accomplice's unfamiliarity with the powerful recoil of a .44 Bulldog. He declared that "at least five" cult members were at the scene of the Freund–Diel shooting, but the actual shooter was a prominent cult associate who had been brought in from outside New York with an unspecified motive—a cult member whom he identified only by his nickname, "Manson II". Another unnamed person was the gunman in the Moskowitz–Violante case, a male cult member who had arrived from North Dakota for the occasion, also without explanation.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz did name two of the cult members: John and Michael Carr. The two men were sons of the dog-owner Sam Carr, and they lived on nearby Warburton Avenue. Both of these other "sons of Sam" were long dead: John Carr had been killed in a shooting judged a suicide in North Dakota during 1978, and Michael Carr had been in a fatal car accident in 1979. Berkowitz claimed that the perpetrator of the DeMasi–Lomino shooting was John, and he added that a Yonkers police officer, also a cult member, was involved in this crime. He claimed that Michael fired the shots at Lupo and Placido. Author Maurice Terry wrote that Michael was an active member of the Church of Scientology; at the time of Berkowitz' arrest, he had been in possession of a list of telephone numbers, including the number for the Fort Harrison Hotel, the church's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Journalist John Hockenberry asserted that, even apart from the Satanic cult claims, many officials doubted the single-shooter theory, writing,


title: David Berkowitz

text: John Santucci, the Queens district attorney at the time of the killings, and police investigator Mike Novotny both expressed their convictions that Berkowitz had accomplices. NYPD officer Richard Johnson, involved in the original investigation, opined that unresolved discrepancies in statements from witnesses and surviving victims indicate Berkowitz did not act alone:


title: David Berkowitz

text: Other contemporaries voiced their belief in the Satanic cult theory, including Donna Lauria's father. Berkowitz survivor Carl Denaro stated his opinion that "more than one person was involved" but admitted he could not prove the cult theory. His conclusion rests on his criticism of Berkowitz' statement to police as "totally false."


title: David Berkowitz

text: Diel's recollection is that he physically bumped into Berkowitz outside the Wine Gallery restaurant as he and Freund departed and walked to his car where the shooting occurred; Berkowitz, in contrast, told police that he passed within a few feet of Diel and Freund shortly before they entered the car. Diel contends he and Freund passed no one on their way to the car, and that the position of the car parked at the curb would have made it impossible for Berkowitz to have sneaked up on them in the few minutes between their encounter outside the restaurant and the shooting at the car; Diel thus reasons he was shot by someone other than Berkowitz.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Journalist Maury Terry published a series of investigative articles for Gannett newspapers in 1979 which challenged the official finding of a lone gunman in the Son of Sam case. Vigorously denied by police at the time, Terry's articles were widely read and discussed; they were later assembled in a book. Largely impelled by these reports of accomplices and Satanic cult activity, the Son of Sam case was reopened by Yonkers police during 1996, but no new charges were filed. Due to a lack of findings, the investigation was eventually suspended but remains open. In 2021, Terry's work served as the basis for the Netflix series "".


title: David Berkowitz

text: From prison, Berkowitz continued to assert and expand upon his claims of demonic possession. He stated in a series of nine videos in 2015 that the "voice" he heard was that of Samhain, a druid devil and the true origin of "Son of Sam." He added that it never was a dog, saying that detail was fabricated by the media.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Berkowitz' later claims were dismissed by many. Breslin rejected his story of Satanic cult accomplices, stating that "when they talked to David Berkowitz that night, he recalled everything step by step by step. The guy has 1,000 percent recall and that's it. He's the guy and there's nothing else to look at." Other skeptics included former FBI profiler John E. Douglas, who spent hours interviewing Berkowitz and concluded he was an "introverted loner, not capable of being involved in group activity." NYPD psychologist Dr. Harvey Schlossberg stated in "Against The Law", a documentary about the Son of Sam case, that he believes that the Satanic cult claims are nothing but a fantasy concocted by Berkowitz to absolve himself of the crimes. In his book "Hunting Humans" (2001), Elliott Leyton argued that "recent journalistic attempts to abridge—or even deny—Berkowitz's guilt have lacked all credibility."


title: David Berkowitz

text: Decades after his arrest, the name "Son of Sam" remains widely recognized as that of a notorious serial killer. Many manifestations in popular culture have helped perpetuate this notoriety, while Berkowitz himself continues to express remorse on Christian websites.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Neysa Moskowitz, who previously had not hidden her hatred of Berkowitz, wrote him a letter shortly before her own death in 2006, forgiving him for killing her daughter, Stacy. Moskowitz lost all her children at young ages (Jody, aged 9, in a possible suicide in 1968; Stacy; and Ricky, aged 37, in 1999 of scleroderma). She had no survivors except, according to the "New York Post", her daughter's murderer.


title: David Berkowitz

text: After rampant speculation about publishers offering Berkowitz large sums of money for his story, the New York State Legislature swiftly passed a new law that prevented convicted criminals (and their relatives) from making any financial profit from books, movies, or other enterprises related to the stories of their crimes. The United States Supreme Court struck down the so-called "Son of Sam law" for violating the First Amendment's right of free expression in the 1991 case of "Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board", but New York produced a constitutionally revised version of the law in the following year. Similar laws have since been enacted in 41 states and at the federal level.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Breslin, in collaboration with writer Dick Schaap, published a novelized account of the murders, ".44" (1978), less than a year after Berkowitz' arrest. The highly fictionalized plot recounts the exploits of a Berkowitz-based character dubbed "Bernard Rosenfeld." Outside of North America, the book was renamed "Son of Sam".


title: David Berkowitz

text: The 2016 young adult novel "Burn Baby Burn" by Meg Medina is set in New York during 1977, and depicts how fear of being one of the Son of Sam victims affected the daily lives of people.


title: David Berkowitz

text: The Spike Lee drama "Summer of Sam" was released in 1999, with actor Michael Badalucco in the role of Berkowitz. The film depicts the tensions that develop in a Bronx neighborhood during the shootings, and Berkowitz' part is largely symbolic. A minor character in the script, he functions "mostly as a berserk metaphor for Lee's view of the seventies as a period of amoral excess." Berkowitz was reported to be disturbed by what he called exploitation of "the ugliness of the past" in Lee's film.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Other movie portrayals of Berkowitz include Ulli Lommel's "Son of Sam" (2008; direct-to-video) and the CBS television movie "Out of the Darkness" (1985). The character of Son of Sam played a significant minor role in the miniseries "The Bronx Is Burning" (2007). Oliver Cooper portrayed him in the TV series "Mindhunter" (2019). In 2021, Netflix released documentary series "", going back to describing in detail the Satanic cult theory as well as Maury Terry's investigations into the case.


title: David Berkowitz

text: In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Diplomat's Club," Kramer uses the mailbag of David Berkowitz, owned by Newman, as collateral for a bet on airplane arrival times. In another Seinfeld episode, "The Frogger," Kramer proposes the name "Son of Dad" as a nickname for a new serial killer The Lopper, a reference to Berkowitz's nickname "Son of Sam." In the Seinfeld episode "The Junk Mail," Jerry's friend Frankie finds George in Jerry's van and says through the closed driver's side window, "Seinfeld's van!" George mistakes this for "Son of Sam!" and exclaims, "I knew it wasn't Berkowitz!"


title: David Berkowitz

text: In the episode "The Tell" of "Only Murders in the Building", several characters play a card game created for the television show called Son of Sam. This game is similar to the party game Mafia, where one player is assigned the role of a killer, in this case the Son of Sam, who eliminates other players over a series of rounds. Each round, the other players have the opportunity to try to guess who is the Son of Sam.


title: David Berkowitz

text: Son of Sam has been mistakenly associated with the contemporaneous song "Psycho Killer" (1977) by Talking Heads. Likewise, Elliott Smith has stated that his song "Son of Sam" is not literally about Berkowitz, a claim some have found hard to believe due to the song's lyrics. Compositions more directly inspired by the events include:


title: David Berkowitz

text: Todd Rundgren mentioned the Son of Sam on his song "Bag Lady" from his 1978 album "Hermit of Mink Hollow". Billy Joel mentioned these events in the opening line of his song "Close to the Borderline" on his 1980 album "Glass Houses". Guitarist Scott Putesky used the stage name "Daisy Berkowitz" while playing with Marilyn Manson in the 1990s, and the band's song "Son of Man" conspicuously describes Berkowitz. Several other rock musicians established a full ensemble named Son of Sam during 2000. Shinedown included a song named Son of Sam on their 2008 album The Sound of Madness. A cartoon composite of Berkowitz and the breakfast cereal icon Toucan Sam was featured in Green Jellÿ's comedy-rock video "Cereal Killer" (1992) by the name of "Toucan Son of Sam," but it was later removed under threat of a copyright lawsuit by the Kellogg Company.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walter Hartwell White Sr., also known by his drug-lord alias Heisenberg, is the main protagonist of the American crime drama television series "Breaking Bad", portrayed by Bryan Cranston.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walter was a skilled chemist and co-founder of a technology firm before he accepted a buy-out from his partners. Walt became a high-school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, and barely


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: making ends meet with his family with wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and son Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte). At the start of the series, the day after his 50th birthday, Walt is diagnosed with Stage III lung cancer. After this discovery, Walt resorts to manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to ensure his family's financial security after his death. Due to his chemistry training and production route, Walt's "blue meth" is purer than any other on the market, and he is pulled deeper into the illicit drug trade.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt becomes increasingly ruthless as the series progresses, and later adopts the alias "Heisenberg", which becomes recognizable as a kingpin figure in the Southwestern drug trade. Walt struggles with managing his family while hiding his involvement in the drug business from his brother-in-law and DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). Walt becomes less sympathetic throughout the show, as series creator Vince Gilligan wanted him to turn from "Mr. Chips into Scarface". Although AMC officials initially hesitated to cast Cranston due to his previous comedic role on "Malcolm in the Middle", Gilligan cast him based on the actor's past performance in "The X-Files" episode "Drive", which Gilligan wrote. Cranston contributed greatly to the creation of his character, including Walt's backstory, personality, and physical appearance.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: One of the most iconic characters in popular culture, Walter White has been listed among the greatest villains and fictional characters ever created. Both the character and Cranston's performance have received critical acclaim, with White frequently being mentioned as one of the greatest and most iconic television characters of all time. Cranston won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, three of them being consecutive. He is the first man to win a Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. Cranston reprised the role of Walt in a flashback for "Breaking Bad"s sequel film "", and again in the sixth and final season of the prequel series "Better Call Saul", making him one of the few characters to appear in all three, alongside Jesse Pinkman, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster), and Austin Ramey (Todd Terry).


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Inspired by Tony Soprano, "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan had wanted his lead character to be a protagonist that turned into an antagonist over the course of the show, or as he described, turning Mr. Chips into Scarface. Gilligan also said, in 2013, "Without Tony Soprano, there would be no Walter White." Gilligan needed to have this character come into a midlife crisis that would put him into seeking risky options and lead to more criminal activities. As the premise of "Breaking Bad" was based on a humorous idea that he and his fellow writer from "The X-Files", Thomas Schnauz had come up with of driving around in an RV making methamphetamine, Gilligan made Walter a chemistry teacher, one who, until the start of the show, would have never violated the law.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Gilligan cast Bryan Cranston for the role of Walter White based on having worked with him in "Drive", a sixth season episode of the science fiction television series "The X-Files", where Gilligan worked as a writer. Cranston played an anti-Semite with a terminal illness who took Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) hostage. Gilligan said the character had to be simultaneously loathsome and sympathetic, and that "Bryan alone was the only actor who could do that, who could pull off that trick. And it is a trick. I have no idea how he does it." AMC officials were initially reluctant with the casting choice, having known Cranston only as the over-the-top character Hal on the comedy series "Malcolm in the Middle" and approached actors John Cusack and Matthew Broderick about the role. When both actors declined, the executives were persuaded to cast Cranston after seeing the "X-Files" episode.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Cranston contributed a great deal to the character's persona. When Gilligan left much of Walter's past unexplained during the development of the series, the actor wrote his own backstory for the character. At the start of the show, Cranston gained 10 pounds to presage the character's gradual physical deterioration. He had the natural red highlights of his hair dyed brown. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to create a mustache he described as "impotent" and like a "dead caterpillar". Cranston also repeatedly identified elements in scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and would go so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode's screenwriter(s). Cranston has said he was inspired partially by his father for how Walt carries himself physically, which he described as "a little hunched over, never erect, [as if] the weight of the world is on this man's shoulders".


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Gilligan has said it has been difficult to write for Walter White because the character is so dark and morally questionable. As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of "Breaking Bad" made Walt increasingly unsympathetic. Cranston said by the fourth season: "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on his way to badass." Regarding White's fate in the series ending, Cranston foresaw it as "ugly [with no] redemption", although earlier, Gilligan divulged his plans to "end on a high note, in a way that will satisfy everyone".


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: When Walter White was six years old, his father died of Huntington's disease. He studied chemistry at California Institute of Technology and, after graduate school, worked as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory. There he conducted research on proton radiography, that helped a team win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985. Using some of the prize money, Walt then founded the firm Gray Matter Technologies with Elliott Schwartz (Adam Godley), his former classmate and close friend. Around this time, Walt dated his lab assistant, Gretchen Schwartz (Jessica Hecht). He left both Gretchen and Gray Matter Technologies, selling his financial interest in the company for $5,000. Gretchen and Elliott later married and made a fortune, much of it from Walt's research. Though they remain friendly, Walt secretly resents both Gretchen and Elliott for profiting from his work.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: At the age of 50, Walt works as a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico, providing instruction to uninterested and disrespectful students. Walt also has another job at a local car wash to supplement his income, which proves to be particularly humiliating when he has to clean the cars of his own students. Walt and his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) have a teenage son named Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy. Skyler is also pregnant with their second child, Holly, who is born at the end of season two. Walt's other family includes Skyler's sister, Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt); her husband, Hank (Dean Norris), who is a DEA agent; and his mother, who is never seen.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: The following appearances are based on the chronological narrative in "Breaking Bad". Scenes from "Better Call Saul" fit into this chronology and are denoted appropriately.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: On his 50th birthday, during his surprise party, Walt watches a news report about Hank arresting methamphetamine dealers. Walt is impressed by the monetary returns from the meth operation, and Hank offers to take him as a ride-along to a DEA bust. The next day, Walt faints at the car wash and is taken to a hospital; there, he is told he has inoperable lung cancer and will likely die within the next two years. During the ride-along, Hank busts a crystal meth lab, taking cook Emilio Koyama (John Koyama) into custody. Walt sees Emilio's partner fleeing the scene, and realizes it is one of his former students, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Looking to secure his family's well-being by producing and selling meth, Walt tracks Jesse down and blackmails him into selling the meth that Walt will cook. Walt gives Jesse his life savings to buy an RV that they can use as a rolling meth lab.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After their first cook in the RV, Jesse brings a sample of the extremely pure meth to distributor Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina (Max Arciniega) and then brings Krazy-8 and the now-released Emilio to see the cook site. Emilio recognizes Walt as accompanying the DEA during the bust and believes he is an informant. Krazy-8 forces Walt to show them how he cooked such pure meth or risk being killed. Walt pretends to start a cook but instead produces toxic phosphine gas which kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8. Walt and Jesse secure Krazy-8 to a structural post in Jesse's basement with a U-lock around his neck, and Walt struggles with the decision on whether to kill him. After Krazy-8 promises not to retaliate, Walt starts to unlock the lock to let Krazy-8 go but sees him reach for a broken piece of plate to stab Walt with as soon as he is freed. Walt panics and garrotes him to death with the lock. The experience shakes Walt, and he tells Jesse he will not cook meth anymore.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt eventually tells his family about his cancer diagnosis, and they urge him to undergo expensive chemotherapy. He initially does not want to go through the treatment, fearing that his family will remember him as a burden and a helpless invalid, much as he remembers his own father. Later he reluctantly agrees to undergo treatment but refuses Gretchen and Elliott's offer to pay for it, choosing to re-enter the drug trade with Jesse. He shaves his head to hide his chemotherapy-induced hair loss.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Dissatisfied with Jesse's slow pace of selling the meth, Walt pushes him to sell it in bulk to local drug lord Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz), who has taken over Krazy-8's former territory. Discovering that Tuco stole the meth and savagely beat Jesse, Walt visits Tuco's lair with another bag of crystals, claiming to be "Heisenberg" (a reference to the theoretical physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg). After Tuco mocks Jesse, refuses to pay for the bag, and implies that Walt will suffer the same fate as Jesse, Walt blows up part of the lair; the bag contained fulminated mercury, not meth. Impressed by the boldness of "Heisenberg", Tuco reluctantly agrees to pay for his meth upon delivery in the future.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt revels in his success and adopts the Heisenberg alias in his business dealings going forward. In order to make larger batches of meth to take advantage of their new arrangement with Tuco, Walt and Jesse switch from using pseudoephedrine to methylamine as a precursor. This tints their meth blue, which becomes a signature of Walt's product. The pair begin to fear for their lives when, after testing the purity of the meth they delivered by snorting some of it, Tuco senselessly beats to death one of his own men, No-Doze (Cesar Garcia).


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt's "blue meth" becomes incredibly popular, to the point that Hank takes notice and raids Tuco's operation. A paranoid Tuco evades the bust, carjacks Jesse, and kidnaps Walt. He brings them to an isolated house in the desert, planning to take them deep into Mexico where they would be forced to cook their blue meth for the cartel. After a failed attempt to poison Tuco, they manage to escape on foot. Hank, who had been searching for Jesse, spots his car at the house and kills Tuco in a gunfight. Walt is arrested when he takes off all his clothes in a grocery store. He explains his disappearance by claiming that he had gone into a fugue state as a result of his cancer medication and simply wandered off.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt finds out that his cancer is in remission, and plans to leave the meth business again after selling the final 38 lb (17 kg) of meth. He hires unscrupulous criminal attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) to cover his involvement in the drug trade and launder his drug money. The "Better Call Saul" episode "Breaking Bad" expands on Walt and Saul's first meeting where Saul quickly deduces Walt is Heisenberg and urges Walt to seek higher goals with his meth business. Saul also has his cleaner, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), investigate Walt's background, and despite Mike's cautions, Saul continues to support Walt.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Seeing they need a new distributor to sell the large quantity of product they have remaining, Saul arranges a meeting at a local restaurant with a mysterious meth kingpin. Jesse shows up for the meeting high on heroin, and leaves when the kingpin does not show. Walt realizes that the restaurant owner, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) was the man they were supposed to meet. Under questioning by Walt, Gus explains that he was observing the pair, and refuses to work with them because Jesse is a drug addict. However, a few days later he gives Walt a chance to prove himself by delivering all the meth to a truck stop within an hour. Walt breaks into Jesse's apartment where the meth is stored and finds him passed out with his girlfriend Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter). Walt finds the meth and makes the delivery on time, but misses the birth of his daughter. Jane blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his share of their drug money after Walt initially refused due to Jesse's drug use.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After talking to a stranger at a bar about family – not knowing that the man is Jane's father Donald (John de Lancie) – Walt again breaks into Jesse's apartment to find the lovers passed out in a heroin stupor. Walt attempts to wake Jesse and inadvertently pushes Jane on her back; she subsequently vomits and begins to choke. Walt does nothing to help her and watches her die. Walt has Mike clear any connection Jesse has to Jane's death, and convinces Jesse to enter rehab.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt undergoes an operation to remove the remaining cancerous growth. Walt's anesthesia-induced references to a "second cell phone" – the one he uses to deal drugs – makes Skyler suspicious, leading her to uncover many of his lies and leave with their children. Just after her departure, two passenger planes collide directly above Walt's house; the accident was caused by Donald, who works as an air traffic controller and was so overcome with grief that he was not paying attention to his work. Walt watches the accident in horror, unaware that he is indirectly responsible for it.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt decides to get out of the meth business, refusing Gus' offer to produce meth in a state-of-the-art laboratory hidden under an industrial laundry for a million dollars a month. Now separated from Skyler and living in an apartment, Walt admits to her that he has been financing his treatment by cooking meth. Horrified, Skyler asks for a divorce in return for her silence and demands that Walt have nothing to do with their children.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After he discovers Jesse is cooking and selling his own version of the blue meth, Walt agrees to cook his meth for Gus. He is assisted by accomplished chemist Gale Boetticher (David Costabile) and the business begins running smoothly. Jesse continues to cook his own version of the blue meth, with Skinny Pete and Badger as his distributors, but this leads to Hank nearly catching Jesse and Walt while following a lead on an RV he believed was being used to cook meth. To avoid being discovered hiding in the RV, Walt and Jesse, aided by Saul, place a phone call to distract Hank, making him believe his wife Marie has suffered a car accident. Hank decides to leave the pursuit of the RV only to find out that Marie is fine, allowing Walt and Jesse to dispose of the vehicle. This enrages Hank enough to badly beat up Jesse at his house and send him to the hospital. Walter apologizes to Jesse for Hank’s beating while Jesse is planning to sue Hank. Walt advises him to leave the meth business for good, but Jesse tells Walt that he’ll continue to cook meth on his own. He also tells Walt that if he's caught, he would make a deal to give up Heisenberg. Fearing that any of this will derail Hank's career in law enforcement, Walt is forced to convince Gus to hire Jesse to replace Gale as his assistant, agreeing to share 50% of his earnings with Jesse. Jesse is reluctant to work with Walter again, stating that ever since they became associates, Jesse has felt more alone than ever. Walter tells Jesse that he is as good as him cooking meth. Jesse finally agrees to partner with Walt once more, to which Walt sighs in relief, even though this will cost him $1,500,000. Walter awkwardly fires Gale from the lab and gives Jesse the assistant’s job and tells Victor that the change is for the best. Victor reminds Walt that they have to meet the 200 pounds-a-week quota.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Assuming that Skyler will not turn him in to the police due to the harm it would cause to their son, Walt returns to his house. After a few attempts at bluffing him, Skyler comes to uneasily accept the situation and helps Walt launder his drug money, but refuses to have anything to do with him outside of business. The rift in their marriage worsens when Skyler sleeps with her boss, Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins). Walt attempts to get back at her by making a pass at the principal at his school, who puts him on indefinite suspension.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Tuco's cousins Marco and Leonel Salamanca (Luis and Daniel Moncada) seek revenge against those responsible for his death and find out Walt's identity from their uncle Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis). Believing that Walt betrayed Tuco, they go to his house and prepare to kill him with a silver axe. Gus discovers this, and to protect his investment in Walt, he convinces them to instead target Hank, who actually killed Tuco. Later, the cousins die in their attempt to take Hank's life but manage to temporarily paralyze him from the waist down. Skyler forces Walt into paying for Hank's care and creates a cover story about Walt counting cards at casinos to explain how he made his money.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt angers Gus by killing two of Gus' dealers in an attempt to protect Jesse, who had been planning to kill them himself for their murder of a child gang member. Gus responds by putting a hit on Jesse and re-hiring Gale as Walt's assistant, with the intention of replacing Walt as soon as possible. Walt plots to kill Gale to avoid becoming disposable, but Gus' henchman Victor lures Walt to the laundry facility, where Mike is waiting to kill him. Walt frantically calls Jesse and tells him that he is about to be killed and Jesse will have to take out Gale himself. Victor rushes to Gale's house but finds him shot dead.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: In the aftermath of Gale's murder, Mike holds Walt at the lab to await Gus' arrival. Victor arrives with Jesse and proceeds to start the cooking process himself to show Gus that Walt and Jesse are not indispensable. Gus, however, kills Victor in front of Mike, Walt, and Jesse in a gruesome show of force. The tension of working under tighter security creates a rift between Walt and Jesse, and Gus uses the opportunity to bring Jesse to his side by having Mike train him. Walt deduces that Gus plans to eventually kill him and replace him with Jesse. He gives Jesse homemade ricin with which to poison Gus, but Jesse never goes through with it. Walt shows up at Jesse's house and tries to convince him to betray Gus, but Jesse refuses and tells Walt they are finished.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Meanwhile, Skyler buys the car wash where Walt used to work and uses it to launder his drug money. Evidence from Gale's murder leads Hank to suspect that Gus is involved in the blue meth business. With the DEA skeptical and Hank being unable to drive due to his condition, he enlists Walt's help in the investigation as a driver and tracker. Walt attempts to sabotage the investigation, but Gus blames him for drawing the attention of the authorities.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Gus rids himself of the Mexican cartel's influence in the area with the help of Mike and Jesse. He then fires Walt and threatens to kill Walt's entire family if he causes any more trouble. Walt tries to use one of Saul's connections to get him and his family relocated but finds that Skyler has used most of his drug money to pay off Ted Beneke's IRS fines to avoid having their own lives investigated, causing Walt to yell out in frustration and fear before breaking down into a maniacal laughing fit. After arranging for Saul to report that Hank was being targeted for assassination again so that his family would be protected by the DEA, Walt resolves to kill Gus.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: When Brock, the son of Jesse's new girlfriend Andrea, falls desperately ill with ricin-like symptoms, Jesse attacks Walt, believing that he poisoned him. Walt manages to convince Jesse that Gus is the one responsible. After an attempt to kill Gus with a car bomb fails, Walt discovers from Saul that Gus has been visiting Tuco's uncle Hector in his nursing home, to taunt him about the cartel's defeat and the end of the Salamanca family. Walt makes a deal with Hector to draw Gus in by setting up a meeting with the DEA. When Gus comes to the nursing home to kill Hector for turning informant, Hector detonates a pipe bomb Walt made, killing himself, Gus's henchman Tyrus Kitt, and Gus. Walt rescues Jesse, who had been kept as a prisoner in the lab, and together they destroy all the evidence and torch the lab.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After Brock recovers, Jesse learns that the boy had likely been poisoned by accidentally eating lily of the valley berries, not ricin. Walt responds that killing Gus was still the right thing to do. Walt calls Skyler to tell her they are safe and that he has "won", as the camera pans to a potted Lily of the Valley plant next to Walt's pool, indicating that Walt had in fact poisoned Brock to goad Jesse into action.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Mike intends to kill Walt in retaliation for Gus' death, but Jesse intervenes and convinces the two men to work together to eliminate their connection to the destroyed lab. The three eventually start a new meth production system with the help of a corrupt pest control company, using residents' homes to cook meth while they are fumigated, using methylamine provided by Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser), a representative for the conglomerate that owned Gus's chicken franchise. When her supply is discovered to be tracked by the police, she leaks them information on a train carrying the chemical so they can plan a robbery. The robbery is successful, but Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons), one of the pest control workers, kills a young boy who had seen them. Horrified, Jesse and Mike resolve to leave the business. A Phoenix drug lord named Declan offers to buy out the operation for $15 million in order to remove his competition. Walt convinces him to pay off Jesse and Mike and begin distributing Walt's meth instead.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Hank connects Mike to the blue meth and begins pressing several of his associates, who are now in prison, to give information on the blue meth operation. When Walt delivers Mike's share of Declan's payment, Mike refuses to reveal these prisoners' identities and insults Walt, blaming him for all the problems they've encountered; Walt shoots him dead in a fit of rage. Obtaining a list of the prisoners from Lydia, he enlists Todd's uncle Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), a criminal with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, to kill the nine men simultaneously at multiple prisons to prevent the DEA from realizing that they were being targeted until it was too late.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After a few months, Walt has earned more than $80 million from meth, and Skyler convinces him to stop. Walter leaves the meth business, and the kids return home. During a family barbecue, Hank finds a copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" in the bathroom, the same copy given to Walt by Gale; upon reading Gale's handwritten inscription referring to Walt as "the other W.W." Hank realizes that Walt is the drug lord he has been pursuing. Enraged, Hank accuses Walt of being Heisenberg, which a stunned Walt neither confirms nor denies. Walt says that his cancer is back and he will likely be dead in six months, making an arrest pointless. He also tells Hank how 'He will never see the inside of a prison cell'. Hank says they can talk if Walt gives up his children, but Walt refuses and tells Hank to "tread lightly". Walt eventually forces Hank to remain silent by crafting a fake confessional videotape in which he states that Hank is Heisenberg.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt buries his money in seven barrels on the Tohajiilee Indian Reservation and convinces Jesse to go into a relocation program. While waiting to be picked up, Jesse figures out that Walt poisoned Brock. Hank approaches Jesse and offers to help bring down Walt. With Hank's help, Jesse lures Walt into a trap by claiming to have found his money. Walt makes arrangements with Jack and his men to kill Jesse, in exchange for promising to help teach Todd how to cook meth. When Walt realizes Jesse is with Hank, he tries to call off the deal to protect Hank but is subdued by Hank and his DEA partner Steven Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada). Just then, Jack and his men arrive and fire on the group, killing Gomez and wounding Hank; Jack then executes Hank, despite Walt pleading for his brother-in-law's life. Jack's men take all but one barrel of Walt's money and abduct Jesse; as Jesse is taken away, Walt spitefully tells him that he watched Jane die.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt tries to persuade Skyler and Walter Jr. to go on the run with him, but they refuse. He kidnaps Holly, but has a moment of conscience and leaves her to be found and returned. He calls Skyler, knowing that the police are listening in, and berates her for failing to follow his orders, as a way of clearing her of involvement in his crimes. Walt then goes into hiding, along with Saul, waiting for Ed the disappearer to set up a new identity for Walt. A scene in the final "Better Call Saul" episode "Saul Gone" shows Walt accusing Saul of always being a con artist and having no trust in him anymore. Eventually, Ed helps to set up Walt to live in isolation in New Hampshire.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: After several months alone, Walt goes to a local bar, where he calls Walter Jr. and tries to give him money. Walter Jr. angrily rejects the gesture, however, and hangs up. Feeling hopeless, Walt calls the DEA and gives himself up. As he waits for them, however, he sees Gretchen and Elliott on "Charlie Rose" downplaying his contributions to Gray Matter and resolves to return to Albuquerque to put things right.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: When Walter arrives in Albuquerque – on his 52nd birthday – he confronts Gretchen and Elliott at their home and coerces them into putting his remaining money into a trust fund for Walter Jr. He then visits Skyler and provides her with the location of Hank and Steve's unmarked grave which he suggests she use to barter for a deal with the prosecutor, and finally admits to her that he entered the meth business for himself, not his family. As a token of appreciation, Skyler lets him see his daughter, Holly, one last time. He then arranges to see Lydia, surreptitiously poisoning her drink with ricin after learning where Jack has taken Jesse. Walt drives to Jack's compound and demands to see Jesse. When they bring Jesse, who has been chained up in a lab and forced to cook meth since his abduction, Walt dives atop him and knocks them both to the ground. Now out of range, he activates a remote machine gun mounted in his car that injures Jack and kills all of his men except for Todd. Jesse strangles Todd with a chain, killing him. Noticing Jack is still alive, Walt picks up a pistol and aims it at him. Jack pleads with Walt to let him live, offering him extremely large amounts of money. Jack's pleas fall on deaf ears, and Walt executes him with a shot to the face. Walt then asks Jesse to kill him, but Jesse tells him to do it himself. Walt then finds that he has been wounded by a ricocheted bullet. He answers a call from Lydia on Todd's phone and coldly informs her that she is going to die as a result of the poisoned drink she consumed. He exchanges a knowing nod with Jesse, who escapes the compound. Walt calmly walks around Jack's lab and admires all the equipment that Jesse had been using. He notices on a dial that Jesse has cooked a perfect batch of his product, and smiles to himself. As the police arrive, Walt collapses to the floor and dies with a look of contentedness on his face, fulfilling his comment to Hank that he will never see the inside of a prison cell.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Cranston reprises his role in the movie "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie" in a flashback scene, taking place during the events of the episode "4 Days Out" from the show's second season. Walt and Jesse are sitting down at a buffet breakfast talking about how they are going to move a batch of recently cooked meth. Walt asks Jesse what he would like to study if he went to college and encourages Jesse to find a life outside of cooking meth in the future. He suggests that Jesse should study business and marketing, remarking that Jesse is a natural at it and that he "could practically teach the class" himself using his vast knowledge. Afterward, Walt tells Jesse: "You're really lucky, you know that? You didn't have to wait your whole life to do something special."


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: In the present, Jesse, Skinny Pete, and Badger see various news reports on the aftermath of Walt's massacre. In a news report Jesse listens to, Walt is confirmed to be dead with the same report mentioning an investigation of a Houston woman poisoned by Walt – presumably Lydia – who is in critical condition and not expected to survive.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Walt is briefly mentioned in passing by Saul Goodman (now going by the alias Gene Takavic) as he attempts to explain to Jeff how crazy his life had become and how much money he could get by getting into "the game".


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Francesca Liddy later tells Saul that Walt's death only made things worse for the surviving low-level players connected to his meth empire rather than better. As Walt had hoped, Skyler had succeeded in getting a deal with the federal prosecutors and the DEA was ultimately forced to release Huell Babineaux, leaving only Jesse and Saul left for them to go after. Although Jesse has successfully managed to escape to Alaska while tricking the public into thinking he fled to Mexico, the DEA has seized all of Saul's assets and is even following Francesca in an attempt to find him. Francesca admits that she doesn't know what's become of Patrick Kuby, another one of Walt's associates and she does not answer Saul's questions about Ira and Danny.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Saul is eventually discovered and taken by DEA agents. During their initial questioning, they bring in Marie, who is bitter at Saul for enabling Walter and leading to Hank's death. Saul shrewdly asserts he was also manipulated by Walt to goad the agent to start a plea bargain for a significantly reduced sentence until Saul learns that his involvement with Howard Hamlin's death was already given to them by Kim Wexler.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: The character development of Walter White, as well as Bryan Cranston's performance, has received universal acclaim, from both critics and audiences. Walter White is considered to be one of the greatest and most iconic characters in television history.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: From "TheGuardian.com", Paul MacInnes lauded Walter White's character as a whole, noting his quick transformation into becoming Heisenberg. From the same website, Rebecca Nicholson wrote about Walt's death, praising the fact that instead of facing the consequences, "Walter dies happy. He doesn't only get what he deserved; he gets what he wanted. It's the same for us viewers: we get the neatness and the uncertainty, which shows a Heisenberg level of mastery." In their list for the "Top 100 Villains", IGN ranked Walt as #12, stating that "Walter White is selfishness incarnate, and perhaps one of the greatest tragic figures to ever grace television, making his ultimate descent into villainy that much more compelling."


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: The web magazine "Grantland" quotes Andy Greenwald as analyzing Walter White differently from some others, including Vince Gilligan. Greenwald states:


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Similarly, Scott Meslow wrote in "The Atlantic" that Walt's capacity for villainy was present well before the series even began, and that cancer was only the catalyst, stating that "all the elements that have since turned him into a monster were already in place." "New York" magazine writer Emma Rosenblum said Bryan Cranston "pulls off the unassuming White with flawless subtlety: a waxy pallor, a slump of the shoulders, and a sense of doom that is palpable". "The Hollywood Reporter" writer Tim Goodman praised as courageous Vince Gilligan's decision to transform Walter White into an unsympathetic character: "You don't take your main character and make him unlikable. You just don't. Nobody does that. Nobody has ever really done that to this extent." Robert Bianco of "USA Today" called Walt "one of the greatest dramatic creations ever to grace our TV screens". In 2011, "The New York Times" named Cranston as one of the "eight actors who turn television into art". Following the show's conclusion, actor Anthony Hopkins wrote a fan letter to Cranston, in which he praised the show and called Cranston's performance as Walter White the best acting he had ever seen.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Cranston has received various awards and nominations for his performance as Walter White. For the first three seasons, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series thrice consecutively, becoming the first actor to accomplish this feat since Bill Cosby for "I Spy". Cranston was also nominated in 2012 and 2013 for season four and the first half of season five, but lost out to Damian Lewis for "Homeland" and Jeff Daniels for "The Newsroom", respectively. He also won his fourth Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: At the annual Golden Globe Awards, Cranston has been nominated for the Best Actor – Television Series Drama accolade on four occasions for his role in "Breaking Bad", in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, winning in 2014 for the second half of season five. At the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Cranston has been nominated for Male Actor in a Drama Series five times, in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, winning in 2013 and 2014, for both parts of season five. Additionally, Cranston has been nominated with the rest of the cast for Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, in 2012, 2013 and 2014, winning only in 2014.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: In addition, Cranston has won the Satellite Award for Best Actor: Drama Series three times consecutively, in 2008, 2009 and 2010, for seasons one, two and three, and has been nominated in 2011, 2012 and 2014 for seasons four and five. He won the TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2009, and was nominated in 2010, 2012 and 2013; was nominated twice for the Prism Award for Best Performance in a Drama Series Multi-Episode Storyline; won two Saturn Awards for Best Actor on Television in 2012 and 2013 (tying with Kevin Bacon for "The Following" on the latter occasion), and was nominated in 2009, 2010 and 2011; and won the Golden Nymph Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series in 2013.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Over time Walter White developed a cult following, spawning fan websites like "Heisenberg Labs", "Walt's Wardrobe", and "Save Walter White" (an exact replica of the website Walter White's son creates in the series to raise money to pay for his father's cancer treatments). In 2015, series creator Vince Gilligan publicly requested fans of the series to stop reenacting a scene in which Walt angrily throws a pizza on his roof after Skyler refuses to let him inside; this came after complaints from the home's real-life owner. Cranston reprised his role of the character in a commercial for Esurance which aired during Super Bowl XLIX, one week before the premiere of "Breaking Bad" spin-off "Better Call Saul". In December 2016, Bryan cameoed as White in an episode of Saturday Night Live in the cold open. The skit had White on a CNN broadcast where he is the front runner for Donald Trump’s cabinet nominee for the Drug Enforcement Administration. In the Spanish-language remake of "Breaking Bad", titled "Metástasis", his character is renamed Walter Blanco ("blanco" being the Spanish translation of "white") and is portrayed by Diego Trujillo.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Bronze statues of White and Jesse Pinkman were commissioned and donated by creator Vince Gilligan and Sony Television Pictures to the city of Albuquerque in July 2022, which will be housed in the Albuquerque Convention Center. They were made by former sculptor Trevor Grove.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: A "Breaking Bad" fan group placed a paid obituary for Walter White in the "Albuquerque Journal" on October 4, 2013. On October 19, 2013, actor Jackamoe Buzzell organized a mock funeral procession (including a hearse and a replica of Walt's meth lab RV) and service for the character was held at Albuquerque's Sunset Memorial Park cemetery. A headstone was placed with a photo of Cranston as Walt, located on an outside wall in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico. While some residents were unhappy with the makeshift grave-site for closure with the show, tickets for the event raised over $30,000 for a local charity called Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless.


title: Walter White (Breaking Bad)

text: Many fans of "Breaking Bad", including actor Norm Macdonald and "New Yorker" magazine writer Emily Nussbaum, proposed a theory, in which most of the series finale happened in Walt's mind, and he really died in the stolen Volvo in the beginning of it. While Nussbaum merely stated that it would be her preferred ending, Macdonald emphasized the seemingly unreal scenarios of Walt's final day, as well as what he deemed as unreliable acting. However, series creator Vince Gilligan debunked this theory, explaining that Walt could not possibly have known several things that happened, like Jesse being held in captivity by Jack's gang instead of being murdered by them, or that Todd had begun taking meetings with Lydia regarding the meth trade. This theory was further disproven with "Better Call Saul" following Saul’s story before and after "Breaking Bad" alongside "" following Jesse's story after the finale, in which White is confirmed to have died.


title: Socialism

text: Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the economic, political and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can be state/public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element. Different types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, on the structure of management in organizations, and from below or from above approaches, with some socialists favouring a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach. Socialists disagree on whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change.