title: Good Will Hunting

text: The musical score for "Good Will Hunting" was composed by Danny Elfman, who had previously collaborated with Gus Van Sant on "To Die For" and would go on to score many of the director's other films. The film also features many songs written and recorded by singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. His song "Miss Misery" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "My Heart Will Go On" from "Titanic". Elfman's score was also nominated for an Oscar, but lost to "Titanic" as well. On September 11, 2006, "The Today Show" used Elfman's song "Weepy Donuts" while Matt Lauer spoke during the opening credits.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: A soundtrack album for the film was released by Capitol Records on November 18, 1997, though only two of Elfman's cues appear on the release.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: "Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band was featured in the film, but did not appear on the soundtrack album.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: A limited edition soundtrack album featuring Elfman's complete score from the film was released by Music Box Records on March 3, 2014. The soundtrack, issued in 1500 copies, includes all of Elfman's cues (including music not featured on the rare Miramax Academy promo) and also contains the songs by Elliott Smith. One of the tracks is Smith's songs with Elfman's arrangements added into the mix.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: In an early version of the script, Will Hunting was going to be a physics prodigy, but Nobel Laureate in Physics Sheldon Glashow at Harvard told Damon that the subject should be math instead of physics. Glashow referred Damon to his brother-in-law, Daniel Kleitman, a mathematics professor at MIT. Columbia University's physics and math professor Brian Greene at the Tribeca Sloan retrospectively explained that for physics, "Having some deep insight about the universe [ . . . ] typically [ is ] a group project in the modern era," while "doing some mathematical theorem is a singular undertaking very often." In the spring of 1997, Damon and Affleck asked Kleitman to "speak math to us" for writing realistic dialogue, so Kleitman invited postdoc Tom Bohman to join him, giving them a "quick lecture". When asked for a problem that Will could solve, Kleitman and Bohman suggested the unsolved computer science P versus NP problem, but the movie used other problems.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Patrick O'Donnell, professor of physics at the University of Toronto, served as the mathematical consultant for the film.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: The main hallway blackboard is used twice to reveal Will Hunting's talent, first to the audience, second to Professor Lambeau. Matt Damon based it on his artist brother Kyle visiting MIT's Infinite Corridor and writing "an incredibly elaborate, totally fake, version of an equation" on a blackboard, which lasted for months. Kyle returned to Matt, saying that MIT needed those blackboards "because these kids are so smart they just need to, you know, drop everything and solve problems!"


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Near the start of the film, Will sets aside his mop to study a difficult problem posed by Lambeau on the blackboard. The problem has to do with intermediate-level graph theory, but Lambeau describes it as an advanced "Fourier system."


title: Good Will Hunting

text: To answer the second part, he determines the number of 3-step walks in the graph, and finds the third power matrix:


title: Good Will Hunting

text: The third and fourth parts of the question concern . The other characters are astounded that a janitor shows such facility with matrices.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Lambeau subsequently poses a new challenge on the blackboard: state Cayley's formula and "draw all the homeomorphically irreducible trees with formula_3." Will writes eight of the ten trees correctly before Lambeau interrupts.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: In the film's opening weekend in limited release, it earned $272,912. In its January 1998 wide-release opening weekend, it earned $10,261,471. It went on to gross $138,433,435 in North America and a total worldwide gross of $225,933,435.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: The film was met with highly positive reviews. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97% based on 87 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "It follows a predictable narrative arc, but "Good Will Hunting" adds enough quirks to the journey – and is loaded with enough powerful performances – that it remains an entertaining, emotionally rich drama." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four, writing that while the story is "predictable", it is "the individual moments, not the payoff, that make it so effective". Duane Byrge of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the performances of the cast, writing "The acting is brilliant overall, with special praise to Matt Damon for his ragingly tender portrayal of the boy cursed with genius". Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" was equally positive, writing "The glow goes well beyond a radiant performance by Matt Damon ... Intimate, heartfelt and wickedly funny, it's a movie whose impact lingers". Owen Gleiberman, writing for "Entertainment Weekly", gave the film a "B", stating ""Good Will Hunting" is stuffed – indeed, overstuffed – with heart, soul, audacity, and blarney. You may not believe a minute of it, but you don't necessarily want to stop watching". He also noted Damon's and Williams' chemistry, describing it as "a quicksilver intercepting each other's thoughts". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times", called the screenplay "smart and touching", and praised Van Sant for directing with "style, shrewdness and clarity". She also complimented the production design and cinematography, which were able to effortlessly move the viewer from "classroom to dorm room to neighborhood bar", in a small setting.


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Quentin Curtis of "The Daily Telegraph" opined Williams' performance brought "sharpness and tenderness", calling the film a "crowd-pleaser, with bags of charm to spare. It doesn't bear thinking too much about its message ... Damon and Affleck's writing has real wit and vigour, and some depth". Andrew O'Hehir of "Salon" stated that despite the "enjoyable characters", he thought the film was somewhat superficial, writing "there isn't a whole lot of movie to take home with you ... many will wake the next morning wondering why, with all that talent on hand, it amounts to so little in the end". Writing for the BBC, Nev Pierce gave the film four stars out of five, describing the film as "touching, without being sentimental", although he felt some scenes were "odd lapses into self-help speak". Emanuel Levy of "Variety" called the film a "beautifully realized tale ... engaging and often quite touching". He felt that the film's visual style showcased Van Sant's talent, but the plot was "quite predictable".


title: Good Will Hunting

text: Several scholars have examined the film as a portrayal of residual Catholic–Protestant tensions in Boston, as Irish Catholics from Southie are aligned against ostensibly Protestant characters who are affiliated with Harvard and MIT.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American television sitcom produced and broadcast by HBO since October 15, 2000, and created by Larry David, who stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself. It follows David's life as a semi-retired television writer and producer in Los Angeles, and for one season, New York City. Also starring are Cheryl Hines as his wife Cheryl, Jeff Garlin as his manager and best friend Jeff Greene, Susie Essman as Jeff's wife Susie, and J.B. Smoove as his roommate Leon Black. It often features celebrity guest stars, many of them playing fictionalized versions of themselves, including Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Wanda Sykes, Rosie O'Donnell, and Jon Hamm.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: As with "Seinfeld", which David co-created, the humor of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" often revolves around the minutiae of everyday social life. Each episode's plot and subplot is established in an outline written by David, and the dialogue is largely improvised by the actors, a technique known as retroscripting.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The series was developed from a 1999 one-hour special, "Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm", which David and HBO originally envisioned as a one-time project. It was shot as a mockumentary, where the characters were aware of the presence of cameras and a crew. The series, while not in documentary form, was shot in a somewhat similar cinéma vérité-like style.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" received high critical acclaim and has grown in popularity since its debut. It has been nominated for 47 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series for nine of its eleven seasons. It won the 2002 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. It aired for eight mostly consecutive seasons until 2011, and resumed with a ninth season in 2017. The tenth season aired in 2020 and the eleventh season in 2021. In August 2022, HBO renewed the series for a twelfth season.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Larry David has explained the show's name in TV interviews as reflecting his perception that many people seem to live their lives projecting false enthusiasm, which he believes is used to imply that "they are better than you". This conflicts with his dry style. The title also urges the audience not to expect too much from the show; at the time of the premiere, David wanted to lower expectations after his earlier success in the entertainment industry.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The series stars Larry David as a fictionalized version of himself. Like the real-life David, the character is well known as the co-creator and main co-writer of the highly successful sitcom "Seinfeld". Although Larry maintains an office, he is rarely shown working. Episodes frequently center on Larry's ignorance of or disregard for well-established social conventions and expectations, and his insistence that others adhere to rules of which only he seems to be aware. This social ineptitude, combined with his inability to let even the most minor grievance or annoyance go unexpressed, often leads him into awkward social situations and draws the ire of his friends, family, and total strangers. He is also routinely the victim of labyrinthine misunderstandings wherein people think he has done something immoral or disgusting.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: For most of the series, the Larry David character is living a married, child-free life in Los Angeles with his wife Cheryl (Cheryl Hines). David's main confidant on the show is his manager and friend Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin). Susie Essman plays Susie Greene, Jeff's short-tempered wife, who is frequently at odds with Larry. Many of the show's frequent guest stars are celebrities and public figures, who will usually play fictionalized versions of themselves. Among the more frequently recurring guest stars are Larry's longtime friend Richard Lewis as well as Ted Danson and his wife Mary Steenburgen.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The show is set and filmed in various affluent Westside communities of (and occasionally in downtown) Los Angeles, as well as in the adjacent cities of Beverly Hills, Culver City, and Santa Monica. David's hometown of New York City is featured throughout most of the episodes in season 8.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" premiered with an hour-long special on October 17, 1999, upon which the series was based. The first eight seasons of the series aired from 2000 to 2011. The series took a prolonged six-year hiatus, before returning for a ninth season in 2017, a tenth season in 2020, and an eleventh season in 2021.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The episodes are typically named after an event, object, or person that figures prominently in the plot, similarly to how "Seinfeld" episodes were titled. Unrelated events woven throughout a given episode are tied into an unforced climax that resolves the storylines simultaneously, either to Larry's advantage or detriment. While each episode has a distinct individual plot, most seasons feature a story arc that extends across several episodes and culminates in a finale that often features the return of many of the characters that appeared throughout the season.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Among the show's many recurring roles, Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, and Wanda Sykes play fictionalized versions of themselves as old friends of Larry with whom he frequently butts heads. Shelley Berman played Larry's father, Nat David. Bob Einstein frequently appeared as Marty Funkhouser, another of Larry's oldest friends. Kaitlin Olson recurred as Becky, Cheryl's sister. In seasons 6 and 7, Vivica A. Fox appears as Loretta Black, a member of the Black family, a family of hurricane evacuees who take refuge in Larry's house upon Cheryl's invitation. Loretta eventually becomes Larry's primary love interest for a time once he and Cheryl split up. Saverio Guerra plays Mocha Joe who first appeared in season 7 and returned as Larry's nemesis in season 10.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Celebrities, including actors, comedians, authors, musicians and athletes, often make guest appearances on the show, with a large portion of them playing themselves, or fictional versions thereof. Some of these guest stars who appear as fictionalized versions of themselves include Mary Steenburgen, Mel Brooks, Michael York, Martin Scorsese, Ben Stiller, Christian Slater, David Schwimmer, Rob Reiner, Rosie O'Donnell, Seth Rogen, Michael J. Fox, and the main cast of "Seinfeld" – Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards. Notable people who filled in fictional roles include Bryan Cranston, Bob Odenkirk, Wayne Federman, Gina Gershon, Elisabeth Shue, Vince Vaughn, Bobby Lee, Frank Whaley, Kaley Cuoco, Stephen Colbert, Bill Hader and Tracey Ullman.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has received critical acclaim, praised particularly for its writing and the actors' improvisational comedy. The show has enjoyed largely positive critical reception since its debut and has outgrown its early "cult" status.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: On Metacritic, the first season of the show scored 80 out of 100 (based on 20 reviews), 93 for season 3 (based on 12 reviews), 88 for season 4 (18 reviews), 91 for season 5 (five reviews), 89 for season 6 (nine reviews), 81 for season 7 (18 reviews), 86 for season 8 (six reviews), 74 for season 9 (10 reviews) and 78 for season 10 (5 reviews).


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: "Slate" named the characters of Cheryl David and Susie Greene as two of the best on television and as reasons to look forward to the return of the show in the fall of 2007. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has also received praise from "Galus Australis" magazine for being even more unabashedly Jewish than the "Seinfeld" series.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Of the show's depiction of Jewish characters, academic Vincent Brook stated, ""Curb"s commitment to Jewish identification greatly enhances its storytelling capacity, as it lends greater realism and dimension to the characters and opens the show up to episodes with meaningful Jewish themes."


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The character of Larry on the show is in many ways reminiscent of the "schlemiel" character often present in traditional Yiddish folklore. The "schlemiel" is usually a comic character whose actions lead to his inevitable downfall, but also stands as a form of resistance to social and cultural values and norms. David Gillota wrote:


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: In 2016, Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" ranked "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as the 19th greatest television series ever made.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: Journalist James Andrew Miller made the first chapter of his new podcast "Origins" about "Curb Your Enthusiasm". The chapter goes across five episodes and was released on September 6, 2017. It documents the genesis of the series, and uses conversations with people involved in the show.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The series has received 51 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning twice: Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series for Robert B. Weide for "Krazee-Eyez Killa" in 2003, and Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series for Steven Rasch for "Palestinian Chicken" in 2012. The series has received ten nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series. Larry David has received six nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Cheryl Hines has received two nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Shelley Berman and Michael J. Fox have each received a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. The series has also received ten nominations for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series. The ninth season received four nominations at the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Comedy Series, Larry David for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and Bryan Cranston and Lin-Manuel Miranda each for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. The tenth season was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, and the series received three further nominations in technical categories.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The series has also received five Golden Globe Award nominations (in 2003 and 2006) and won for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2003. Larry David has been nominated for three Golden Globes for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2003, 2005, and 2006. It has been nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards, two for Larry David and two for the ensemble cast. It has been nominated six times for the Producers Guild of America Award, winning twice in 2003 and 2005. It has been nominated for eleven Directors Guild of America Awards, winning twice for Bryan Gordon for "The Special Section" in 2003 and Robert B. Weide for "Palestinian Chicken" in 2012. It has been nominated five times for the Writers Guild of America Award, winning once in 2006.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: When aired in syndication, the series is edited from its original HBO broadcast (for running time and without the TV-MA scenes). On June 2, 2010, the series premiered on the TV Guide Network, making its basic cable debut. The network also recorded a series of related discussions with high-profile guest stars, media pundits, and prominent social figures called "Curb: The Discussion" debating the moral implications depicted in each episode. The show debuted in syndication on local stations and WGN America in September 2010, but was removed the following year due to low ratings. It debuted on TV Land in February 2013.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: A "Curb Your Enthusiasm" book was released October 19, 2006, published by Gotham Books. The book contains stories from Larry David's past, original interviews and commentary, episode outlines, episode guide, and over 100 full-color photographs. The contents of the book span the first five seasons of the show.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The show is punctuated between scenes with music orchestrated by Wendell Yuponce and from a music library company called Killer Tracks. Frequently heard are instrumental arrangements of the whimsical "Three Little Maids From School Are We" from "The Mikado", and the rhythmic Gypsy dance "Les tringles des sistres tintaient" from "Carmen". The opening and closing theme song (not mentioned in the credits) is "Frolic" by Italian composer . Larry David heard the music used in a bank commercial years before the show was created and thought it had a lighthearted, joyful quality. An unofficial soundtrack was released by Mellowdrama Records in 2006.


title: Curb Your Enthusiasm

text: The 2017 Netflix documentary film, "Long Shot", revealed that raw footage from the filming of an episode for the fourth season of the show at Dodger Stadium helped to inadvertently exonerate Juan Catalan, who was accused of murder and faced the death penalty, by giving him an alibi during the time the murder was committed.


title: Jim Jones

text: James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American preacher and political activist. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. Jones and the events which occurred at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults.


title: Jim Jones

text: As a child, Jones developed an affinity for Pentecostalism and a desire to preach. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God, attracting his first group of followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances with the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze, and their endorsement of his ministry. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. In 1956, Jones began to be influenced by Father Divine and the Peace Mission movement. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California. The group established its headquarters in San Francisco, where he became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, reports of abuse began to surface as Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting a form of communism he called "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which many turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.


title: Jim Jones

text: Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of the Jonestown commune in Guyana in 1974 and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, reports surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.


title: Jim Jones

text: James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties due to injuries which he sustained in a chemical weapons attack.


title: Jim Jones

text: His father's illness led to financial difficulties. In 1934, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes resorted to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.


title: Jim Jones

text: According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and as a result, she frequently neglected her son. When Jones started to attend school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother got a job, forcing her to work outside her home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood. Jones was left to be cared for by neighbors and relatives.


title: Jim Jones

text: Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the Nazarene Church's pastor, developed a special attachment to Jones. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it, teaching him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was baptized in several of them. Jones developed a desire to become a preacher as a child and he began to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services.


title: Jim Jones

text: Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends. Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard".


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.


title: Jim Jones

text: Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, Tim Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.


title: Jim Jones

text: In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He almost always carried his Bible with him. His religious views alienated him from other young people. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Indiana, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at that baseball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones's parents separated in 1945 and they eventually divorced. Jones moved to Richmond, Indiana with his mother, where he graduated from Richmond High School in December 1948. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones moved to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices was an early strain on their marriage. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings. Despite attending churches every week, Jones privately pressed his wife to accept atheism.


title: Jim Jones

text: After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis. Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities for their affiliation with the Communist Party during 1952. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended a communist meeting with her son. Jones became frustrated with the persecution of communists in the U.S. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."


title: Jim Jones

text: In early 1952, Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister, believing the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.


title: Jim Jones

text: In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, where he launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.


title: Jim Jones

text: Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana, where a woman prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the endorsement, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the crowd. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.


title: Jim Jones

text: Believing that the racially integrated and rapidly growing Latter Rain movement offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher, Jones successfully convinced his wife to leave the Methodist church and join the Pentecostals. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. Jones held healing revivals there until 1955 and began to travel and speak at other churches in the Latter Rain movement. He was a guest speaker at a 1953 convention in Detroit.


title: Jim Jones

text: The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave and establish Wings of Healing, a new church that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church attracted only twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones began to closely associate with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches which embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and they were also accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group and organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Branham.


title: Jim Jones

text: Branham was known to tell attendees their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.


title: Jim Jones

text: Many attendees believed Jones's performance indicated that he possessed a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of Peoples Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham in the second half of the 1950s. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. Through the conventions and with the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones secured connections throughout the Latter Rain movement.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones adopted one of the Latter Rain's key doctrines which he continued to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that individuals could become manifestations of God with supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation signaled the second coming of Christ, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of "Christ the Revolution".


title: Jim Jones

text: Branham was a major influence on Jones who subsequently adopted elements of Branham's methods, doctrines, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.


title: Jim Jones

text: Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader of the International Peace Mission movement who was often derided by Pentecostal ministers for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit to the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objective statement" about its activities to his fellow Pentecostal ministers.


title: Jim Jones

text: Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry. While publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones actually began to promote Divine's teachings on communal living and gradually implemented many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones made a second visit to Father Divine in 1958 to learn more about his practices. Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries. Jones began progressively implementing the disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he sought an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. Archie Ijames assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, and Jones was finally ordained by Disciples of Christ in 1964.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977. Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, and he used the position to secure new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he refused. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and the Urban League when he encouraged his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".


title: Jim Jones

text: During his time as commission director, Jones helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, and an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood, comforted the local black community and counseled white families not to move.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones set up sting operations in order to catch restaurants which refused to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders and passed their responses to the media. In 1961, Jones suffered a collapse and was hospitalized. The hospital accidentally placed Jones in its black ward, and he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures which resulted from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.


title: Jim Jones

text: In Indiana, Jones was criticized for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity which was generated by Jones's activities attracted a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children. Jones referred to his household as a "rainbow family", and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted their first child, Agnes, who was part Native American.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Stephanie Jones died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.


title: Jim Jones

text: In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James W. Jones Jr.). They adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1961, Jones warned his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. His wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones began to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an "Esquire" magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war. Jones decided to travel to South America to scout for a site to relocate Peoples Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones made a stop in Georgetown, Guyana on his way to Brazil. Jones held revival meetings in Guyana, which was an english-speaking British colony. Continuing to Brazil, Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in Belo Horizonte. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, but found language to be a barrier. Careful not to portray himself as a communist, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than Marxism. The family moved to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the "favelas".


title: Jim Jones

text: Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for Peoples Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana. During the year of his absence, regular attendance at Peoples Temple declined to less than 100. Jones demanded the Peoples Temple send all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts and the church went into debt to support his mission. In late 1963, Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones arrived in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and low attendance forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller building nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns with Latter Rain groups. Possibly to distract Peoples Temple members from the issues facing their group, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple must move to Northern California for safety.


title: Jim Jones

text: In California, Jones took a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones developed a theology influenced by the teachings of William Branham and the Latter Rain movement, Father Divine's "divine economic socialism" teachings, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his views as "Apostolic Socialism". Jones concealed the communist aspects of his teachings until the late 1960s, following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, where he began to gradually introduce his full beliefs to his followers.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism. Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites. Jones referred to traditional Christianity's view of God as a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Instead, Jones claimed to be God, and no God beside him.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:


title: Jim Jones

text: What you need to believe in is what you can see... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.


title: Jim Jones

text: Further attacking traditional Christianity, Jones authored and circulated a tract entitled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones rejected even the few required tenets of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as prescribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".


title: Jim Jones

text: Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon".


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones frequently warned his followers of an imminent apocalyptic nuclear race war. He claimed that Nazis and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones said he was a messiah sent to save people. He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.


title: Jim Jones

text: Publicly, Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle. While in the United States, Jones feared the public discovering the full extent of his communist views, which he worried would cost him the support of political leaders and risk Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service.


title: Jim Jones

text: Historians are divided over whether Jones actually believed his own teachings, or was just using them to manipulate people. Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion to enhance his authority over his followers." In a 1976 interview, Jones claimed to be an agnostic and/or an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 "New York Times" interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion. She said Jones called the Bible a "paper idol" that he wanted to destroy.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve his vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he did not genuinely believe in his own teachings, but was "morally bankrupt" and only manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He increasingly used fear to control and manipulate his followers. Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identity of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, and finally the American government. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injury would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. He constantly pressed his followers to be aggressive in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones established a Planning Commission made up of his lieutenants to direct the Peoples Temples' communal lifestyle. Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple turned over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members who worked outside of the Temple turned over their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects for additional income and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Large community outreach projects were organized, and Temple members were bussed to perform work and community service across the region.


title: Jim Jones

text: The first known cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church, and raped several male members of his congregation.


title: Jim Jones

text: Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created an armed security group to ensure order among his followers and to guarantee his own personal safety.


title: Jim Jones

text: By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive, especially to students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple opened branches in several cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.


title: Jim Jones

text: The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones became active in San Francisco politics and was able to gain contact with prominent local and state politicians. Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple played an instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones hosted local political figures at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Willie Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:


title: Jim Jones

text: Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.


title: Jim Jones

text: Through his connections with California politicians, Jones was able to establish contacts with key national political figures. Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: First Lady Rosalynn Carter met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones forged alliances with key columnists and others at the "San Francisco Chronicle" and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones had been performing faith healing "miracles" since his joint campaigns with William Branham. "On several occasions his healings were revealed as nothing but a hoax." In one incident, Jones drugged Temple member Irene Mason, and while she was unconscious, a cast was put on her arm. When she regained consciousness, she was told she had fallen and broken her arm and taken to the hospital. In a subsequent healing service, Jones removed her cast off in front of the congregation and told them she was healed. In other instances, Jones had someone from his inner circle enter the prayer line for healing of cancer. After being "healed" the person would pretend to cough up their tumor, which was actually a chicken gizzard.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones also pretended to have "special revelations" about individuals which revealed supposed hidden details of their lives.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones was fearful that his methods would be exposed by the investigation. In response, Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving ran a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the "San Francisco Examiner" in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed purported miracles as a hoax.


title: Jim Jones

text: In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with a group in Ukiah to investigate Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him. Case reported his findings to the local police, but they took no action.


title: Jim Jones

text: Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.


title: Jim Jones

text: On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. The court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.


title: Jim Jones

text: In the fall of 1973, Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan to escape from the United States in the event of a government raid, and they began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution, socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December, Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.


title: Jim Jones

text: In a newspaper interview, Jones indicated that he would rather settle his commune in a communist country like China or the Soviet Union, and was saddened about his inability to do so. Jones described Lenin and Stalin as his heroes, and saw the Soviet Union as an ideal society.


title: Jim Jones

text: By the summer of 1974, land and supplies were purchased in Guyana. Ijames was put in charge of the project and oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories to prepare for the first settlers. In December 1974, the first group arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones left Ijames to oversee Jonestown while he returned to the United States to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. He was largely unsuccessful and more stories of abuse in Peoples Temple were leaked to the public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in "New West" magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.


title: Jim Jones

text: The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Once they arrived in Jonestown, Jones prevented members from leaving the settlement.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Ijames warned Jones that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and determined to move immediately. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more followed in the subsequent months. Jones began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time. Despite the negative press prior to his departure, Jones was still well respected outside of Peoples Temple for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black.


title: Jim Jones

text: Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Victor Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.


title: Jim Jones

text: In January 1977, Jones travelled to Cuba with Carlton Goodlett in order to establish an import-export trading relation with Cuba for a San Francisco Bay Area company that he had founded. While visiting Goodlett's business contacts and touring schools and other facilities, Jones was annoyed that President Fidel Castro had not consented to see him, and remarked that Castro had to be living better than the people. While in Cuba, Jones visited the residence of Huey Newton in Havana for an hour, and they talked about Newton's family members who had attended the Peoples Temple. They also discussed his desire to return to the United States. Jones commented that Newton only "missed his luxurious apartment and his favorite bars in Oakland".


title: Jim Jones

text: In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.


title: Jim Jones

text: Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.


title: Jim Jones

text: On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones attempted to negotiate for his commune to resettle in the Soviet Union. In October 1978, Feodor Timofeyev, Soviet consul to Guyana, visited Jonestown for two days and gave a speech. Jim Jones stated beforehand, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland." Timofeyev declared Jonestown in "harmony of theory" with "Marx, Engels, Lenin" and the "practical implementation of... some fundamental features of this theory," and personally thanked Jim Jones.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones's paranoia increased in Jonestown as he became fearful of a government raid on the commune. Concerned the community would not be able to resist an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. Armed guards with guns and crossbows surrounded the pavilion.


title: Jim Jones

text: The community members would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which Jones told them that their community had been surrounded by agents who were about to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's terrified followers were only told they were participating in a drill when the event was over. One drill, in September 1977, lasted for six days.


title: Jim Jones

text: The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing outside of the commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by weeping and waiting for their death. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it was only a drill and there was not any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community and conditioned them to accept suicide as a means of escape.


title: Jim Jones

text: The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The community was exhausted and overworked. Most were required to perform manual labor from early morning until evening. Loudspeakers were installed around Jonestown and sermons were played on a constant loop for the entire community to listen to. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die and live blissfully together in the afterlife. Meals were meager and workers were often hungry. After spending all day working, the community gathered each evening at the central pavilion to listen to Jones preach. His sermons generally lasted for several hours; most of the community was sleep deprived.


title: Jim Jones

text: The majority of the community members were minors or the elderly, and the fewer people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the workload required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's orders were increasingly erratic. He was seen staggering and urinating in public, but this was due to prostatitis for a short time towards the end of Jonestown in late October 1978, not the entirety of Jonestown. He found it difficult to walk without assistance around this time, but it cleared up by Leo Ryan's visit.


title: Jim Jones

text: In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.


title: Jim Jones

text: Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Ryan narrowly avoided being stabbed by Temple member Don Sly. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who expressed a desire to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.


title: Jim Jones

text: As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jonestown's Red Brigade of armed guards arrived and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.


title: Jim Jones

text: The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, "San Francisco Examiner" photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an "Examiner" reporter; Ron Javers, a "Chronicle" reporter; Charles Krause, a "Washington Post" reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.


title: Jim Jones

text: Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones told Temple members that the Soviet Union would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. Jones said "We can check with Russia to see if they’ll take us in immediately, otherwise we die," asking, "You think Russia’s gonna want us with all this stigma?"


title: Jim Jones

text: With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide". Jones recorded the entire death ritual on audio tape. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold. A drink mixture of Flavor Aid and cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe.


title: Jim Jones

text: One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members wept and showed signs of dissent, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend". Jones directed that the children be killed first. His wife Marceline apparently protested against killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself after the children had died. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."


title: Jim Jones

text: Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.


title: Jim Jones

text: The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. Another four members residing in Georgetown died. The FBI later recovered the 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress. The recording became known as the Death Tape.


title: Jim Jones

text: Jones’s three sons, Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones were with the Peoples Temple's basketball team in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. During the events at Jonestown, the three brothers drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown to alert the authorities. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin.


title: Jim Jones

text: The Guyanese military arrived in Jonestown to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the remains back to the United States to be buried. Jones was found dead on the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head. Jones's body was later moved for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted by Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.


title: Jim Jones

text: Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown. Stephan was accused of involvement in the deaths and placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, other members of the Temple basketball team, were taken to Jonestown to identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.


title: Jim Jones

text: Members of Jones's family, including his wife, four children and their spouses, and five grandchildren died in Jonestown. John Victor Stoen died in Jonestown. His body was found just outside of Jones's house.


title: Jim Jones

text: In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's assets be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Peoples Temple secretary had already made arrangements for $7.3 million ($ million in 2020 dollars) in Temple funds to be transferred to the Soviet Embassy in Guyana. Most of the money was held in foreign bank accounts and was transferred electronically, but $680,000 ($ in 2020 dollars) was held in cash and three couriers were hired to transport the cash to the Soviets. The couriers were arrested before reaching their destination and claimed to have hidden most of the money.


title: Jim Jones

text: The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive media coverage and became known as the Jonestown Massacre. As awareness reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.


title: Jim Jones

text: American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.


title: Jim Jones

text: Disciples of Christ responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and a new process to remove ministers. The Disciples issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community in Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently expelled Peoples Temple from their denomination.


title: Jim Jones

text: In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco were organizing hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Ijames, who returned from Jonestown to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978, was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. He later came to acknowledge the truth.


title: Jim Jones

text: The supporters of Peoples Temple, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies.


title: Jim Jones

text: Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individuals and groups had provided tips to the FBI about Peoples Temple, no investigation was made before the massacre. The investigation primarily focused on why authorities, especially the United States State Department, were unaware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals continued to follow Jones's teachings during the 1980s.


title: Jim Jones

text: Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Numerous documentaries, films, books, poetry, music and art have covered or been inspired by the events of Jonestown. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" developed after the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid.


title: Gina Carano

text: Gina Joy Carano (born April 16, 1982) is an American actress and former mixed martial artist. She competed in EliteXC and Strikeforce from 2006 to 2009, where she compiled a 7–1 record. Her popularity led to her being called the "face of women's MMA", although Carano rejected this title. She and Cris Cyborg were the first women to headline a major MMA event during their . Carano retired from competition after her first professional MMA defeat to Cyborg.


title: Gina Carano

text: Transitioning from the ring to the screen, Carano landed her first major role as the lead of the action film "Haywire" (2011), which was followed by appearances in "Fast & Furious 6" (2013) and "Deadpool" (2016). Carano also portrayed Cara Dune in the first two seasons of the Disney+ space Western series "The Mandalorian" from 2019 to 2020. Following a series of controversial posts she made to social media, Lucasfilm announced in 2021 that Carano would not appear in future "Star Wars" media.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano was born in Dallas County, Texas, and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, the daughter of Dana Joy Cason and casino executive and former professional football player Glenn Carano. She is the middle child of three sisters. She was raised by her mother after her parents divorced when Gina was 7. She has said that her family celebrates "an Italian festival" every year, though she is of a "small percentage of Italian" descent.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano graduated from Trinity Christian High School in Las Vegas where she led the girls' basketball team to a state title. She also played volleyball and softball. She attended the University of Nevada, Reno for a year and then University of Nevada, Las Vegas for three years, majoring in psychology.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano started her career in the sport of Muay Thai. Her then-boyfriend Kevin Ross, a pro Muay Thai fighter, got her involved. After achieving a Muay Thai record of 12–1–1, Carano received an offer from Jamie Levine to participate in the first-ever sanctioned female MMA bout in Nevada with World Extreme Fighting to fight Leiticia Pestovа (a bout Carano won in 38 seconds). She was invited to the World Pro Fighting show in Las Vegas to fight Rosi Sexton. Carano won the fight by knocking out Sexton late in the second round.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano faced Elaina Maxwell at "" on December 8, 2006. She won the fight via unanimous decision. Carano proved critics wrong when she defeated Maxwell for the second time; the first victory coming in a Muay Thai bout. The fight was the first female fight in Strikeforce. She fought on the February 10, 2007 Showtime EliteXC card, defeating Julie Kedzie via unanimous decision in what was called the "Fight of the Night". The fight was the first televised female fight on Showtime. Her scheduled bout against Jan Finney at the EliteXC/K-1 "Dynamite!! USA" event on June 2, 2007, was canceled due to illness. The Fight Network and other news outlets reported that she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance for dehydration while attending a World Extreme Cagefighting event as a spectator.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano fought on the September 15, 2007 Showtime EliteXC card, where she defeated Tonya Evinger via rear-naked choke for her first career win by submission. Carano impressed critics by holding her own on the ground before submitting Evinger late in the first round. Carano defeated former HOOKnSHOOT Champion Kaitlin Young at "" on May 31, 2008. A day before the fight, Carano failed to make weight for her fight after weighing in at . Although most MMA organizations set weight classes at (bantamweight) and (featherweight), EliteXC opted to create a women's weight class at . Carano agreed to forfeit 12.5% of her "show" purse to Young, and the fight remained on the card.


title: Gina Carano

text: Leading up to her fight against Kelly Kobold, there was much controversy over whether Carano would make weight for the fight, as she had fought only once in the past year and had failed to make weight. Carano assured critics that she would be able to make weight since she had hired a nutritionist to help with her dieting. At the weigh-in for the Kobold fight on October 3, 2008, Carano weighed in at on her first attempt. After removing her clothing, a towel-covered Carano weighed in a second time at . The towel was removed, and on her third attempt, Carano weighed and successfully made weight.


title: Gina Carano

text: Early on, Kobold was intent on pressing Carano in the clinch, while working for the takedown throughout the fight. Kobold managed a takedown in the second round, but the round ended before she could take meaningful advantage of it. Carano worked her opportunities by hitting Kobold at every turn whenever the fighters separated while opening a huge gash on the inside of her opponent's eyebrow in the first round. At the end of the third round, Carano looked to finish the fight as she unloaded a head kick that landed flush on Kobold's chin, but Kobold remained on her feet and the bout came to a close. Carano won by unanimous decision (30–27, 30–27, and 29–28).


title: Gina Carano

text: After Strikeforce purchased the assets of ProElite, Carano, along with other fighters within the defunct promotion, became contractually linked with Strikeforce after many months of a stalemate regarding their free agent status.


title: Gina Carano

text: It was announced at "" that Carano's fight against Cris Cyborg would take place on August 15, 2009, at "." Strikeforce created their first Women's Championship for the bout. Though the 145-pound division is most commonly referred to as featherweight, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated that the title would be known as the Strikeforce Women's Lightweight Championship. The title was later renamed the Strikeforce Women's Middleweight Championship. Carano lost the fight against Cyborg by TKO at 4:59 in the first round, giving her first-ever loss in her professional MMA career.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano has not fought since August 2009 and has not been scheduled for any upcoming events. Carano is still under contract with the UFC through her old Strikeforce contract and has four fights remaining on that contract.


title: Gina Carano

text: In November 2010, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated he was hopeful that she would return in 2011. Carano's return was formally announced in February 2011, and Strikeforce announced at its April 9, 2011, event in San Diego that Carano would make her return against Sarah D'Alelio on June 18, during the "Overeem vs. Werdum Strikeforce" event in Dallas. This bout would have been held by Zuffa, who have been detractors of women's MMA in the past. Critics asserted that the reason for the turnaround was Carano's marketability. However, the fight did not take place. Initially, Strikeforce announced Carano failed her pre-fight medical examination and the fight was pulled from the card. Later, it became public that Carano was medically cleared by the Athletic Commission but was removed from the card for other reasons.


title: Gina Carano

text: In April 2014, during an appearance on "The Arsenio Hall Show" Carano said she was considering a return to MMA. In September 2014, Dana White of the UFC said contract negotiations with Carano had stalled. During her appearance on the "Joe Rogan Experience 690" podcast, Ronda Rousey said a fight between Gina Carano and her had been planned for December 2014, but never materialized.


title: Gina Carano

text: Based on true events, "Ring Girls" is a fast-paced story about five American women from Las Vegas who take on the ultimate challenge of fighting the best Muay Thai fighters in the world.


title: Gina Carano

text: Along with Lisa King, Carano served as a mentor to aspiring fighters in the 2007 Oxygen reality series "Fight Girls". She appeared as "Crush" on the NBC show "American Gladiators", in which she starred in the workout video of the show along with Monica Carlson (Jet), Jennifer Widerstrom (Phoenix), Michael O'Hearn (Titan), Tanoai Reed (Toa) and Don "Hollywood" Yates (Wolf). The DVD was released on December 16, 2008.


title: Gina Carano

text: She appeared in "" as Natasha, a purchasable hero unit, portraying the Soviet sniper/commando in various cut scenes. She is featured in the Michael Jai White film "Blood and Bone" (2009).


title: Gina Carano

text: In September 2009, Carano landed the leading role in the spy thriller movie "Haywire" (2011), directed by Steven Soderbergh.


title: Gina Carano

text: Christy Lemire of the Associated Press stated: "[Carano's] dialogue delivery may seem a bit stiff — and she has acknowledged that Soderbergh made some tweaks to her voice in post-production — but she has tremendous presence: an intriguing mix of muscular power and eye-catching femininity."


title: Gina Carano

text: "Newsweek" said Carano's martial-arts experience gives her "an unparalleled physicality" in the role.


title: Gina Carano

text: In February 2012, Carano was cast in "In the Blood" (2014), an action thriller directed by John Stockwell. The film is set in motion when a husband disappears while vacationing in the Caribbean with his wife, played by Carano. The grieving wife passionately and recklessly pursues the men whom she believes kidnapped and killed him. Stockwell stated, "This role will showcase not only Gina's fighting skills but also her acting abilities as her character struggles to [rein] in her violent past."


title: Gina Carano

text: In 2012, Carano was cast as the lead in an all-female ensemble action film, tentatively titled "The ExpendaBelles", that would have been part of "The Expendables" film franchise. Producer Adi Shankar said, "I don't know how I'm supposed to make a movie that is supposed to be the female version of "The Expendables" without Gina Carano in it. It would be like making Twix without caramel or Jamba Juice without Jamba." The project has yet to materialize.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano co-starred in "Fast & Furious 6" (2013) as a member of Special Agent Luke Hobbs' (Dwayne Johnson) Diplomatic Security Service team. Several critics praised Carano's performance; Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote, "Gina Carano is BIG fun to watch. [She] is still a bit stilted with her line readings, but her two fight scenes with Michelle Rodriguez are just epic." while Matt Goldberg of Collider.com wrote that the scene would "create a lot of new Gina Carano fans."


title: Gina Carano

text: In July 2013, she and comic book creator Rob Liefeld announced they were working on a big-screen adaptation of Liefied's "Avengelyne" in which Carano would star as a fallen angel, who is sent to Earth with a mission to find and protect 'the one', a person who holds the key to saving mankind from demons and other monsters.


title: Gina Carano

text: Carano appeared in the 2013–2014 Fox series "Almost Human" episode "Unbound", where she played the part of an XRN combat android named Danica. She co-starred in the 2015 film "Extraction", and she played Angel Dust in the 2016 film "Deadpool".


title: Gina Carano

text: In December 2018, she was announced as part of the cast of "The Mandalorian", Lucasfilm's first live-action "Star Wars" television series. She portrayed the character Cara Dune with a first appearance in the fourth episode of the first season titled "Chapter 4: Sanctuary". Carano initially believed she would be playing the role of a female Wookiee, and was surprised to "find that [she] was one of the few people that you were actually going to see her face."


title: Gina Carano

text: In February 2021, it was announced that Gina Carano would appear as a guest on an episode of the show "Running Wild with Bear Grylls". The episode aired in May 2021.


title: Gina Carano

text: Lucasfilm announced in February 2021 that Carano would not appear in future "Star Wars" projects following a series of controversial posts she made to social media. The same day she was dropped by the United Talent Agency.


title: Gina Carano

text: A week later, Carano announced she would be developing, producing, and starring in a new film project with conservative media company "The Daily Wire". The film, "White Knuckle", was to be about revenge by a survivor of an attempted murder by a serial-killer truck driver. The film was scheduled to begin production in October 2021 in Tennessee, Utah, and Montana. In the U.S., it was to be released exclusively to subscribers of "The Daily Wire", and was to be released internationally by Voltage Pictures.


title: Gina Carano

text: In November 2021, Carano was tapped to play a secret service agent in "My Son Hunter", a biopic on Hunter Biden directed by Robert Davi. The movie was released in September 2022 to Daily Wire subscribers.


title: Gina Carano

text: In late 2020, Carano clashed with activists on Twitter, who criticized her lack of public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, leading to accusations of racism. Weeks later, after facing calls from some fans to put her gender pronouns in her Twitter profile, she added the words "beep/bop/boop". This ridicule led to accusations of transphobia. She later apologized and removed them, saying that "Mandalorian" actor Pedro Pascal had helped her understand the use of preferred pronouns.


title: Gina Carano

text: In February 2021, Carano shared an Instagram post that compared "hating someone for their political views" to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust and included an image taken during the Lviv pogroms. Many critics interpreted the post as comparing American conservatives to Jews in Nazi Germany. Shortly afterward, Lucasfilm stated that Carano was no longer employed by the company, saying that "her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable". Her posting of a series of tweets in which she mocked the use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States was also cited by Lucasfilm as well as her repeated belief of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.


title: Gina Carano

text: In February 2022, Carano explained her offending post, saying that she "shared a meme, I translated into: Don’t let the government pit you against each other or history tells us that could go wrong." Some fans and commentators contrasted Carano's firing with fellow "Mandalorian" cast member Pedro Pascal suffering no consequence for making comparisons between the treatment of Jews in concentration camps and the treatment of undocumented migrant children at ICE detention facilities in the US. Carano was defended by "Mandalorian" co-star Bill Burr, who described her as "an absolute sweetheart" and criticized her firing.


title: Gina Carano

text: By fall 2021, the "White Knuckle" project had been cancelled at Carano's behest, due to her unwillingness to comply with Hollywood's COVID-19 mask and vaccine requirements. She stated, "After we announced our first project this summer, the Hollywood unions started debating vaccine mandates for cast and crew, and I wasn’t into that. I don't believe anybody gets to make your medical choices for you, and I'm not willing to force masks and vaccines on anyone else." "Daily Wire" co-founder and co-CEO Jeremy Boreing recalled Carano's demand to "find a different movie", and her statement, "To hell with it, I’ll quit my union. Let’s make a movie up in Montana where they can’t get after us." The group then began production on the replacement film, a Western entitled "Terror on the Prairie", that was released exclusively to Daily Wire subscribers in June 2022.


title: Gina Carano

text: In February 2022, Carano suggested that the war in Ukraine was a government conspiracy to control the public through fear, started because "they" had "lost control of the covid narrative".