title: Hole (band)

text: On April 2, 2014, "Rolling Stone" reported that the "Celebrity Skin" line-up of the band had reunited (with Patty Schemel in lieu of Samantha Maloney). "Rolling Stone" erroneously reported Love's upcoming solo single, "Wedding Day" to be a product of this reunion. Shortly after, Love curtailed her statement, saying: "We may have made out but there is no talk of marriage. It's very frail, nothing might happen, and now the band are all flipping out on me." On May 1, in an interview with "Pitchfork", Love discussed the possibility of a reunion, and also stated it had been "a mistake" releasing "Nobody's Daughter" as a Hole record in 2010. "Eric was right—I kind of cheapened the name, even though I'm legally allowed to use it. I should save "Hole" for the lineup everybody wants to see and had the balls to put "Nobody's Daughter" under my own name." Love further discussed the possibility of reuniting the band, saying:


title: Hole (band)

text: No one's been dormant. Patty teaches drumming and drums in three indie bands. Melissa has her metal-nerd thing going on—her dream is to play Castle Donington with Dokken. Eric hasn't flipped—I jammed with him, he's still doing his Thurston [Moore]-crazy tunings, still corresponding with Kevin Shields. We all get along great. There are bands who reunite and hate each others' guts.


title: Hole (band)

text: In October 2019, Hole rehearsed at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in Los Angeles. Nothing transpired after the event, since Love had relocated to the United Kingdom afterwards. In March 2020, Love and Auf Der Maur planned a performance at the "Bans Off My Body" event, which was eventually canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Hole (band)

text: Initially, Hole drew inspiration from no wave and experimental bands, which is evident in their earliest recordings, specifically "Retard Girl", but frontwoman Love also drew from a variety of influences. Love cited post-punk group Echo & the Bunnymen and classic rock such as Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac. The band's first album, "Pretty on the Inside", was heavily influenced by noise and punk rock, using discordant melodies, distortion, and feedback, with Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screams. Love described the band's earliest songwriting as being based on "really crazy Sonic Youth tunings." Nonetheless, Love claimed to have aimed for a pop sound early on: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band," she told "Flipside" magazine in 1991. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band the Germs. In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."


title: Hole (band)

text: The band's second album "Live Through This", captured a less abrasive sound, while maintaining the group's original punk roots. "I want this record to be shocking to the people who don't think we have a soft edge, and at the same time, [to know] that we haven't lost our very, very hard edge," Love told VH1 in 1994. The group's third album, "Celebrity Skin", incorporated power pop into their hard rock sound, and was heavily inspired by California bands; Love was also influenced by Fleetwood Mac and My Bloody Valentine while writing the album. The group's 2010 release, "Nobody's Daughter", featured a more folk rock-oriented sound, utilizing acoustic guitar and softer melodies.


title: Hole (band)

text: The group's chord progressions by and large drew on elements of punk music, which Love described as "grungey", although not necessarily grunge. Critics described their song style as "deceptively wispy and strummy," combined with "gunshot guitar choruses." Although the group's sound changed over the course of their career, the dynamic between beauty and ugliness has often been noted, particularly due to the layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated arrangements.


title: Hole (band)

text: In a 1991 interview, Love stated that lyrics were "the most important" element of songwriting for her. Her lyrics explored a variety of themes throughout Hole's career, including body image, rape, child abuse, addiction, celebrity, suicide, elitism, and inferiority complex; all of which were addressed mainly from a female, and often feminist standpoint. This underlying feminism in Love's lyrics often led the public and critics to mistakenly associate her with the riot grrrl movement, of which Love was highly critical.


title: Hole (band)

text: In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place [beautiful imagery] next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on "Live Through This" as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from "Pretty on the Inside" were excisions from her journals.


title: Hole (band)

text: Throughout Hole's career, Love's lyrics were often influenced by literature: The title of the band's second album "Live Through This", for example (as well as lyrics from the track "Asking for It") is directly drawn from "Gone With the Wind"; and the group's single "Celebrity Skin" (the title track to their 1998 album), contains quotes from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and Dante Rossetti's poem "A Superscription". Love had had a minor background in literature, having briefly studied English literature in her early twenties.


title: Hole (band)

text: Throughout the duration of the 1990s, the band received widespread media coverage due to Love's often rambunctious and unpredictable behavior onstage. The band often destroyed equipment and guitars at the end of concerts, and Love would ramble between songs, bring fans onstage, and stage dive, sometimes returning with her clothes torn off of her or sustaining injuries. In a 1995 "New York Magazine" article, journalist John Homans addressed Love's frequent stage diving during Hole's concerts:


title: Hole (band)

text: The most shocking, frightening, and fascinating image in rock in the last few years is Courtney Love's stage dive ... When some male performers do it, it looks like muscular, frat-boy fun, controlled aggression ... For obvious reasons, the practice was strictly no-girls-allowed, but Love, typically, decided that she wanted to do it, too. Groped, ravaged, she compared the experience to being raped, wrote a song about it, and now does it just about every show.


title: Hole (band)

text: Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and [the rest of the band] would just kind of stand there." The majority of Love's chaotic behavior onstage was a result of heavy drug use at the time, which she admitted: "I was completely high on dope; I cannot remember much about it." She later criticized her behavior during that time, saying: "I [saw] pictures of how I looked. It's disgusting. I'm ashamed. There's death and there's disease and there's misery and there's giving up your soul ... The human spirit mixed with certain powders is not the person, it's [a] demonic presence."


title: Hole (band)

text: Love's stage attire also garnered notoriety, influenced in part by Carroll Baker's wardrobe in the film "Baby Doll" (1956). The style was later dubbed "kinderwhore" by the media, and consisted of babydoll dresses, slips and nightgowns, and smeared makeup. Kurt Loder likened her onstage attire to a "debauched ragdoll", and John Peel noted in his review of the band's 1994 Reading Festival performance, that "[Love], swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, ... would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." "Rolling Stone" referred to the style as "a slightly more politically charged version of grunge; apathy turned into ruinous angst, which soon became high fashion's favorite pose."


title: Hole (band)

text: The band's set lists for live shows were often loose, featuring improvisational jams and rough performances of unreleased songs. By 1998, their live performances had become less aggressive and more restrained, although Love continued to bring fans onstage, and would often go into the crowd while singing.


title: Hole (band)

text: Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010. In spite of Love's often polarizing reputation in the media, Hole received consistent critical praise for their output, and was often noted for the predominant feminist commentary found in Love's lyrics, which scholars have credited as "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness". Love's subversive onstage persona and public image coincided with the band's songs, which expressed "pain, sorrow, and anger, but [an] underlying message of survival, particularly survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances." Music journalist Maria Raha expressed a similar sentiment in regard to the band's significance to third-wave feminism, stating, "Whether you love Courtney [Love] or hate her, Hole was the highest-profile female-fronted band of the '90s to openly and directly sing about feminism."


title: Hole (band)

text: While "Rolling Stone" compared the effect of Love's marriage to Cobain on the band to that of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, they noted that "Love's confrontational stage presence, as well as her gut-wrenching vocals and powerful punk-pop songcraft, made her an alternative-rock star in her own right." Author Nick Wise made a similar comparison in discussion of the band's public image, stating, "Not since Yoko Ono's marriage to John Lennon has a woman's personal life and exploits within the rock arena been so analyzed and dissected."


title: Hole (band)

text: The band has been cited as a major influence on several contemporary artists, including indie singer-songwriter Scout Niblett, Brody Dalle (of The Distillers and Spinnerette), Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, Tove Lo, Tegan and Sara, Annie Hardy (of Giant Drag), Victoria Legrand (of Beach House), and the British rock band Nine Black Alps. The band ranked at number 77 on VH1's "100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists" list.


title: Hole (band)

text: In 2008 a fire swept through Universal Studios Hollywood destroying buildings belonging to Universal Music Group. It was confirmed, in 2019, that the entire Hole back catalogue, along with hundreds of other artists' music, was completely lost, meaning reissues and remasters are now unlikely. Courtney Love and the band were one of the artists suing UMG for the loss; however, on August 16, 2019, the band was removed from that lawsuit as it was amended "based on UMG's representations that none of Hole's original masters were destroyed (subject to confirmation)".


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Wings is an American sitcom television series that ran for eight seasons on NBC from April 19, 1990, to May 21, 1997 for a total of 172 episodes.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The show is set at the fictional "Tom Nevers Field" airport, a small two-airline airport in Nantucket, Massachusetts (not to be confused with the actual Nantucket Memorial Airport), where the Hackett brothers operate Sandpiper Air, their single-plane airline. The majority of the episodes are set in the airport.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Tim Daly and Steven Weber starred as brothers and pilots, Joe and Brian Hackett. Crystal Bernard played Helen, their friend since childhood and later Joe's love interest and wife, who ran the lunch counter at the airport but dreamed of becoming a concert cellist. David Schramm played Roy Biggins, who ran a competing airline called Aeromass. Rebecca Schull played Fay, Joe and Brian's employee at Sandpiper Air. Thomas Haden Church portrayed the mechanic Lowell in the first six seasons, Tony Shalhoub was taxi driver Antonio from season 3 onwards, and Farrah Forke was Brian's love interest, Alex, during seasons 4 and 5. Amy Yasbeck played Helen's sister, Casey, from season 6 through to the show's end in Season 8. Brian Haley briefly played the mechanic Budd, Lowell's replacement, in Season 7.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: "Wings" was created and produced by "Cheers" veterans David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee. The trio later created the sitcom "Frasier", which was a spin-off of "Cheers". The series exists in the same fictional universe as "Cheers" and "Frasier" and characters from "Cheers" occasionally made special guest appearances on "Wings". All three series were produced by Paramount Network Television.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Two brothers, Joe and Brian Hackett, own Sandpiper Air, a small single-plane airline company on Nantucket Island. Their childhood friend, beautiful Helen Chappel, runs the lunch counter inside the airport. She has always been in love with Joe, the older brother. Helen's dream is to play the cello in an orchestra and attends auditions when not sandwich-making. Roy Biggins, the brothers' unscrupulous business rival, runs Aeromass, a larger airline in the same airport. Lowell Mather is the dimwitted airport mechanic, who maintains the planes for both Aeromass and Sandpiper. They are joined by an Italian immigrant, Antonio Scarpacci, who operates a taxi service. Fay Cochran, a sweet but scatterbrained widow, runs the Sandpiper ticket counter. Later in the series, Helen's snobbish older sister Casey moves to the island, and becomes the unwitting object of Antonio's affections and later gets romantically involved with and becomes roommates with Brian.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Crystal Bernard, David Schramm, and Rebecca Schull starred in all eight seasons. With a few exceptions, the cast stayed mostly consistent for the show's run:


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Played by Tim Daly, Joseph Montgomery Hackett is a highly responsible, compulsively neat pilot who owns the one-plane airline Sandpiper Air on Nantucket Island. Joe is usually the straight man in the series and the nice guy. He dreamed of becoming a pilot as a child, and became the de facto patriarch of the Hackett family after their mother disappeared, causing their father to go insane and be institutionalized.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: He had initially intended to launch Sandpiper Air with his fiancée Carol behind the ticket counter, but his brother Brian ran off with her prior to the start of the series, causing a falling out between the brothers. In the show, Joe is shown to be a big sports fan, supporting the Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins, New England Patriots and Boston Celtics. He also grew up playing baseball and football and played on both varsity teams in high school. Joe graduated Boston College and said he pledged a fraternity, but never mentioned which one. Joe fell in love with Helen Chapell, his childhood friend.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Played by Steven Weber, Brian Michael Hackett is the more carefree of the Hackett brothers. His irresponsibility is often a source of consternation to older brother Joe; he had a "free ride" to Princeton and dropped out, was accepted into the Astronaut training program at NASA and was soon expelled because he was too unreliable, saying that he would have become an astronaut if they let him take his dates into the simulator, and has lost other lucrative opportunities due to his chronic irresponsibility.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Ironically, when Brian has attempted to act responsibly it has caused problems for Joe. When Brian managed to hold down a job flying charter flights on the Caribbean island of Mustique, this also emboldened him to seduce Carol to run off to Mustique with him, which caused a rift between the brothers to the point that Joe cut Brian out of his life.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: When Carol left Brian for another man and their father Donald Hackett died, Brian returned to Nantucket, and Joe was eventually persuaded not only to allow him to move into his house, but also to give Brian a job at Sandpiper Air (after some posthumous support from the father). Soon they became partners in the airline. Brian and Joe reconciled and mostly he became his best friend in the series. Brian is a shameless womanizer for most of the series, but has two significant relationships: the first with helicopter pilot Alex Lambert, and then with Casey Chappel Davenport, Helen's older sister (see below).


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: While "Wings" was on the air, Weber reprised the role of Brian on an episode of "Duckman" titled "Role with It".


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Played by Crystal Bernard, Helen is a petite blonde who speaks with a Texas drawl despite having lived on Nantucket for most of her life. In the series, it is explained that Helen's family moved to the island from Texas when she was ten years old. Though Helen dreams of playing the cello in a large symphony orchestra, she runs the lunch counter in the airport terminal and never really manages to get a music career off the ground until the final episode. Occasionally Helen earns money teaching the cello.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: A running gag related to her music is that bad luck always seems to follow her when she plays. Examples of this bad luck include: Helen having to join a string quartet of neurotic individuals as that was the only group at the time who accepted her; Helen getting accepted to a state-run symphony, only to learn the state legislature eliminated the funding; the Boston Symphony Orchestra appreciating a cassette of her cello playing, but them losing the label and having no way to contact her; and when she finally gets a chance to play for the BSO, the plane crashes en route.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Helen battles a compulsive eating habit that caused her to be obese in her youth. Though successful at losing the weight sometime after Brian eloped with Carol, it is still a specter in her life and a blight on her self-image. Mostly her weight gain is usually when Carol comes to town and makes Helen a mess. She has been a lifelong friend of both Hackett brothers and dreamed of marrying Joe from a young age. Helen married Antonio to prevent him from being deported. Although Antonio won the Green Card Lottery and agreed to end the marriage, when Helen tried to get a marriage license to marry Joe, she found out she is still married to Antonio. She went to Roy and found a way to get a quick divorce is go to Mexico. Luckily she and Antonio are officially divorced. At the season finale of the sixth season, Helen is finally able to marry Joe.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The writers originally had a different character in mind, written for Peri Gilpin: Joe's love interest working at the lunch counter was a woman of Greek heritage. However Gilpin was unable to commit to the role, and thus the new character of Helen was created for Bernard. Gilpin, however, did star on one episode of "Wings" in the third season, and was later cast as Roz Doyle on "Frasier".


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Played by Rebecca Schull, Fay is Joe's only other regular employee besides Brian (Kenny was an employee briefly in season 2). She is a retired flight attendant who handles the ticket counter, baggage check, and flight announcements for Sandpiper Air. She grew up in Syracuse, NY (next to a chop shop), and lived in Hawaii before moving to Nantucket. She is generally sweet and motherly, though slightly batty. She looks after the younger members of their circle as her own children, although she can be sweetly manipulative. She came to work for Joe when he met her on a flight to Hawaii right after Joe's fiancé left him for Brian. Joe and Fay strike up a friendship and agree to work together at Sandpiper Air.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Fay is thrice widowed; all three of her husbands were named George, and she jokes about a curse that if she marries a man named George, he will die prematurely. In one episode she almost marries a man named Lyle, only to learn that "Lyle" is only his middle name and his first name is George. Her full name is Fay Evelyn Schlob Dumbly DeVay Cochran.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Fay has a streak in which she has touched every First Lady of the United States since Eleanor Roosevelt.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Played by David Schramm, Roy Peterman Biggins is the owner of Aeromass, the only other airline on Nantucket and, with seven planes, a larger business than Sandpiper, although Roy had been unable to break into the lucrative business of charter flights. He is also a member of the City Council of Nantucket. It is revealed that he started Aeromass with money inherited from an uncle. Mostly his recurring gag, he usually address the whole cast by their last name.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Generally competitive, arrogant and unpleasant, and morbidly obese, Roy often belittles Joe for having a small-time operation and mocks Joe's business skills. Despite this, Roy feels threatened by Joe's presence as a competitor, and makes numerous attempts to either buy Sandpiper or put it out of business. Roy is usually rivals and sometimes enemies of the group.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Roy was married to a woman named Sylvia, played by Concetta Tomei. For several years he claimed that she had died, but it is later revealed that she left him, and is now married to a wealthy plastic surgeon and living in Boston. The couple has one son, R.J. (Roy Junior), who is homosexual. It took a while for Roy to support him and he was proud of him.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Roy is the most dishonest businessman on the island. Examples included forcing a customer who has just ordered a large meal from Helen to board the plane immediately, and then stealing both the meal and the money the customer leaves for Helen. He also established false charities including one for his "late wife" and using the proceeds for fly-fishing trips or to subscribe to the Playboy Channel.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Roy has an autographed picture of Richard Nixon in his office, and was once arrested for trying to force his way aboard Air Force One to have a picture taken of himself shaking hands with President George H. W. Bush.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Also in his office he has a poster of a woman wearing a thong bikini riding on a unicycle. He comments, "If that was Paris and she was holding a loaf of bread, they'd call it art."


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: While normally conniving and arrogant, Roy does have a sense of fun: since his birthday is February 29, 1948, a leap year, he celebrates it only once every four years as if he were only a quarter of his real age. He drives a purple El Camino, on which he claims he can disconnect the brake lights in order to engage in insurance fraud by being intentionally rear-ended by people driving luxury cars.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Despite his sleazy and conniving nature, Roy does have a more generous side: when Helen finds out that she didn't get properly divorced from her sham marriage to Antonio, Roy helps her concoct an elaborate plan to send Joe away for weekend of fly fishing in Maine while she, Brian and Antonio fly to Tampico, Mexico to get a "quickie" divorce from a Senor Pepe. Roy doesn't try to blackmail Helen or demand money, simply asking Helen to deliver a message to Senor Pepe, "The donkey has died."


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: (Season 1–6, Guest in Season 7) Played by Thomas Haden Church, Lowell is a dim-witted mechanic/handyman who works at the airport. He is a "free agent" of sorts, on the payroll of both Sandpiper and its rival airline Aeromass, as well as anyone else willing to pay him for repairs. He claims that, while he is not an orphan, his brother is. He is friendly with all the staff. Lowell knew Brian, Joe and Helen since they were kids and were friends. He was married to a woman named Bunny with whom he had several children, but they divorced when Lowell learned that Bunny was sleeping around.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: After Brian sank the houseboat Lowell lived on, Lowell lived with Joe and Brian for a time, where he revealed a surprising talent for cooking. After about a year, however, his eccentricities became unbearable to the Hacketts, and they kicked him out to find his own place, which coincided with the conclusion of the insurance investigation, allowing the payout to buy himself a house on land.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Eventually, Lowell is forced to leave Nantucket and enter the Witness Protection Program after witnessing a mob hit. Although it is hard for him to leave the people he has known all his life, Lowell decides he would rather go into hiding than let a guilty man go free to possibly kill again.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Lowell usually wears a grease-stained orange ball cap, although he is sometimes seen without it at times when it is rude to wear hats indoors. During a later season, Lowell's orange hat goes missing. From then on he wears a red hat in its place. When Lowell leaves Nantucket, he gives the red hat to Joe and Brian to remember him by. The brothers nail the hat to the wall of the hangar in memoriam.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: (Guest in Season 2, Main Season 3–8) Played by Tony Shalhoub, Antonio V. Scarpacci is an Italian immigrant from Apecchio (in the Central Italian region of Marche), who owns and operates a taxi service to and from the airport. Antonio is mild-mannered, deferential, and hopelessly romantic; he falls head-over-heels for Helen's older sister Casey when she returns to Nantucket, although his feelings are not reciprocated. Antonio was originally a waiter, and made a guest appearance in the second season in this role before becoming an official cast member in the third season (by which time he had changed professions). Helen married him in order to save him from deportation. The marriage mistakenly lasted for three years (unbeknownst to either one of them) long after Antonio got his green card due to an error on Helen's part. He is a big fan of the "Mary Pat Lee Show". Antonio is also friends with Joe, Helen, Brian, Lowell and Faye. Sometimes he is annoyed and bullied by Roy.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: (Season 4–5, Guest in Season 6) Played by Farrah Forke, Alex is a helicopter pilot who moves to Nantucket to start her own helicopter tour business. She had previously flown U.S. Army Apache helicopters in Desert Storm. It is also discovered that she had posed for "Playboy". Though she initially rebuffs the amorous attentions of both Hackett brothers, she eventually falls for Brian's boyish charms. She and Brian live together briefly, but after Brian spends a wild night in New York with Joe and an old friend, Alex throws him out of the apartment and leaves Nantucket for good. She returns a season later to resolve some of the bitterness in their breakup; she and Brian briefly get back together before they both decide it is best to go their separate ways.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: (Season 6–8) Played by Amy Yasbeck, Cassandra "Casey" (Chappel) Davenport is Helen's older sister. She returns to Nantucket after being abandoned by her husband, Stuart Davenport (played by John Ritter, who was Yasbeck's real life partner and later husband), but despite having grown up there she has difficulty adjusting her upper crust tastes and sensibilities to a working class life on the small island. Antonio falls madly in love with Casey, but she takes little notice of him. Unlike Helen, Casey dropped her southern accent when she moved to Nantucket. She spends much of season six unemployed and mooching off Helen, until she starts working for Nantucket's tourism organization in season seven.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: After she and Brian spend the better part of a season sniping at each other, they end up having sex the night before Joe and Helen's wedding. Afterward they find themselves unable to stay away from each other, having a passionate affair; while Joe and Helen are on their honeymoon, Casey's bra lands on the hearth of the lit fireplace and leads to Helen's house burning down. Her relationship with Brian cools after that, but they maintain a friendship. When she first appears in the show, Casey goes by her married name of Davenport, but after she and Stuart divorce at the end of season seven, she reverts to Chappel.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: (Season 7) Played by Brian Haley, Budd is a retired US Marine who is hired to replace Lowell. Budd is Lowell's equal as a skilled mechanic and earnest worker, but also as a quirky character. He is jumpy and insecure, and is haunted by an incident in his past when an aircraft he worked on crashed, causing him to face a court martial. Although the military cleared him of charges, Budd continues to blame himself for the incident until Brian convinces him to let it go. Occasionally Budd astonishes everyone with magic tricks, but otherwise he has difficulty interacting with others. After being introduced early in the seventh season, Budd disappears toward the end of the season and is never mentioned again.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Carlton Blanchard: played by William Hickey, Carlton is an old man with a high-pitched nasal voice whose outwardly meek yet privately demanding behavior causes everyone who meets him to shudder at his coming. He is also known for asking bizarre questions such as "If you were to carpet Florida, how long would it take to vacuum it?" and "If a monkey were to bite you, what kind of drugs do you suppose they'd give you?" He annoys Joe, Brian, Lowell and Antonio when he demands to be flown to Las Cruces, New Mexico, far beyond the scope of Sandpiper's routes. However, the brothers reluctantly agree as Carlton won a charity contest sponsored by Sandpiper and the rules did say the winner "will be flown anywhere".


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: In another episode, he tricks Helen into throwing him a birthday party and then falls down her stairs in order to force her to take care of him for a week. Though none of the regulars like Carlton, he is especially disliked by Antonio, a situation made worse when Carlton repeatedly calls him "Angelo". Hickey's casting was a nod to the film of the same name, Hickey being born in same year as its debut and the name "Carlton Blanchard" being taken from one of the film's characters, played by a different actor named William Hickey.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Lewis Blanchard: played by Gilbert Gottfried, he is Carlton's equally irritating nephew. He is very rude and abrasive, and makes only the slightest of attempts to hide his wish for Carlton to die so he can inherit his money. He seems to have crushes on Casey, Helen, and Alex, who are all completely repulsed by his lewd remarks.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Donald Hackett: played by Don Murray, Joe and Brian's deceased father took it hard when his wife, and the boys' mother, walked out on the family. He was committed to a mental institution and died just prior to the beginning of the series.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: He had a good sense of humor, and in the series premiere his will was required to be read to Brian and Joe together; it required them to reunite after their six-year estrangement. He willed them a key which opened up the lockbox to another key, then another, which had Joe and Brian go to Boston then back to Nantucket airport where they ended up finding a suitcase full of spring snakes and a photograph of them as children, encouraging them to always value their kinship.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: After Brian and Casey burn down Joe's house, Joe is fed up with Brian's string of irresponsible behavior and fires him from Sandpiper and orders him never to speak to him again. The ghost of their father appears and uses reverse psychology to convince Joe to make peace with Brian.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Lou: played by Phil Leeds, Lou is a feisty old man who is introduced in Season Seven's "The Lyin' King". In that episode, Joe, in order to assuage his guilt over going to a strip club later, volunteers at the senior citizens' home, where he is assigned to spend time with Lou. After spending a moment complaining about how lousy nursing home life is, Lou manages to guilt trip Joe into taking him to the strip club with him. Though Joe is somewhat tolerant of Lou, Brian is decidedly less so, referring to him derisively as "Yoda" (due to Lou's shrivelled physical appearance). Lou, in return, makes it clear he does not care for Brian either. Lou is also prone to talking about a rift he had in the past with his brother Harry, prompting his catchphrase, "He screwed me blue!" Lou was originally intended as a one-shot appearance, but proved so popular that he was brought back in the show's final season, where we are also introduced to his brother Harry, played by Abe Vigoda.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Davis Lynch: played by Mark Harelik, Davis is a businessman Joe flies to Nantucket to invest in the airline. Though he rejects Joe's offer (and ends up investing the money in Roy's airline), he ends up dating Helen, and eventually proposes to her. Helen accepts, but ends up leaving him for Joe. Toward the end of the series, Helen reveals she never broke off the engagement. She had figured he was gone after he was skirted off to Burma in the wake of a coup d'etat to salvage major investments he had in the company. He was then placed under house arrest by the military junta. Upon his release, Davis returns to see Helen, but while she is trying to work up the courage to tell him she has married someone else, Davis announces that "he" will be unable to marry "her", having fallen in love with a woman who worked for the State Department and had risked her life to secure his release.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Roy Biggins, Jr. (a.k.a. R.J.): played by Abraham Benrubi, Roy's only son is secretly gay. Roy had trained R.J how to do "guy stuff" such as playing football. The first time he is shown is when he is a high school student taking cello lessons from Helen as an extracurricular activity. R.J. reveals to everyone he is a homosexual. Roy does not take this news well and challenges him to a game of one-on-one basketball on the condition that if R.J. wins he is "allowed" to be gay, but if Roy wins R.J. is not. R.J. wins game after game against Roy, but Roy refuses to give up.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: R.J. returns much later in the series after being estranged from Roy for a long time. He has since graduated from law school and plans to take the Massachusetts Bar Exam. Roy is proud of R.J and his accomplishments, but only so long as R.J.'s homosexuality isn't discussed. The issue finally comes to a head at Roy's birthday party, when he accuses R. J. of throwing his lifestyle in his face and ruining his party by bringing his boyfriend Luke (Tim Bagley). After R. J. and Luke walk out, Helen talks to Roy, reminding him that while he doesn't have to like it, he does have to accept it—because the alternative is accepting that it may be another six years, or longer, before he sees R.J. again. Roy catches up with R. J. just as he and Luke are boarding a flight and fumbles an apology. R.J. loses patience, and points out that Roy can't even say the word "gay." Desperate to stop R.J. from walking out of his life forever, Roy finally acknowledges it, and says that he wants to understand it. The two men hug.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Gail Scott: played by Gretchen German, she is Joe's girlfriend during the first part of Season Three. They begin dating while Helen is in New York. When Joe persuades Helen to move back to Nantucket because she is unhappy in New York, he does not tell her about his relationship with Gail because of his worry that it will prevent Helen from moving back to Nantucket.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Helen, convinced that she and Joe will pick up right where they left off, does come back, but soon discovers the truth about Joe and Gail. Believing that Joe intended to hurt her by not disclosing his relationship with Gail, Helen drives her jeep through Joe and Brian's office.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Gail is in three episodes, but is mentioned in several others, including phone conversations. She is a journalist who constantly travels. She and Helen become friends briefly, but Gail leaves Joe when she catches Joe and Helen kissing in his kitchen.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Sandy Cooper: played by Valerie Mahaffey, Sandy is a friend of Joe's, Brian's, and Helen's from high school. She has an insane, obsessive crush on Joe, but he is unable to convince anyone else of this because she acts completely normal except when she is alone with Joe, who gives her the nickname "Psycho Sandy". She appears on Nantucket occasionally and carefully plans her fantasy life with "Joey Bear" at moments when the two of them are alone. Her fantasies include a re-enacted high school prom in the basement of her old house, the couple's wedding and honeymoon in Helen's living room, and the birth of their first child in Joe's therapist's office. In one episode, Sandy is shown to be dating Brian, but the relationship is never pursued by the show's writers.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Kenny McElvey: played by Michael Manasseri, Kenny is an 18-year-old who becomes Sandpiper's backup pilot during a second season story arc where Joe is grounded for hypertension. The comedic focus of the character was his youth and relative inexperience, but he is the most qualified of the small pool of applicants to be Joe's replacement. Kenny leaves Sandpiper after Joe is cleared to fly. One episode shows Kenny also working at a fast food joint to supplement his meager income from Sandpiper.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Bunny Mather: played by Laura Innes, Lowell's wife flirts with nearly every man she encounters, and has sex with many of them. At one point she pursues Joe and Brian – her fantasy is to sleep with two co-workers. She once sleeps with Antonio, causing him and Lowell to come to blows. Lowell separates from her early in the series, and divorces her when he learns of her affairs. Despite their issues, Lowell and Bunny sleep together the very night they get divorced.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Sylvia: played by Concetta Tomei, Roy's ex-wife divorced him and married a plastic surgeon. Roy initially tells people that she is dead, but after being caught in this lie, he goes to see her, only to find out that she has a new husband and a new life. She returns to the island in season 5 to sleep with Roy in an attempt to get back at her current husband for having an affair. Roy finds out and decides not to go through with it.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Mary Pat Lee: played by Caroline Aaron, she is a dishonest, bullying Boston talk show host who tricks Brian onto her show in season 6 to meet up with his ex-girlfriend Alex. She returns two seasons later as Roy's new girlfriend, though Roy dumps her when she uses their relationship to get Joe and Helen on her show to ambush them about a momentary slump in their sex life. Antonio is one of her biggest fans. Her budding relationship with Roy causes Antonio to mutter, "But...she's Mary Pat Lee...and he's...Roy." She is never seen again after Roy dumps her, angry that she used him to target Joe and Helen. She seemed to be a parody of both Kathie Lee Gifford and Geraldo Rivera, with all the traits people hate about the two.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Edgar Clayton: played by Mitchell Ryan, he is a wealthy industrialist who buys Sandpiper from Joe and Brian to keep it from going under. He installs his son Cord as the new president only to see Cord fail miserably. He also fires his uncle Mike in front of his whole board of directors and has been known to give terminated employees "The Big Ugly". He is part of a three-part story arc, "Wingless", during the show's final season. Though he is identified in the closing credits as Jonathan Clayton, his name in dialogue is said to be Edgar Clayton.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins: played by Rose Marie, Roy's eccentric mother lives in a nursing home. She is a meddlesome, domineering nag and Roy feels threatened by her. Joe, however, stands up to her and calls her a "Miserable Old Gargoyle". Eleanor is also a heavy drinker and Roy once says she has to be "cut off after six boilermakers." She is frequently mentioned, but is not seen until the final season.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Walter: played by Ralph Bruneau, he is an air traffic controller. Though he envisions himself as cool and collected he is generally hyperactive and easily distracted. He acts overly friendly towards both Joe and Brian, both of whom find him highly irritating. In season 4, Walter gets married; though he doesn't appear on-screen anymore after that, he continues to be mentioned frequently. He takes a temporary leave of absence in Season 6 to have eye surgery to correct a double vision problem. In the final episode, he is said to be cheating on his wife.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Mark: played by John Hawkes, he is the waiter at the Crab Restaurant. He becomes infatuated with Helen, who later pushes him toward Alex.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The series takes place primarily at the fictional Nantucket airport Tom Nevers Field. Until 1976, the real-life island was the site of the United States Navy's Tom Nevers Naval Facility, later the home of the Nantucket Hunting Association. The Club Car (a real restaurant on Nantucket) is also often featured on the show.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The airplane for the show was a 1981 Cessna 402C one of which was C/N 402C0507, N121PB, owned and operated by Express Air, owned and operated by Mike Josefek and Richard Sevigny. The pilot during the filming was Austin Carey. The aircraft was eventually sold to Cape Air where it is still flying; in the pilot episode (as well as a few other episodes) the airplane fuselage shown in the hangar was C/N 4110069, N121PP (which was destroyed).


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: A pilot for a British remake also called "Wings" was filmed in 1996. It was commissioned by Channel 3 North East and Yorkshire Television. The title of the episode is "The Legacy" (similar to the original show's pilot episode being called "Legacy"). Much of the dialogue is lifted word-for-word from that original pilot episode (with some elements also taken directly from the original's Season 2 premiere episode "The Puppetmaster", written by Philip LaZebnik), as are many of the character names (though not all of them), the location now moving to Jersey in the UK. Even the look of the set is almost identical to the original series. Sandpiper Air retains its name though Roy's competitor airline, Aeromass, has been changed to Goldhawk Air. Very little is known about this attempt at the remake. Seemingly only one episode was filmed and likely aired on November 19, 1996. It was directed by Roy Gould, produced by Andrew Benson, and scripted by all of the original creators - David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee (or because their original pilot script was used), who are also credited as creators of the remake - and starred Tony Gardner and Jonathan Cake as brothers Michael and Steve Hackett (formerly Joe and Brian Hackett in the original), with Una Stubbs portraying Fay and Debra Beaumont as Helen Chappel. The character of Roy also appeared, played by Tim Wylton, as did Lowell, now renamed Noel and played by Bob Mason. Jason Hall was credited as Passenger and Anthony Schaeffer as Dispatcher. Some limited footage (a handful of clips totalling less than two minutes) surfaced online. With very little known details and footage existing, this could well be an example of a lost television broadcast.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Although not a spin-off, "Wings" takes place in the same universe as "Cheers", and by extension, its spin-off "Frasier". Several episodes had tie-ins with "Cheers"; Kelsey Grammer (who was nominated for an Emmy for his guest appearance), Bebe Neuwirth, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, and Kirstie Alley all appeared on "Wings" playing their "Cheers" characters.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: In addition to the above, Peri Gilpin - who had also appeared in "Cheers" and was later known for playing Roz in "Frasier" - was originally up for the role of Helen Chappel and also appears in the "Wings" Season 3 episode "Four Dates That Will Live in Infamy" playing a different character, while her character on Frasier, Roz Doyle, is named as a tribute to one of "Wings"s producers, who died from breast cancer in 1991.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Rebecca Schull and Tony Shalhoub both guest-starred on episodes of "Frasier" as different characters (Shalhoub in the Season 3 episode "The Focus Group" and Schull in the Season 7 episode "RDWRER") and in the Season 9 episode "Bla-Z-Boy" Niles (David Hyde Pierce) plays the "Wings" theme song (Schubert's Piano sonata No. 20 in A Major, D. 959, IV. Rondo. Allegretto.).


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Also, several of the same extras and actors in smaller supporting parts appear across all three shows, so it's not unusual to spot familiar faces in the airport in "Wings", the bar in "Cheers", and sometimes on "Frasier" as well.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: TVNZ aired the show in New Zealand on Channel 2 throughout the 1990s, usually immediately after "Cheers".


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: Reruns of the show aired regularly on the USA Network from September 13, 1993, to June 16, 2000 (and sporadically after until the mid-2000s), and on Nick at Nite from April 2003 to June 2006, along with airings on TV Land from 2001 to 2004; Antenna TV from 2016 to 2021, and Antenna TV's spinoff Rewind TV from 2021 to present. It has also been available on several other services, including CBS All Access (now Paramount+), Hulu Plus, Netflix (DVD only), the now defunct Comedy Gold, and on a Wings channel on Pluto TV.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: On September 6, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series. They have subsequently re-released the first four seasons.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: On July 3, 2014, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment will release a complete series set on DVD on November 11, 2014.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The theme was a shortened version of the final movement from Franz Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D. 959. Schubert received screen credit as the theme composer in every episode.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The opening theme heard during the first two and a half seasons was a fairly straightforward arrangement of piano and strings. It starts with a shot of Brant Point Lighthouse with seagulls crying in the background. The title card is shown, then the cast members' names as the plane flies over various places and finally into Nantucket Memorial Airport. The Nantucket Airport control tower is seen with a reflection of the plane landing in the window with the show creators' names onscreen. The slow opening theme was dropped in January 1992 as episodes began using a cold open, with simply the title card and the cast members and creators. In the season 4 finale the cold open was brusquely interrupted to show the plane caught in a violent thunderstorm instead of the usual clear skies.


title: Wings (1990 TV series)

text: The closing sequence used in seasons 1-5 was accompanied by the plane flying over Nantucket Sound in a sunrise setting. A jazzed-up version of the theme was heard during the closing credits for the first two seasons, then a more up-tempo version with a piano lead from season 3 onward. The closing credits were changed in season 6 with the tag scene accompanied by the closing credits (for NBC's original airings, the generic credits were used when NBC started doing this in the 1994–1995 season as well), though some episodes from seasons 6–8, including the series finale, used the standard closing sequence from seasons 1-5 (but with a slightly different font).


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: Hollywood is an American drama streaming television miniseries starring an ensemble cast including David Corenswet, Darren Criss, Laura Harrier, Joe Mantello, Dylan McDermott, Jake Picking, Jeremy Pope, Holland Taylor, Samara Weaving, Jim Parsons, and Patti LuPone. Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, it was released on Netflix on May 1, 2020.


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: The miniseries is about a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers during the Hollywood Golden Age in the post-World War II era trying to make their dreams come true. The series received mixed reviews from critics who praised the acting and production values, but criticized the tone, writing, and artistic license taken. The series received 12 nominations at the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, including acting nods for Pope, Taylor, McDermott, and Parsons, winning two.


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: The series explores Hollywood in 1946-1949, following World War II where traditional power dynamics in the American film industry are systematically dismantled and racism and homophobia are assigned to the dustbin of history.


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: On February 23, 2019, it was announced that Netflix had given the production a straight-to-series order consisting of seven episodes. The series was created by Ian Brennan, and Ryan Murphy. Brennan and Murphy were also set to executive produce the series alongside Darren Criss and David Corenswet. The series was released on May 1, 2020.


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: On September 3, 2019, it was reported that Patti LuPone, Holland Taylor, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Dylan McDermott, Jim Parsons, Corenswet and Joe Mantello had been cast in series regular roles.


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 58% based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "With its heart on its sleeve and style to spare, "Hollywood" is anything but subtle – if only its good intentions were paired with a less convoluted story." On Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: Writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Richard Roeper gave the series two-and-a-half stars out of four, saying: "It's a fascinating blend of fact (or least stories based on factual characters) and fiction, and the performances from the cast of rising stars and reliable veterans are dazzling — but like many a motion picture, "Hollywood" can't overcome script problems that surface about midway through the story."


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: Conversely, Hugh Montgomery of the BBC described the series as "spineless and inert", giving it one out of five stars and saying "A show about Tinseltown that chose to confront and prod at these continuing, dispiriting realities rather than concoct its own vapid, hubristic fantasies would be worth 10 times this one." Similarly, "The Guardian"s Lucy Mangan criticized its "counterfactual history", giving the series a two out of five-star review, writing: "This should be the perfect set-up for a scabrous look at prejudice, corruption, the trading of sexual currency, coercion, the well-oiled machinations that underlie an industry and how it all shapes history — all through a #MeToo lens. But it becomes a mere wish-fulfilment fantasy that, whether it intends to or not, suggests that if a few people had just been that bit braver, then movies – and therefore the world! — would be a glorious, egalitarian Eden. It is a show that is smug and obtuse enough to believe la la land's self-regarding idea that celluloid art directly shapes our lives."


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: While FAULT Magazine praised the show for its beautiful work on costume design and career topping performances of Dylan McDermott, Jeremy Pope and Samara Weaving, they criticised the show's dangerous embellishment of systemic prejudice of post-war USA. "The only ones who benefit from the erasure of Hollywood's brutal history of racism and homophobia, are those that perpetrated it."


title: Hollywood (miniseries)

text: Feature articles in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Town & Country, and Rolling Stone covered the Netflix production as depicting the real-life story of Scotty Bowers, but no reference is made to Bowers or his tell-all book, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars in the Netflix production's credits.


title: Turandot

text: Turandot (; ) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. "Turandot" best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup.


title: Turandot

text: Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation, he based his work more closely on the earlier play "Turandot" (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic "Haft Peykar"—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his companion of the red dome, associated with Mars. In the first line of the story, the protagonist is identified as a Russian princess. The name of the opera is based on "Turan-Dokht" (daughter of Turan), which is a name frequently used in Persian poetry for Central Asian princesses.


title: Turandot

text: The opera's version of the story is set in China. It involves Prince Calaf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. In order to obtain permission to marry her, a suitor must solve three riddles. Any single wrong answer will result in the suitor's execution. Calaf passes the test, but Turandot refuses to marry him. He offers her a way out: if she is able to guess his name before dawn the next day, he will accept death. In the original story by Nizami, the princess sets four conditions: firstly "a good name and good deeds", and then the three challenges. As with "Madama Butterfly", Puccini strove for a semblance of authenticity (at least to Western ears) by integrating music from the region. Up to eight of the musical themes in "Turandot" appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems, and the melody of a Chinese song "Mò Li Hūa (茉莉花)", or "Jasmine", became a motif for the princess.


title: Turandot

text: Puccini left the opera unfinished at the time of his death in 1924; Franco Alfano completed it in 1926. The first performance took place at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The performance included only Puccini's music without Alfano's additions. The first performance of the opera as completed by Alfano was performed on the next evening, 26 April, although it is disputed whether the second performance was conducted by Toscanini or by Ettore Panizza.


title: Turandot

text: "Turandot" is a Persian word and name that means "daughter of Turan", Turan being a region of Central Asia, formerly part of the Persian Empire. The name of the opera is taken from Persian "Turandokht" (), with "dokht" being a contraction of "dokhtar" (daughter); the "kh" and "t" are both pronounced. However, the original protagonist in Nizami's story is identified in the first line of the Persian poem as being from Russia. The story is known as the story of the "Red Dome" among the "Seven Domes" (Haft Ghonbad) stories in Nizami's "Haft Peykar" (i.e., the seven figures or beauties).


title: Turandot

text: According to Puccini scholar Patrick Vincent Casali, the final "t" is silent in the opera's and title character's name, making it sound . Soprano Rosa Raisa, who created the title role, said that neither Puccini nor Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the first performances, ever pronounced the final "t". Eva Turner, a prominent Turandot, did not pronounce the final "t", as television interviews with her attest. Casali also maintains that the musical setting of many of Calaf's utterances of the name makes sounding the final "t" all but impossible. On the other hand, Simonetta Puccini, the composer's granddaughter and keeper of the Villa Puccini and Mausoleum, has said that the final "t" must be pronounced. Italo Marchini questioned her about this in 2002; she said that in Italian the name would be "Turandotta". In the Venetian dialect of Carlo Gozzi the final syllables are usually dropped and words end in a consonant, so that it would be pronounced "Turandott".


title: Turandot

text: The story of Turandot was taken from a Persian collection of stories called "The Book of One Thousand and One Days" (1722 French translation "Les Mille et un jours" by François Pétis de la Croix – not to be confused with its sister work "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights") – in which the character of "Turandokht" as a cold princess is found. The story of Turandokht is one of the best-known tales from de la Croix's translation. The plot respects the classical unities of time, space, and action.


title: Turandot

text: Puccini began working on "Turandot" in March 1920 after meeting with librettists Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. In his impatience, he began composition in January 1921, before Adami and Simoni had produced the text for the libretto. Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave Puccini a music box that he got from the Boxer Rebellion that played 4 Chinese melodies. Puccini used three of these in the opera, and most memorably, the folk melody "Mo Li Hua" (Jasmine Flower) which is first sung by the children's chorus after the invocation to the moon in Act 1, and becomes a sort of 'leitmotif' for the princess throughout the opera. Puccini commissioned a set of thirteen gongs constructed by the Tronci family specifically for "Turandot". Decades later, percussionist Howard Van Hyning of the New York City Opera had been searching for a proper set of gongs and obtained the original set from the Stivanello Costume Company, which had acquired the gongs as the result of winning a bet. In 1987, he bought the gongs for his collection, paying thousands of dollars for the set, which he described as having "colorful, intense, centered, and perfumed" sound qualities.


title: Turandot

text: As with "Madama Butterfly", Puccini strove for a semblance of Asian authenticity (at least to Western ears) by using music from the region. Up to eight of the themes used in "Turandot" appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems, and the melody of a Chinese song named "Mò Li Hūa (茉莉花)", or "Jasmine", is included as a motif for the princess.


title: Turandot

text: By March 1924, Puccini had completed the opera up to the final duet. However, he was dissatisfied with the text of the final duet, and did not continue until 8 October, when he chose Adami's fourth version of the duet text. On 10 October he was diagnosed with throat cancer, and on 24 November he went to Brussels, Belgium for treatment. There he underwent a new and experimental radiation therapy. Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the prognosis was revealed only to his son. Puccini, however, seems to have had some inkling of the seriousness of his condition since, before leaving for Brussels, he visited Toscanini and begged him, "Don't let my Turandot die". He died of a heart attack on 29 November 1924, when it had seemed that the radium treatment was succeeding. His step-daughter Fosca was in fact joyfully writing a letter to an English friend of the family, Sibyl Seligman, telling her that the cancer was shrinking when she was called to her father's bedside because of the heart attack.


title: Turandot

text: When Puccini died, the first two of the three acts were fully composed, including the orchestration. Puccini had composed and fully orchestrated Act Three up until Liù's death and funeral cortege. In the sense of finished music, this was the last music composed by Puccini. He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of "Turandot". Some sketches were in the form of "piano-vocal" or "short score", including vocal lines with "two to four staves of accompaniment with occasional notes on orchestration." These sketches provided music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto.


title: Turandot

text: Puccini left instructions that Riccardo Zandonai should finish the opera. Puccini's son Tonio objected, and eventually Franco Alfano was chosen to flesh out the sketches after Vincenzo Tommasini (who had completed Boito's "Nerone" after the composer's death) and Pietro Mascagni were rejected. Puccini's publisher Tito Ricordi II decided on Alfano because his opera "La leggenda di Sakùntala" resembled "Turandot" in its setting and heavy orchestration. Alfano provided a first version of the ending with a few passages of his own, and even a few sentences added to the libretto, which was not considered complete even by Puccini. After the severe criticisms by Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he was forced to write a second, strictly censored version that followed Puccini's sketches more closely, to the point where he did not set some of Adami's text to music because Puccini had not indicated how he wanted it to sound. Ricordi's real concern was not the quality of Alfano's work, but that he wanted the end of "Turandot" to sound as if it had been written by Puccini, and Alfano's editing had to be seamless. Of this version, about three minutes were cut for performance by Toscanini, and it is this shortened version that is usually performed today.


title: Turandot

text: The premiere of "Turandot" was at La Scala, Milan, on Sunday 25 April 1926, a year and five months after Puccini's death. Rosa Raisa played the title role. Tenors Miguel Fleta and Franco Lo Giudice alternated in the role of Prince Calaf in the original production with Fleta singing the role on opening night. It was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In the middle of act 3, two measures after the words ""Liù, poesia!"", the orchestra rested. Toscanini stopped and laid down his baton. He turned to the audience and announced: ""Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto"" ("Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died"). The curtain was lowered slowly. These are the words reported by , who was present at the premiere. A reporter for "La Stampa" recorded the words slightly differently: "Qui finisce l'opera, rimasta incompiuta per la morte del povero Puccini/Here the opera ends, left incomplete by the death of the late Puccini." It is also frequently reported that Toscanini said "Here the Maestro laid down his pen".


title: Turandot

text: A newspaper report published the day before the premiere states that Puccini himself gave Toscanini the suggestion to stop the opera performance at the final notes composed by Puccini:


title: Turandot

text: (A few weeks before his death, after having made Toscanini listen to the opera, Puccini exclaimed: "If I don't succeed in finishing it, at this point someone will come to the footlights and will say: 'The author composed until here, and then he died.'" Arturo Toscanini related Puccini's words with great emotion, and, with the swift agreement of Puccini's family and the publishers, decided that the evening of the first performance, the opera would appear as the author left it, with the anguish of being unable to finish).


title: Turandot

text: Two authors believe that the second and subsequent performances of the 1926 La Scala season, which included the Alfano ending, were conducted by Ettore Panizza and Toscanini never conducted the opera again after the first performance. However, in his biography of Toscanini, Harvey Sachs claims that Toscanini did conduct the second and third performances before withdrawing from the production due to nervous exhaustion. A contemporary review of the second performance states that Toscanini was the conductor, taking five curtain calls at the end of the performance.


title: Turandot

text: "Turandot" quickly spread to other venues: Rome (Teatro Costanzi, 29 April, four days after the Milan premiere), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón, Claudia Muzio as Turandot Giacomo Lauri Volpi as Calaf, 23 June, less than two months after opening in Milan), Dresden (4 July, in German, with Anne Roselle as Turandot, and Richard Tauber as Calaf, conducted by Fritz Busch), Venice (La Fenice, 9 September), Vienna (14 October; Mafalda Salvatini in the title role), Berlin (8 November), New York (Metropolitan Opera, 16 November), Brussels (La Monnaie, 17 December, in French), Naples (Teatro di San Carlo, 17 January 1927), Parma (12 February), Turin (17 March), London (Covent Garden, 7 June), San Francisco (19 September), Bologna (October 1927), Paris (29 March 1928), Australia 1928, Moscow (Bolshoi Theatre, 1931). "Turandot" is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire and it appears as number 17 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.


title: Turandot

text: For many years, the government of the People's Republic of China forbade performance of "Turandot" because they said it portrayed China and the Chinese unfavourably. Instead of a single nationwide decree against it, any attempts to produce it were not approved. In the late 1990s they relented, and in September 1998 the opera was performed for eight nights as "Turandot at the Forbidden City", complete with opulent sets and soldiers from the People's Liberation Army as extras. It was an international collaboration, with director Zhang Yimou as choreographer and Zubin Mehta as conductor. The singing roles saw Giovanna Casolla, Audrey Stottler, and Sharon Sweet as Princess Turandot; Sergej Larin and Lando Bartolini as Calaf; and Barbara Frittoli, Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, and Barbara Hendricks as Liù.


title: Turandot

text: The aria "Nessun dorma" has long been a staple of operatic recitals. Luciano Pavarotti popularized the piece beyond the opera world in the 1990s with his performance of it for the 1990 World Cup, which received a global audience. Both Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo released singles of the aria, with Pavarotti's reaching number 2 in the UK. The Three Tenors performed the aria at three subsequent World Cup Finals, in 1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama. Many crossover and pop artists have performed and recorded it and the aria has been used in the soundtracks of numerous films.


title: Turandot

text: The debate over which version of the ending is better is still open. Alfano's original ending to the opera was first recorded (as part of an album with Josephine Barstow singing final scenes of several operas) by John Mauceri and Scottish Opera (with Josephine Barstow and Lando Bartolini as soloists) for Decca Records in 1990 to great acclaim. However, it may have been staged in Germany in the early years, since Ricordi had commissioned a German translation of the text and a number of scores were printed in Germany with the full final scene included. Alfano's second ending has been further redacted as well: Turandot's aria "Del primo pianto" was performed at the premiere but cut from the first complete recording; it was eventually restored to most performances of the opera.


title: Turandot

text: From 1976 to 1988, the American composer Janet Maguire convinced that the whole ending is coded in the sketches left by Puccini, composed a new ending, but this has never been performed. In 2001, Luciano Berio made a new completion sanctioned by Casa Ricordi and the Puccini estate, using Puccini's sketches but also expanding the musical language. It was subsequently performed in the Canary Islands and Amsterdam conducted by Riccardo Chailly, Los Angeles conducted by Kent Nagano, at the Salzburg Festival conducted by Valery Gergiev in August 2002. However, its reception has been mixed.


title: Turandot

text: In late 2007, Chinese composer Hao Weiya made another completion before the opening of National Centre for the Performing Arts, also resulting in a mixed reception.


title: Turandot

text: In China, beautiful Princess Turandot will marry only a suitor who can answer three secret riddles. A Mandarin announces the law of the land (Aria – "Popolo di Pechino!" – "People of Peking!"). The Prince of Persia has failed to answer the three riddles, and he is to be beheaded at the next rising moon. As the crowd surges towards the gates of the palace, the imperial guards brutally repulse them, causing a blind old man to be knocked to the ground. The old man's slave-girl, Liù, cries out for help. A young man hears her cry and recognizes that the old man is his long-lost father, Timur, the deposed king of Tartary. The young Prince of Tartary is overjoyed at seeing Timur alive, but still urges Timur to not speak his name because he is afraid that the Chinese rulers, who have conquered Tartary, may kill or harm them. Timur then tells his son that, of all his servants, only Liù has remained faithful to him. When the Prince asks her why, she tells him that once, long ago in the palace, the Prince had smiled at her (Trio with chorus – The crowd, Liù, Prince of Tartary, Timur: "Indietro, cani!" – "Back, dogs!").


title: Turandot

text: The moon rises, and the crowd's cries for blood dissolve into silence. The doomed Prince of Persia, who is on his way to be executed, is led before the crowd. The young Prince is so handsome and kind that the crowd and the Prince of Tartary decide that they want Turandot to act compassionately, and they beg Turandot to appear and spare his life (Aria – The crowd, Prince of Tartary: "O giovinetto!" – "O youth!"). She then appears, and with a single imperious gesture, orders the execution to continue. The Prince of Tartary, who has never seen Turandot before, falls immediately in love with her, and joyfully cries out Turandot's name three times, foreshadowing the riddles to come. Then the Prince of Persia cries out Turandot's name one final time, mirroring the Prince of Tartary. The crowd, horrified, screams out one final time and the Prince of Persia is beheaded.


title: Turandot

text: The Prince of Tartary is dazzled by Turandot's beauty. He is about to rush towards the gong and to strike it three times – the symbolic gesture of whoever wishes to attempt to solve the riddles so that he can marry Turandot – when the ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong appear. They urge him cynically to not lose his head for Turandot and to instead go back to his own country ("Fermo, che fai?" "Stop, what are you doing?"). Timur urges his son to desist, and Liù, who is secretly in love with the Prince, pleads with him not to attempt to solve the riddles ("Signore, ascolta!" – "Lord, hear!"). Liù's words touch the Prince's heart. He begs Liù to make Timur's exile more bearable by not abandoning Timur if the Prince fails to answer the riddles ("Non piangere, Liù" – "Do not cry, Liù"). The three ministers, Timur, and Liù then try one last time to stop the Prince ("Ah! Per l'ultima volta!" – "Ah! For the last time!") from attempting to answer the riddles, but he refuses to heed their advice.


title: Turandot

text: He calls Turandot's name three times, and each time Liù, Timur, and the ministers reply, "Death!" and the crowd declares, "We're already digging your grave!" Rushing to the gong that hangs in front of the palace, the Prince strikes it three times, declaring himself to be a suitor. From the palace balcony, Turandot accepts his challenge, as Ping, Pang, and Pong laugh at the Prince's foolishness.


title: Turandot

text: Ping, Pang, and Pong lament their place as ministers, poring over palace documents and presiding over endless rituals. They prepare themselves for either a wedding or a funeral (Trio – Ping, Pang, Pong: "Ola, Pang!"). Ping suddenly longs for his country house in Honan, with its small lake surrounded by bamboo. Pong remembers his grove of forests near Tsiang, and Pang recalls his gardens near Kiu. The three share their fond memories of their lives away from the palace (Trio – Ping, Pang, Pong: "Ho una casa nell'Honan" – "I have a house in Honan"). They turn their thoughts back to how they have been accompanying young princes to their deaths. As the palace trumpet sounds, the ministers ready themselves for another spectacle as they await the entrance of their Emperor.


title: Turandot

text: The Emperor Altoum, father of Turandot, sits on his grand throne in his palace. Weary of having to judge his isolated daughter's sport, he urges the Prince to withdraw his challenge, but the Prince refuses (Aria – Altoum, the Prince: "Un giuramento atroce" – "An atrocious oath"). Turandot enters and explains ("In questa reggia" – "In this palace") that her ancestress of millennia past, Princess Lo-u-Ling, reigned over her kingdom "in silence and joy, resisting the harsh domination of men" until she was raped and murdered by an invading foreign prince. Turandot claims that Lo-u-Ling now lives in her, and out of revenge, Turandot has sworn to never let any man wed her. She warns the Prince to withdraw but again he refuses. The Princess presents her first riddle: "Straniero, ascolta!" – "What is born each night and dies each dawn?" The Prince correctly replies, "Speranza" – "Hope." The Princess, unnerved, presents her second riddle ("Guizza al pari di fiamma" – "What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire?") The Prince thinks for a moment before replying, "Sangue" – "Blood". Turandot is shaken. The crowd shouts at the Prince, provoking Turandot's anger. She presents her third riddle ("Gelo che ti da foco" – "What is ice which gives you fire and which your fire freezes still more?"). He proclaims, "It is Turandot! Turandot!"


title: Turandot

text: The crowd roars for the triumphant Prince. Turandot throws herself at her father's feet and pleads with him not to leave her to the Prince's mercy. The Emperor insists that an oath is sacred and that it is Turandot's duty to wed the Prince (Duet – Turandot, Altoum, the Prince: "Figlio del cielo"). She cries out in despair, "Will you take me by force? ("Mi porterai con la forza?") The Prince stops her, saying that he has a riddle for her: "You do not know my name. Tell me my name before sunrise, and at dawn, I will die." Turandot accepts. The Emperor then declares that he hopes that he will be able to call the Prince his son when the sun next rises.


title: Turandot

text: In the distance, heralds call out Turandot's command: "Cosi comanda Turandot" – "This night, none shall sleep in Peking! The penalty for all will be death if the Prince's name is not discovered by morning". The Prince waits for dawn and anticipates his victory: "Nessun dorma" – "Let no one sleep!"


title: Turandot

text: Ping, Pong, and Pang appear and offer the Prince women and riches if he will only give up Turandot ("Tu che guardi le stelle"), but he refuses. A group of soldiers then drag in Timur and Liù. They have been seen speaking to the Prince, so they must know his name. Turandot enters and orders Timur and Liù to speak. The Prince feigns ignorance, saying they know nothing. But when the guards begin to treat Timur harshly, Liù declares that she alone knows the Prince's name, but she will not reveal it.


title: Turandot

text: Ping demands the Prince's name, and when Liù refuses to say it, she is tortured. Turandot is clearly taken aback by Liù's resolve and asks Liù who or what gave her such a strong resolve. Liù answers, "Princess, love!" ("Principessa, amore!"). Turandot demands that Ping tear the Prince's name from Liù, and Ping orders Liù to be tortured even more. Liù counters Turandot ("Tu che di gel sei cinta" – "You who are encircled by ice"), saying that Turandot too will learn the exquisite joy of being guided by caring and compassionate love. Having spoken, Liù seizes a dagger from a soldier's belt and stabs herself. As she staggers towards the Prince and falls dead, the crowd screams for her to speak the Prince's name. Since Timur is blind, he must be told about Liù's death, and he cries out in anguish.


title: Turandot

text: When Timur warns that the gods will be offended by Liù's death, the crowd becomes subdued, very afraid and ashamed. The grieving Timur and the crowd follow Liù's body as it is carried away. Everybody departs, leaving the Prince and Turandot alone. He reproaches Turandot for her cruelty (Duet – The Prince, Turandot: "Principessa di morte" – "Princess of death"), then takes her in his arms and kisses her in spite of her resistance.


title: Turandot

text: The Prince tries to persuade Turandot to love him. At first, she feels disgusted, but after he kisses her, she feels herself becoming more ardently desiring to be held and compassionately loved by him. She admits that ever since she met the Prince, she realized she both hated and loved him. She asks him to ask for nothing more and to leave, taking his mystery with him. The Prince, however, then reveals his name: "Calaf, son of Timur – Calaf, figlio di Timur", thereby placing his life in Turandot's hands. She can now destroy him if she wants (Duet – Turandot, Calaf: "Del primo pianto").


title: Turandot

text: Turandot and Calaf approach the Emperor's throne. She declares that she knows the Prince's name: ("Diecimila anni al nostro Imperatore!") – "It is ... love!" The crowd sings and acclaims the two lovers ("O sole! Vita! Eternità").


title: Turandot

text: While long recognised as the most tonally adventurous of Puccini's operas, "Turandot" has also been considered a flawed masterpiece, and some critics have been hostile. Joseph Kerman states that "Nobody would deny that dramatic potential can be found in this tale. Puccini, however, did not find it; his music does nothing to rationalize the legend or illuminate the characters." Kerman also wrote that while "Turandot" is more "suave" musically than Puccini's earlier opera, "Tosca", "dramatically it is a good deal more depraved." However, Sir Thomas Beecham once remarked that anything that Joseph Kerman said about Puccini "can safely be ignored".


title: Turandot

text: Some of this criticism is possibly due to the standard Alfano ending (Alfano II), in which Liù's death is followed almost immediately by Calaf's "rough wooing" of Turandot, and the "bombastic" end to the opera. A later attempt at completing the opera was made, with the co-operation of the publishers, Ricordi, in 2002 by Luciano Berio. The Berio version is considered to overcome some of these criticisms, but critics such as Michael Tanner have failed to be wholly convinced by the new ending, noting that the criticism by the Puccini advocate Julian Budden still applies: "Nothing in the text of the final duet suggests that Calaf's love for Turandot amounts to anything more than a physical obsession: nor can the ingenuities of Simoni and Adami's text for 'Del primo pianto' convince us that the Princess's submission is any less hormonal."


title: Turandot

text: Ashbrook and Powers consider it was an awareness of this problem – an inadequate buildup for Turandot's change of heart, combined with an overly successful treatment of the secondary character (Liù) – which contributed to Puccini's inability to complete the opera. Another alternative ending, written by Chinese composer Hao Wei Ya, has Calaf pursue Turandot but kiss her tenderly, not forcefully; and the lines beginning "Del primo pianto" (Of the first tears) are expanded into an aria where Turandot tells Calaf more fully about her change of heart.


title: Turandot

text: Concerning the compelling believability of the self-sacrificial Liù character in contrast to the two mythic protagonists, biographers note echoes in Puccini's own life. He had had a servant named Doria, whom his wife accused of sexual relations with Puccini. The accusations escalated until Doria killed herself. In "Turandot", Puccini lavished his attention on the familiar sufferings of Liù, as he had on his many previous suffering heroines. However, in the opinion of Father Owen Lee, Puccini was out of his element when it came to resolving the tale of his two allegorical protagonists. Finding himself completely outside his normal genre of "verismo", he was incapable of completely grasping and resolving the necessary elements of the mythic, unable to "feel his way into the new, forbidding areas the myth opened up to him" – and thus unable to finish the opera in the two years before his unexpected death.


title: Turandot

text: "Turandot" is scored for three flutes (the third doubling piccolo); two oboes; one English horn; two clarinets in B-flat; one bass clarinet in B-flat, two bassoons; one contrabassoon; two onstage Alto saxophones in E-flat; four French horns in F; three trumpets in F; three tenor trombones; one contrabass trombone; six onstage trumpets in B-flat, three onstage trombones; and one onstage bass trombone; a percussion section with timpani, cymbals, gong, one triangle, one snare drum, one bass drum, one tam-tam, one glockenspiel, one xylophone, one bass xylophone, tubular bells, and tuned Chinese gongs; one onstage wood block; one onstage large gong; one celesta; one pipe organ; two harps; and strings.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Melchor Gastón Ferrer (August 25, 1917 – June 2, 2008) was an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He achieved prominence on Broadway before scoring notable film hits with "Scaramouche", "Lili" and "Knights of the Round Table." He starred opposite his wife, actress Audrey Hepburn, in "War and Peace," and produced her film "Wait Until Dark". He also acted extensively in European films, and appeared in several cult hits, including "The Antichrist" (1974), "The Suspicious Death of a Minor" (1975), "The Black Corsair" (1976), and "Nightmare City" (1980).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer was born in Elberon, New Jersey, of Spanish and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (December 3, 1857 – February 23, 1920), was born in Havana, Cuba, of Catalan ancestry. José was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. He was 59 years old at the time of Mel's birth and died three years later. Mel Ferrer's US-born mother, Mary Matilda Irene (née O'Donohue; January 28, 1878 – February 19, 1967), was a daughter of coffee broker Joseph J. O'Donohue, New York's City Commissioner of Parks, a founder of the Coffee Exchange, and a founder of the Brooklyn-New York Ferry. An ardent opponent of Prohibition, Irene Ferrer (as she was known) was named in 1934 as the New York State chairman of the Citizens Committee for Sane Liquor Laws. His parents married on October 17, 1910, in New York.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: His mother's family, the O'Donohues, were prominent Roman Catholics. Ferrer's aunt, Marie Louise O'Donohue, was named a papal countess, and his mother's sister, Teresa Riley O'Donohue, a leading figure in American Roman Catholic charities and welfare organizations, was granted permission by Pope Pius XI to install a private chapel in her New York City apartment.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer had three siblings. His elder sister, Dr. María Irené Ferrer (July 30, 1915 – November 12, 2004), was a cardiologist and educator, who helped refine the cardiac catheter and electrocardiogram. She died in 2004 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, at age 89 of pneumonia and congestive heart failure. Their brother, Dr. Jose M. Ferrer (November 23, 1912 – December 24, 1982), was a surgeon; he died at age 70 from complications of abdominal surgery. Their younger sister, Teresa Ferrer (March 30, 1919 – February 12, 2002), was the religion editor of "The New York Herald Tribune" and an education editor for "Newsweek". She died at age 82 from a thoracic aneurysm.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer was privately educated at the Bovée School in New York (where one of his classmates was the future author Louis Auchincloss) and Canterbury Prep School in Connecticut. He attended Princeton University until his sophomore year, when he dropped out to devote more time to acting.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: He worked as an editor of a small Vermont newspaper and wrote the children's book "Tito's Hats" (Garden City Publishing, 1940).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer began acting in summer stock as a teenager and in 1937 won the Theatre Intime award for best new play by a Princeton undergraduate; the play was called "Awhile to Work" and co-starred another college student, Frances Pilchard, who would become Ferrer's first wife later the same year. At age twenty-one, he was appearing on the Broadway stage as a chorus dancer, making his debut there as an actor two years later. He appeared as a chorus dancer in two unsuccessful musicals, Cole Porter's "You Never Know" and "Everywhere I Roam". After a bout with polio, Ferrer worked as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and moved to Mexico to work on the novel "Tito's Hat" (published 1940).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer was contracted to Columbia Pictures as a director, along with several other "potentials" who began as dialogue directors: Fred Sears, William Castle, Henry Levin and Robert Gordon.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Among the films he worked on were "Louisiana Hayride" (1944), "They Live in Fear" (1944), "Sergeant Mike" (1944), "Together Again" (1944), "Meet Miss Bobby Socks" (1944), "Let's Go Steady" (1944), "Ten Cents a Dance" (1945), and "A Thousand and One Nights" (1945). Some of these were "B" movies but others ("Thousand and One Nights") were more prestigious. Ferrer directed "The Girl of the Limberlost" (1945), starring Ruth Nelson.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Eventually, he returned to Broadway, where he starred in "Strange Fruit" (1945–46), a play based on the novel by Lillian Smith. It was directed by José Ferrer (no relation). He then directed José Ferrer in the 1946 stage production of "Cyrano de Bergerac". He worked as an assistant on "The Fugitive" (1947), directed by John Ford in Mexico. Along with Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Joseph Cotten, he founded the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer made his screen acting debut with a starring role in "Lost Boundaries" (1949), playing a black person who passes for white. The film was controversial but much acclaimed.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer had a supporting role in "Born to Be Bad" (1950) at RKO, directed by Nicholas Ray. At that studio, he directed Claudette Colbert in "The Secret Fury" (1950) and directed or co-directed "Vendetta" (1950), "The Racket" (1951) and "Macao" (1952). He starred as a bullfighter in "The Brave Bulls" (1951) for Robert Rossen at Columbia. Ferrer fought with Arthur Kennedy over Marlene Dietrich in "Rancho Notorious" (1952), directed by Fritz Lang at RKO.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer went to MGM, replacing Fernando Lamas as the villain in "Scaramouche" (1952). The film, particularly notable for a long, climactic sword fight between Ferrer and Stewart Granger, was a huge hit. The studio kept him on for "Lili" (1953) as the title character (played by Leslie Caron)'s love interest. It was another big success; Ferrer and Caron also got a hit single out of it, "Hi-Lili-Hi-Lo". "Saadia" (1953), which Ferrer made with Cornel Wilde, was a flop, but "Knights of the Round Table" (1954), in which Ferrer played King Arthur, was another hit. Ferrer met actress Audrey Hepburn at a party; she wanted to do a play together. They appeared in "Ondine" (1954) on Broadway and wed in 1954.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer went to Italy to make "Proibito" (1954) and to England for "Oh... Rosalinda!!" (1955), directed by Powell and Pressburger. Neither film was widely seen, but "War and Peace" (1956) was a big success; Ferrer played Prince Andrei, co-starring with then-wife Audrey Hepburn. In France, he co-starred with Ingrid Bergman in "Elena and Her Men" (1956), directed by Jean Renoir.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer and Hepburn made "Mayerling" (1957) for American television; it was released theatrically in some countries. Ferrer returned to MGM to make "The Vintage" (1957) with Pier Angeli, which was a big flop. He made two films for 20th Century Fox: an all-star adaptation of "The Sun Also Rises" (1957) and "Fräulein" (1958), a war story with Dana Wynter. At MGM, he played one of the last three people on Earth in "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" (1959), another flop. Ferrer went to Italy to star in Roger Vadim's vampire movie "Blood and Roses" (1960). After an English horror film, "The Hands of Orlac" (1960), he starred in the Italian adventure film "Charge of the Black Lancers" (1962). He was one of several stars in "The Devil and the Ten Commandments" (1962) and "The Longest Day" (1962). He had a cameo in his wife's "Paris When It Sizzles" (1964) and was Marcus Aurelius Cleander in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer then turned to television, doing some directing for the series "The Farmer's Daughter" (1963–66) starring Inger Stevens, William Windom, and Cathleen Nesbitt. Ferrer had a supporting role in "Sex and the Single Girl" (1964). From 1981 to 1984, he appeared opposite Jane Wyman as Angela Channing's attorney (and briefly her husband), Phillip Erikson, on "Falcon Crest" (as well as directing several episodes). He played a blackmailing reporter in the "Columbo" episode "Requiem for a Fallen Star", starring Anne Baxter. He appeared opposite Cyd Charisse in an episode of the long-running Angela Lansbury series, "Murder She Wrote", and appeared in two television miniseries, "Peter the Great" (1986) and "Dream West" (1986). Later credits include "Eye of the Widow" (1991) and "Catherine the Great" (1995).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer produced and starred in the biopic "El Greco" (1966), playing the famous painter. He also produced "Wait Until Dark" (1967), starring his wife, another big hit.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Ferrer was mostly a jobbing actor in the 1970s, working much in Italy. Among his credits were "A Time for Loving" (1972); "The Antichrist" (1974) in Italy; "Brannigan" (1974), a crime drama set in London that starred John Wayne; "Silent Action" (1975) and "The Suspicious Death of a Minor" (1975), both for Sergio Martino; "The Net" (1975), shot in Germany; "The Black Corsair" (1976), an Italian swashbuckler; "Gangbuster" (1977) in Italy; "The Pyjama Girl Case" (1977); "Seagulls Fly Low" (1977).


title: Mel Ferrer

text: In the U.S., he was in "Hi-Riders" (1978), "The Norseman" (1978), "" (1979), and "The Fifth Floor" (1979). In 1979, he portrayed Dr. Brogli in an episode of "Return of the Saint". In Europe, he was in "The Visitor" (1979), "Island of the Fishmen" (1980), "Nightmare City" (1980), "The Great Alligator River" (1980) and "Eaten Alive!" (1980). He went to Germany for "Lili Marleen" (1981). He worked in two of Spanish actress Marisol's film vehicles: "Cabriola" and "La chica del molino rojo", being the director of the first and acting in the second.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Mel Ferrer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6268 Hollywood Blvd.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: Before his marriage to Elizabeth Soukhotine in 1971, Ferrer had a relationship with 29-year-old interior designer Tessa Kennedy.


title: Mel Ferrer

text: A resident of Carpinteria, California, Ferrer died of heart failure at a convalescent home in Santa Barbara, California on June 2, 2008, at age 90.


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: "Do not go gentle into that good night" is a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953), and is one of his best-known works. Though first published in the journal "Botteghe Oscure" in 1951, the poem was written in 1947 while Thomas visited Florence with his family. Subsequent publication, along with other Thomas works, include "In Country Sleep, And Other Poems" (New Directions, 1952) and "Collected Poems, 1934–1952" (Dent, 1952).


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: It has been suggested that the poem was written for Thomas's dying father, although he did not die until just before Christmas 1952. It has no title other than its first line, "Do not go gentle into that good night", a line that appears as a refrain throughout the poem along with its other refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light".


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: The villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines. It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of "Do not go gentle into that good night" can be schematized, as shown below.


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: In the first stanza of "Do Not Go Gentle", the speaker encourages his father not to "go gentle into that good night" but rather to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." Then, in the subsequent stanzas, he proceeds to list all manner of men, using terms such as "wise", "good", "wild", and "grave" as descriptors, who, in their own respective ways, embody the refrains of the poem. In the final stanza, the speaker implores his father, whom he observes upon a "sad height", begging him to "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears", and reiterates the refrains once more.


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: While this poem has inspired a significant amount of unique discussion and analysis from such critics as Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Westphal, and Walford Davies, some interpretations of the poem's meaning is under general consensus. "This is obviously a threshold poem about death", Heaney writes, and Westphal agrees, noting that "[Thomas] is advocating active resistance to death." Heaney thinks that the poem's structure as a villanelle "[turns] upon itself, advancing and retiring to and from a resolution" in order to convey "a vivid figure of the union of opposites" that encapsulates "the balance between natural grief and the recognition of necessity which pervades the poem as a whole."


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: Westphal writes that the "sad height" Thomas refers to in line 16 is "of particular importance and interest in appreciating the poem as a whole." He asserts that it was not a literal structure, such as a bier, not only because of the literal fact that Thomas' father died after the poem's publication, but also because "it would be pointless for Thomas to advise his father not to 'go gentle' if he were already dead ..." Instead, he thinks that Thomas' phrase refers to "a metaphorical plateau of aloneness and loneliness before death". In his 2014 "Writers of Wales" biography of Thomas, Davies disagrees, instead believing that the imagery is in more allusive in nature, and that it "clearly evokes both King Lear on the heath and Gloucester thinking he is at Dover Cliff."


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: "Do not go gentle into that good night" was used as the text for Igor Stravinsky's "In Memoriam Dylan Thomas" (Dirge-Canons and Song) for tenor and chamber ensemble, which was written soon after Thomas's death and first performed in 1954. It is the subject of a 1979 tone poem for wind ensemble by Elliot del Borgo entitled "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", and was set to orchestral music by John Cale for his 1989 album "Words for the Dying". Vincent Persichetti wrote a work for organ pedals alone after the poem called "Do Not Go Gentle"; it was premiered by Leonard Raver at Alice Tully Hall on Feb 7, 1976. In 1999 Janet Owen Thomas set the poem to music in the 2nd (final) movement of her work "Under the Skin."


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: The title of George R.R. Martin's sci-fi novel " Dying Of the Light", published in 1977, is based on one of the two refrains present in "Do not go gentle into that good night". The book deals with topics of the resistance and acceptance of death, on a planetary scale. In the book, the planet is slowly on course out of the region of its neighboring stars, experiencing both literal and metaphorical "dying of the light".


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: The poem is read in full by Iggy Pop as the ninth track on his 2019 album "Free". A rock version by Billy Green was featured in the soundtrack of the Australian biker film "Stone" (1974).


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: The poem or snippets from or references to it turn up from time to time in films, including "Independence Day" (1996), where the American President vows to fight the invaders with "We will not go quietly into the night"), "Back to School" (1986), and "Interstellar" (2014) where the poem is used repeatedly by Michael Caine's character Professor John Brand, as well as by several other supporting characters.


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: The poem has also been referenced in other media: "Do not go gentle into that good night" was the inspiration for three paintings by Swansea-born painter and print-maker Ceri Richards, who drew them in 1954, 1956, and 1965 respectively.


title: Do not go gentle into that good night

text: Chinese law professor Xu Zhangrun has used it in his widely recognized 2020 text of government critique.