title: United States Army Rangers

text: To date, the Rangers have earned six Presidential Unit Citations, nine Valorous Unit Awards, and four Meritorious Unit Commendations, the most recent of which were earned in Vietnam and Haditha, Iraq.


title: Yankee

text: The term Yankee and its contracted form Yank have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Its various senses depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, residents of the Northern United States, or Americans in general. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", it is "a nickname for a native or inhabitant of New England, or, more widely, of the northern States generally".


title: Yankee

text: Outside the United States, "Yank" is used informally to refer to an American person or thing. It has been especially popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand where it may be used variously with uncomplimentary overtones or cordially. In the Southern United States, "Yankee" is a derisive term which refers to all Northerners, and during the American Civil War was applied by Confederates to soldiers of the Union army in general. Elsewhere in the United States, it largely refers to people from the Northeastern states, but especially those with New England cultural ties, such as descendants of colonial New England settlers, wherever they live. Its sense is sometimes more cultural than geographical, emphasizing the Calvinist Puritan Christian beliefs and traditions of the Congregationalists who brought their culture when they settled outside New England. The speech dialect of Eastern New England English is called "Yankee" or "Yankee dialect".


title: Yankee

text: British General James Wolfe made the earliest recorded use of the word "Yankee" in 1758 when he referred to the New England soldiers under his command. "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more, because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance". Later British use of the word was in a derogatory manner, as seen in a cartoon published in 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" (American) soldiers. New Englanders themselves employed the word in a neutral sense; the "Pennamite–Yankee War", for example, was a series of clashes in 1769 over land titles in Pennsylvania between settlers from Connecticut Colony and "Pennamite" settlers from Pennsylvania.


title: Yankee

text: The meaning of "Yankee" has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. Mark Twain used the word in this sense the following century in his 1889 novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from the United States. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States, though not to recent immigrants from Europe. Thus, a visitor to Richmond, Virginia commented in 1818, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called".


title: Yankee

text: Historically, it has also been used to distinguish American-born Protestants from later immigrants, such as Catholics of Irish descent.


title: Yankee

text: Many etymologies have been suggested for the word "Yankee", but modern linguists generally reject theories that suggest that it originated in any indigenous languages. This includes a theory put forth by a British officer in 1789, who said that it was derived from the Cherokee word "eankke" ("coward")—despite the fact that no such word existed in the Cherokee language. Another theory surmised that the word was borrowed from the Wyandot pronunciation of the French "l'anglais", meaning "the Englishman" or "the English language", which was sounded as "Y'an-gee".


title: Yankee

text: American musicologist Oscar Sonneck debunked a romanticized false etymology in his 1909 work "Report on "The Star-Spangled Banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle"". He cited a popular theory which claimed that the word came from a tribe who called themselves "Yankoos", said to mean "invincible". The story claimed that New Englanders had defeated this tribe after a bloody battle, and the remaining "Yankoo" Indians transferred their name to the victors—who were "agreeable to the Indian custom". Sonneck notes that multiple American writers since 1775 had repeated this story as if it were fact, despite what he perceived to be holes in it. It had never been the tradition of any Indian tribe to transfer their name to other peoples, according to Sonneck, nor had any settlers ever adopted an Indian name to describe themselves. Sonneck concludes by pointing out that there was never a tribe called the "Yankoos".


title: Yankee

text: Most linguists look to Dutch language sources, noting the extensive interaction between the Dutch colonists in New Netherland (now largely New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and western Connecticut) and the English colonists in New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and eastern Connecticut). The exact application, however, is uncertain; some scholars suggest that it was a term used in derision of the Dutch colonists, others that it was derisive of the English colonists.


title: Yankee

text: Michael Quinion and Patrick Hanks argue that the term comes from the Dutch "Janneke", a diminutive form of the given name "Jan" (John) which would be Anglicized by New Englanders as "Yankee" due to the Dutch pronunciation of "J" being the same as the English "Y". Quinion and Hanks posit that it was "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times" and could have grown to include non-Dutch colonists, as well. The Oxford English Dictionary calls this theory "perhaps the most plausible".


title: Yankee

text: Alternatively, two Dutch given names "Jan" () and "Kees" () have long been common, and the two are sometimes combined into a single name (Jan Kees). Its Anglicized spelling "Yankee" could, in this way, have been used to mock Dutch colonists. The chosen name "Jan Kees" may have been partly inspired by a dialectal rendition of "Jan Kaas" ("John Cheese"), the generic nickname that Southern Dutch (particularly Flemish) used for Dutch people living in the North.


title: Yankee

text: The Online Etymology Dictionary gives Yankee its origin as around 1683, attributing it to English colonists insultingly referring to Dutch colonists (especially freebooters). English privateer William Dampier relates his dealings in 1681 with Dutch fellow privateer, Captain Yanky (or Yanke). Linguist Jan de Vries notes that there was mention of a pirate named "Dutch Yanky" in the 17th century. "The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves" (1760) contains the passage, "Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with thy story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky." According to this theory, Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam started using the term against the English colonists of neighboring Connecticut.


title: Yankee

text: An early use of the term outside the United States was in the creation of Sam Slick the "Yankee Clockmaker" in a newspaper column in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1835. The character was a plain-speaking American who becomes an example for Nova Scotians to follow in his industry and practicality; and his uncouth manners and vanity were the epitome of qualities that his creator detested. The character was developed by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, and it grew between 1836 and 1844 in a series of publications.


title: Yankee

text: The "damned Yankee" usage dates from 1812. Confederates popularized it as a derogatory term for their Northern enemies during and after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eventual Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun had been a pilot in World War II, and he named his B-17F bomber "Damn Yankee" because a crewman from North Carolina nicknamed him with that epithet.


title: Yankee

text: A pervasive influence on the use of the term throughout the years has been the song "Yankee Doodle" which was popular during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The song originated among the British troops during the French and Indian or Seven Years' War, creating a stereotype of the Yankee simpleton who stuck a feather in his cap and thought that he was stylish, but it was rapidly re-appropriated by American patriots after the battles of Lexington and Concord. Today, "Yankee Doodle" is the official state song of Connecticut.


title: Yankee

text: The term "Yankee" now may mean any resident of New England or of any of the Northeastern United States. The original Yankees diffused widely across the northern United States, leaving their imprints in New York, the Upper Midwest, and places as far away as Seattle, San Francisco, and Honolulu. Yankees typically lived in villages consisting of clusters of separate farms. Often they were merchants, bankers, teachers, or professionals.


title: Yankee

text: Village life fostered local democracy, best exemplified by the open town meeting form of government that still exists today in New England. Village life also stimulated mutual oversight of moral behavior and emphasized civic virtue. From the New England seaports of Boston, Salem, Providence, and New London, among others, the Yankees built international trade routes, stretching to China by 1800. Much of the profit from trading was reinvested in the textile and machine tools industries. In the book "Dawn and the Dons; The Romance of Monterey," Tirey L. Ford, in 1926, talks about Yankees from Boston loading hides in Monterey, California.


title: Yankee

text: Yankee ingenuity was a worldwide stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how," self-reliance, and individual enterprise. The stereotype first appeared in the 19th century. As Mitchell Wilson notes, "Yankee ingenuity and Yankee git-up-and-go did not exist in colonial days." The great majority of Yankees gravitated toward the burgeoning cities of the northeast, while wealthy New Englanders also sent ambassadors to frontier communities where they became influential bankers and newspaper printers. They introduced the term "Universal Yankee Nation" to proselytize their hopes for national and global influence.


title: Yankee

text: In religion, New England Yankees originally followed the Puritan tradition, as expressed in Congregational churches. Beginning in the late colonial period, many became Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, or, later, Unitarians. Strait-laced 17th-century moralism as derided by novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne faded in the 18th century. The First Great Awakening (under Jonathan Edwards and others) in the mid-18th century and the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century (under Charles Grandison Finney, among others) emphasized personal piety, revivals, and devotion to civic duty. Theologically, Arminianism replaced the original Calvinism. Horace Bushnell introduced the idea of Christian nurture, through which children would be brought to religion without revivals.


title: Yankee

text: After 1800, Yankees spearheaded most reform movements, including those for the abolition of slavery, temperance in use of alcohol, increase in women's political rights, and improvement in women's education. Emma Willard and Mary Lyon pioneered in the higher education of women, while Yankees comprised most of the reformers who went South during Reconstruction in the late 1860s to educate the Freedmen.


title: Yankee

text: Historian John Buenker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest:Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest, and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stock ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior…. This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the Forty-Eighters.Yankees dominated New England, much of upstate New York, and much of the upper Midwest, and were the strongest supporters of the new Republican party in the 1860s. This was especially true for the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and (after 1860) the Methodists among them. A study of 65 predominantly Yankee counties showed that they voted only 40% for the Whigs in 1848 and 1852, but became 61–65% Republican in presidential elections of 1856 through 1864.


title: Yankee

text: Ivy League universities remained bastions of old Yankee culture until well after World War II, particularly Harvard and Yale, as well as "Little Ivy" liberal arts colleges.


title: Yankee

text: President Calvin Coolidge exemplified the modern Yankee stereotype. Coolidge moved from rural Vermont to urban Massachusetts and was educated at elite Amherst College. Yet his flint-faced, unprepossessing ways and terse rural speech proved politically attractive. "That Yankee twang will be worth a hundred thousand votes", explained one Republican leader. Coolidge's laconic ways and dry humor were characteristic of stereotypical rural "Yankee humor" at the turn of the 20th century.


title: Yankee

text: The term "Yankee" can have many different meanings within the United States that are contextually and geographically dependent. Traditionally, "Yankee" was most often used to refer to a New Englander descended from the original settlers of the region, thus often suggesting Puritanism and thrifty values. By the mid-20th century, some speakers applied the word to any American inhabiting the area north of the Mason–Dixon Line, though usually with a specific focus still on New England. "New England Yankee" might be used to differentiate. However, within New England itself, the term still refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent. For example:


title: Yankee

text: In the Southern United States, the term is used in derisive reference to any Northerner, especially one who has migrated to the South and maintains derisive attitudes towards Southerners and the Southern way of life. Alabama lawyer and author Daniel Robinson Hundley in his book "Social Relations in Our Southern States" describes the Yankee as such: Yankee with all these is looked upon usually as a term of reproach --signifying a shrewd, sharp, chaffering, oily-tongued, soft-sawdering, inquisitive, money-making, money-saving, and money-worshipping individual, who hails from Down East, and who is presumed to have no where else on the Globe a permanent local habitation, however ubiquitous he may be in his travels and pursuits.Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas pointed out as late as 1966, "The very word 'Yankee' still wakens in Southern minds historical memories of defeat and humiliation, of the burning of Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea, or of an ancestral farmhouse burned by Quantrill's Raiders". Ambrose Bierce defines the term in "The Devil's Dictionary" as: "In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)"


title: Yankee

text: Major League Baseball's New York Yankees acquired the name from journalists after the team moved from Baltimore in 1903, though they were officially known as the Highlanders until 1913. The regional Yankees–Red Sox rivalry can make the utterance of the term "Yankee" unwelcome to some fans in New England, especially to the most dedicated Red Sox fans living in the northeastern United States.


title: Yankee

text: The term "Swamp Yankee" is sometimes used in rural Rhode Island, Connecticut, and southeastern Massachusetts to refer to Protestant farmers of moderate means and their descendants (in contrast to richer or urban Yankees); "swamp Yankee" is often regarded as a derogatory term. Scholars note that the famous Yankee "twang" survives mainly in the hill towns of interior New England, though it is disappearing even there.


title: Yankee

text: Mark Twain's 1889 novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" popularized the word as a nickname for residents of Connecticut, and Connecticut Air National Guard unit 103d Airlift Wing is nicknamed "The Flying Yankees."


title: Yankee

text: "Yankee White" is an administrative nickname for a background check undertaken in the United States of America for Department of Defense personnel and contractor employees working with the president and vice president.


title: Yankee

text: The shortened form "Yank" is used as a derogatory, pejorative, playful, or colloquial term for Americans in Britain, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, and New Zealand. The full "Yankee" may be considered mildly derogatory, depending on the country. The Spanish variation "yanqui" is sometimes used in Latin American contexts. Venezuelan Spanish has the word derived c. 1940 around the oil industry from "petty yankee" or "petit yanqui", a derogatory term for those who profess an exaggerated and often ridiculous admiration for anything from the United States.


title: Yankee

text: In Australia, the term "seppo" is sometimes used as a pejorative reference to Americans. It derives from traditional rhyming slang where "yank" is replaced with "septic tank" and shortened to "seppo".


title: Yankee

text: In the late 19th century, the Japanese were called "the Yankees of the East" in praise of their industriousness and drive to modernization. In Japan, the term has been used since the late 1970s to refer to a type of delinquent youth. In Finland, the word "jenkki" (yank) is sometimes used to refer to any American citizen, and "Jenkkilä" (Yankeeland) refers to the United States itself. It is not considered offensive or anti-American, but rather a colloquial expression. In Sweden, the word "jänkare" is a derivative of yankee that is used to refer to both American citizens and classic American cars from the 1950s that are popular in rural Sweden.


title: Sly Stone

text: Sylvester Stewart (born March 15, 1943), better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. AllMusic stated that "James Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it," and credited him with "creating a series of euphoric yet politically charged records that proved a massive influence on artists of all musical and cultural backgrounds." "Crawdaddy!" has called him "the founder of progressive soul".


title: Sly Stone

text: Born in Texas and raised in the Bay Area of Northern California, Stone mastered several instruments at an early age and performed gospel music as a child with his siblings (and future bandmates) Freddie and Rose. In the mid-1960s, he worked as both a record producer for Autumn Records and a disc jockey for San Francisco radio station KDIA. In 1966, Stone and his brother Freddie joined their bands together to form Sly and the Family Stone, a racially integrated, mixed-gender act. The group would score hits including "Dance to the Music" (1968), "Everyday People" (1968), "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" (1969), "I Want to Take You Higher" (1969) "Family Affair" (1971) and "If You Want Me to Stay" (1973) and acclaimed albums including "Stand!" (1969), "There's a Riot Goin' On" (1971) and "Fresh" (1973).


title: Sly Stone

text: By the mid-1970s, Stone's drug use and erratic behavior effectively ended the group, leaving him to record several unsuccessful solo albums. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the group. He took part in a Sly and the Family Stone tribute at the 2006 Grammy Awards, his first live performance since 1987.


title: Sly Stone

text: The Stewart family was a deeply religious middle-class household from Denton, Texas. Born March 15, 1943, before the family had moved to Vallejo, California, in the North Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, Sylvester was the second of the family's five children.


title: Sly Stone

text: As part of the doctrines of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), to which the Stewart family belonged, the parents – K.C and Alpha Stewart – encouraged musical expression in the household. Sylvester and his brother Freddie along with their sisters Rose and Loretta formed "The Stewart Four" as children, performing gospel music in the Church of God in Christ and even recording a single local release 78 rpm single, "On the Battlefield" b/w "Walking in Jesus' Name", in 1952. The eldest sister, Loretta, was the only Stewart child not to pursue a musical career. All of the other Stewart children, including youngest sister Vaetta ("Vet"), would later adopt the surname "Stone" and pursue musical interests.


title: Sly Stone

text: Sylvester was identified as a musical prodigy. By the time he was seven, Sylvester had already become proficient on the keyboards, and by the age of eleven, he had mastered the guitar, bass, and drums as well. While still in high school, Sylvester had settled primarily on the guitar and joined a number of high school bands. One of these was the Viscaynes, a doo-wop group in which Sylvester and his friend Frank Arellano—who was Filipino—were the only non-white members. The fact that the group was integrated made the Viscaynes "hip" in the eyes of their audiences, and would later inspire Sylvester's idea of the multicultural Family Stone. The Viscaynes released a few local singles, including "Yellow Moon" and "Stop What You Are"; during the same period, Sylvester also recorded a few solo singles under the name Danny Stewart. With his brother, Fred, he formed several short-lived groups, like the Stewart Bros. After high school Stone studied music at the Vallejo campus of Solano Community College.


title: Sly Stone

text: The nickname Sly was a common one for Sylvester throughout his years in grade school. Early on, a classmate misspelled his name "Slyvester," and ever since, the nickname followed him.


title: Sly Stone

text: In the mid-1960s, Stone worked as a disc jockey for San Francisco, California, soul radio station KSOL, where he included white performers such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in his playlists. During the same period, he worked as a staff record producer for Autumn Records, producing for predominantly white San Francisco-area bands such as The Beau Brummels, The Mojo Men, Bobby Freeman, and Grace Slick's first band, The Great Society.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone was influential in guiding KSOL-AM into soul music and started calling the station K-SOUL. The second was a popular soul music station (sans the K-SOUL moniker), at 107.7 FM (now known as KSAN). The current KSOL has a different format and is unrelated to the previous two stations. While still providing "music for your mind, body, and your soul" on KSOL, Sly Stone played keyboard for dozens of major performers including Dionne Warwick, Righteous Brothers, Ronettes, Bobby Freeman, George & Teddy, Freddy Cannon, Marvin Gaye, Dick & Dee Dee, Jan & Dean, Gene Chandler, and many more, including at least one of the three Twist Party concerts by then chart topper Chubby Checker held at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1962 and 1963. The concerts were put together by "Big Daddy" Tom Donohue and Bobby Mitchell from the then infamous KYA 1260 AM radio station and largely choreographed by Jerry Marcellino and Mel Larson who went on to produce many Motown artists including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and some of the top artists of the day.


title: Sly Stone

text: In 1966, Sly was performing with his band Sly and The Stoners which included Cynthia Robinson on trumpet. His brother Freddie was working with his band called Freddie and the Stone Souls with Greg Errico and Jerry Martini. One night, the two stood in a kitchen making the decision to fuse the bands together adding Larry Graham, who had studied music and worked in numerous groups. Working around the Bay Area in 1967, this multiracial band made a strong impression. Later, in 1968, Rose Stone joined the band.


title: Sly Stone

text: After a mildly received debut album, "A Whole New Thing" (1967), Sly & The Family Stone had their first hit single with "Dance to the Music", which was later included on an album of the same name (1968). Although their third album, "Life" (also 1968), also suffered from low sales, their fourth album, "Stand!" (1969), became a runaway success, selling over three million copies and spawning a number one hit single, "Everyday People". By the summer of 1969, Sly & The Family Stone were one of the biggest names in music, releasing two more top five singles, "Hot Fun in the Summertime" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/"Everybody Is a Star", before the end of the year and appearing at Woodstock. During the summer of 1969, Sly and the Family Stone also performed at the Summer of Soul concerts in Harlem and received an enthusiastic response from the large crowd.


title: Sly Stone

text: After the group began touring following the success of "Dance to the Music", The Family Stone drew praise for their explosive live show, which attracted black and white fans in equal measure. When Bob Marley first played in the U.S. in 1973 with his band The Wailers, he opened on tour for Sly and The Family Stone.


title: Sly Stone

text: With the band's newfound fame and success came numerous problems. Relationships within the band were deteriorating; there was friction in particular between the Stone brothers and Larry Graham. Epic requested more marketable output. The Black Panther Party demanded that Stone make his music more militant and more reflective of the black power movement, replace Greg Errico and Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists, and replace manager David Kapralik.


title: Sly Stone

text: After moving to the Los Angeles area in fall 1969, Stone and his bandmates became heavy users of illegal drugs, primarily cocaine and PCP. As the members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Stone carried a violin case filled with illegal drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly. Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, the band released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"/"Everybody Is a Star", in December 1969. This song was one of the first recordings to employ the heavy, funky beats that would be featured in the funk music of the following decade. It showcased bass player Larry Graham's innovative percussive playing technique of bass "slapping". Graham later said that he developed this technique in an earlier band in order to compensate for that band's lack of a drummer.


title: Sly Stone

text: "Thank You" hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1970. The single also peaked at No. 5 on the R&B chart, selling over a million copies.


title: Sly Stone

text: Having relocated to Los Angeles with his then girlfriend Deborah King, later Deborah Santana (wife of Carlos Santana from 1973 until filing for divorce in 2007), Stone's behavior became increasingly erratic. Epic was anticipating new material in 1970, but with none forthcoming, finally released "Greatest Hits" that November. One year later, the band's fifth album, "There's a Riot Goin' On", was released. "Riot" featured a much darker sound as most tracks were recorded with overdubbing as opposed to the Family Stone all playing at the same time as they had done previously. Stone played most of the parts himself and performed more of the lead vocals than usual. This was one of the first major label albums to feature a drum machine.


title: Sly Stone

text: The band's cohesion slowly began to erode, and its sales and popularity began to decline as well. Errico withdrew from the group in 1971 and was eventually replaced with Andy Newmark. Larry Graham and Stone were no longer on friendly terms, and Graham was fired in early 1972 and replaced with Rustee Allen. The band's later releases, "Fresh" (1973) and "Small Talk" (1974), featured even less of the band and more of Stone.


title: Sly Stone

text: Live bookings for Sly & the Family Stone had steadily dropped since 1970, because promoters were afraid that Stone or one of the band members might miss the gig, refuse to play, or pass out from drug use. These issues were regular occurrences for the band during the 1970s, and had an adverse effect on their ability to demand money for live bookings. In 1970, 26 of 80 concerts were cancelled, and numerous others started late. At many of these gigs, concertgoers rioted if the band failed to show up, or if Stone walked out before finishing his set. Ken Roberts became the group's promoter, and later their general manager, when no other representatives would work with the band because of their erratic gig attendance record. In January 1975, the band booked itself at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The famed music hall was only one-eighth occupied, and Stone and company had to scrape together money to return home. Following the Radio City engagement, the band was dissolved.


title: Sly Stone

text: Rose Stone was pulled out of the band by Bubba Banks, who was by then her husband. She began a solo career, recording a Motown-style album under the name Rose Banks in 1976. Freddie Stone joined Larry Graham's group, Graham Central Station, for a time; after collaborating with his brother one last time in 1979 for "Back on the Right Track", he retired from the music industry and eventually became the pastor of the Evangelist Temple Fellowship Center in Vallejo, California. Little Sister was also dissolved; Mary McCreary married Leon Russell and released recordings on Russell's Shelter Records label. Andy Newmark became a successful session drummer, playing with John Lennon, Roxy Music, B. B. King, Steve Winwood and others.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone went on to record four more albums as a solo artist (only "High on You" (1975) was released under just his name; the other three were released under the "Sly & The Family Stone" name). In 1976, Stone assembled a new Family Stone and released "Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back". 1979's "Back on the Right Track" followed, and in 1982 "Ain't But the One Way" was released, which began as a collaborative album with George Clinton, but was scrapped and later completed by producer Stewart Levine for release. None of these later albums achieved much success.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone also collaborated with Funkadelic on "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" (1981), but was unable to reinvigorate his career. In the early 1980s Sly Stone was also part of a George Clinton/Funkadelic family project with Muruga Booker called "The Soda Jerks," who recorded an album worth of material, of which only one song has been released. However, Muruga still has plans to release the material from the project.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone managed to do a short tour with Bobby Womack in the summer of 1984, and he continued to make sporadic appearances on compilations and other artists' records. In 1986, Stone was featured on a track from Jesse Johnson's album "Shockadelica" called "Crazay". The music video featured Stone on keyboards and vocals, and received some airplay on the BET music network.


title: Sly Stone

text: In 1986, Stone released a single, "Eek-ah-Bo Static Automatic", from the "Soul Man" soundtrack, and the song "I'm the Burglar" from the "Burglar" soundtrack. He also co-wrote and co-produced "Just Like A Teeter-Totter," which appeared on a Bar-Kays album from 1989.


title: Sly Stone

text: From 1988 to 1989 Sly Stone wrote and produced a collection of unreleased recordings in his home studio in New Jersey, "Coming Back for More" and "Just Like A Teeter-Totter" are a part of that collection of about 20 songs.


title: Sly Stone

text: In 1990, he gave an energetic vocal performance on the Earth, Wind and Fire song, "Good Time." In 1991, he appeared on a cover of "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" performed by the Japanese band 13CATS, and shared lead vocals with Bobby Womack on "When the Weekend Comes" from Womack's 1993 album "I Still Love You".


title: Sly Stone

text: In 1992, Sly and the Family Stone appeared on the Red Hot Organization's dance compilation album, "Red Hot + Dance", contributing an original track,"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) (Todds CD Mix)." The album attempted to raise awareness and money in support of the AIDS epidemic, and all proceeds were donated to AIDS charities.


title: Sly Stone

text: In 1995, ex-landlord Chase Mellon III accused Stone of trashing the Beverly Hills mansion Mellon rented to him in 1993. Mellon says that he found bathrooms smeared with gold paint, marble floors blackened, windows broken and a gaunt Stone emerging from a guest house to say, "You’re spying on me." Sly Jr., then studying to be a recording engineer, told "People", "Nobody purposely destroyed the house. I’d thrown parties. My dad had a few get-togethers. We weren't aware of the damage." The damage, however, was not just superficial. "Sly never grew out of drugs," says ex-wife Silva. "He lost his backbone and destroyed his future."


title: Sly Stone

text: His last major public appearance until 2006 was during the 1993 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony where Stone showed up onstage to be entered into the Hall of Fame along with the Family Stone. In 2003, the other six members of the original Family Stone entered the studio to record a new album. Stone was invited to participate, but declined.


title: Sly Stone

text: "I feel like Sly just doesn't wanna deal with it no more," Bootsy Collins told "Mojo". "It's like he's had it – it ain't no fun no more. It's a curse and a blessing. The curse part of it is the business you have to deal with, and then the blessing part is you get to be a musician and have fun…"


title: Sly Stone

text: A few home-studio recordings (most likely from the late 1980s) with Stone's voice and keyboards over a drum machine have made their way onto a bootleg. One Stone-penned demo called "Coming Back for More" appears to be autobiographical and includes the verse: "Been so high, I touched the sky and the sky says 'Sly, why you tryin' to get by?' Comin' back for more." His son, Sylvester Stewart Jr., told "People Magazine" in 1997 that his father had composed an album's worth of material, including a tribute to Miles Davis called "Miles and Miles."


title: Sly Stone

text: On August 15, 2005, Stone drove his younger sister Vet Stone on his motorcycle to Los Angeles' Knitting Factory, where Vet was performing with her Sly & the Family Stone tribute band, the Phunk Phamily Affair. Stone kept his helmet on during the entire performance, and was described by one concertgoer as looking a little like Bootsy Collins. A film crew doing a documentary on Sly & the Family Stone, later released as "", was at the show and captured this rare sighting on film. Stone, according to his web site, is producing and writing material for the group's new album. In addition, Stone renamed the group "Family Stone."


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone filed suit against Jerry Goldstein, the former manager of Sly and the Family Stone for $50 million in January 2010. The litigation claimed that Goldstein had used fraudulent practices to convince him to deliver the rights to his songs to Goldstein. In the suit, he made the same claim about the Sly and the Family Stone trademark. Goldstein filed a countersuit for slander following a rant by Stone at the Coachella Festival. In January 2015, a Los Angeles jury ruled in favor of Stone, awarding him $5 million. However, in December 2015, a superior court judge ruled that Stone would not be able to collect the royalties because he had previously assigned them to a production company.


title: Sly Stone

text: On September 25, 2011, the "New York Post" reported that Sly Stone was now homeless and living out of a white camper-van in Los Angeles: "The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, the rough Los Angeles neighborhood where "Boyz n the Hood" was set. A retired couple makes sure he eats once a day, and Stone showers at their house."


title: Sly Stone

text: A Sly and the Family Stone tribute took place at the 2006 Grammy Awards on February 8, 2006, at which Stone gave his first live musical performance since 1987. Sly and the original Family Stone lineup (minus Larry Graham) performed briefly during a tribute to the band, for which the headliners included Steven Tyler, John Legend, Van Hunt, Nile Rodgers and Robert Randolph. Sporting an enormous blonde mohawk, thick sunglasses, a "Sly" beltbuckle and a silver lamé suit, he joined in on "I Want To Take You Higher." Hunched over the keyboards, he wore a cast on his right hand (the result of a recent motorcycle mishap), and a hunched back caused him to look down through most of the performance. His voice, though strong, was barely audible over the production. Stone walked to the front of the stage toward the end of the performance, sang a verse, and then, with a wave to the audience, sauntered offstage before the song was over. "He went up the ramp [outside the theater], got on a motorcycle and took off," Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammy Awards show, told the "Chicago Sun-Times". Ehrlich said Stone refused to leave his hotel room until he was given a police escort to the show and then waited in his car until the performance began.


title: Sly Stone

text: A Sly and the Family Stone tribute album, "Different Strokes by Different Folks", was released on July 12, 2005, by Starbucks' Hear Music label, and on February 7, 2006, by Epic Records. The project features both cover versions of the band's songs and songs which sample the original recordings. Among the artists for the set are The Roots ("Star", which samples "Everybody is a Star"), Maroon 5 and Ciara ("Everyday People"), John Legend, Joss Stone and Van Hunt ("Family Affair"), The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am ("Dance to the Music"), and Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, and Robert Randolph ("I Want to Take You Higher"). Epic Records' version of the tribute album, which included two additional covers ("Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" and "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)") was released in January 2006.


title: Sly Stone

text: On Sunday, January 14, 2007, Stone made a short guest appearance at a show of The New Family Stone band he supports at the House of Blues.


title: Sly Stone

text: On April 1, 2007, Stone appeared with the Family Stone at the Flamingo Las Vegas Showroom, after George Wallace's standup act.


title: Sly Stone

text: On July 7, 2007, Stone made a short appearance with the Family Stone at the San Jose Summerfest. He sang "Sing a Simple Song" and "If You Want Me to Stay," and walked off stage before the end of "Higher". Stone cut the set short, in part, because the band began their set over 90 minutes late and had to finish before a certain time. While many blamed Stone for this incident, others believed that the promoter was at fault.


title: Sly Stone

text: The same scenes were repeated at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 13, 2007, with over half the sold-out venue walking out in disgust even earlier than his stage exit. The same happened again one day later at the Blue Note Records Festival in Ghent, Belgium. There he left the stage after saying to the audience that "when waking up this morning he realized he was old, and so he needed to take a break now". He did the same again one day later, performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival.


title: Sly Stone

text: As the tour progressed, however, Stone seemed to be more confident and animated, often dancing and engaging the audience. He performed "Stand", "I Want To Take You Higher", "Sing A Simple Song", "If You Want Me To Stay", and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", which at one point morphed into "Thank you For Talkin' To Me Africa", a track rarely performed in public. But the show was marred by sound problems and the vocals were barely audible through much of the show.


title: Sly Stone

text: On October 17, 2008, Sly played with the Family Stone at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA. He played a 22-minute set and ventured offstage, telling the crowd "I gotta go take a piss. I'll be right back." He never returned.


title: Sly Stone

text: On Memorial Day, May 25, 2009, Stone re-emerged once again, granting an hour-long interview with KCRW-FM, a Los Angeles NPR affiliate, to discuss his life and career.


title: Sly Stone

text: On August 18, 2009, "The Guardian" reported that a forthcoming documentary, "Coming Back for More" by Dutch director Willem Alkema, claims Stone is homeless and living off welfare while staying in cheap hotels and a camper van. The film alleges that Stone's former manager, Jerry Goldstein, cut off his access to royalty payments following a dispute over a 'debt agreement', forcing Stone to depend on welfare payments. On September 25, 2011, Alkema wrote in the "New York Post" that Stone was homeless and living in a van in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles.


title: Sly Stone

text: On Labor Day, September 7, 2009, Stone appeared at the 20th annual African Festival of the Arts in Chicago, Ill. He performed a 15-minute set during George Clinton's performance. He performed his popular hits along with George Clinton's band. He left immediately after his short performance.


title: Sly Stone

text: On December 6, 2009, Stone signed a new recording contract with the LA-based Cleopatra Records and on August 16, 2011, "I'm Back! Family & Friends" was released, his first album since 1982's "Ain't But the One Way". The album features re-recorded versions of Sly & the Family Stone hits with guest appearances from Jeff Beck, Ray Manzarek, Bootsy Collins, Ann Wilson, Carmine Appice and Johnny Winter, as well as three previously unreleased songs.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone has appeared in later years with George Clinton and performed with his daughter Novena's band, Baby Stone.


title: Sly Stone

text: In January 2015, Sly Stone, along with four of his bandmates, appeared at a convention dedicated to honoring the band and its legacy. Called LOVE CITY CONVENTION, it occurred in Oakland at the Den Lounge inside the Fox Oakland Theater. Sly was in good spirits, answered questions from fans, and signed autographs.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone sued his former managers in 2010, accusing them of cheating him out of years' worth of royalty payments for the songs he had written. He testified that he had not been paid any royalties between 1989 and 2009. A jury in Los Angeles awarded him $5 million in damages in January 2015, but in December the award was overturned because the appellate court ruled the trial judge had not told the jury to take into account the fact Stone had assigned his royalties to a production company in exchange for a 50% ownership stake. In May 2016, Stone's attorneys appealed that decision.


title: Sly Stone

text: Along with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone were pioneers of late 1960s and early '70s funk. Their fusion of R&B rhythms, infectious melodies, and psychedelia created a new pop/soul/rock hybrid, the impact of which has proven lasting and widespread. Motown producer Norman Whitfield, for example, patterned the label's forays into harder-driving, socially relevant material (such as The Temptations' "Runaway Child" and "Ball of Confusion") based on their sound. The pioneering precedent of Stone's racial, sexual, and stylistic mix, had a major influence in the 1980s on artists such as Prince and Rick James. Legions of artists from the 1990s forward – including Public Enemy, Fatboy Slim, Beck, Beastie Boys and LL Cool J's popular "Mama Said Knock You Out" along with many others – mined Stone's seminal back catalog for hook-laden samples.


title: Sly Stone

text: "The most talented musician I know is Sly Stone," Bootsy Collins said in an interview with "Mojo". "He's more talented than anybody I ever have seen – he's amazing. I worked with him in Detroit from 1981 to '83, and to see him just fooling around, playing, jamming, is a whole other trip. He's the most amazing musician."


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone and producer Terry Melcher spent time together at Melcher's home in the late 1960s, and on more than one occasion Stone saw Charles Manson there. According to Stone in a 2009 interview with "LA Weekly's" Randall Roberts, he was once at Melcher's home playing music and had a small disagreement with Manson there, though Stone did not know who Manson was at the time. Stone met Melcher's mother, Doris Day, through Melcher when Stone was interested in an old car that he thought one of them owned. When he met Day, he told her how much he liked her song "Whatever Will Be, Will Be," and they sat at the piano and sang it. After that, a rumor spread that Stone and Day were involved romantically.


title: Sly Stone

text: Stone married model-actress Kathy Silva on June 5, 1974, during a sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden. Their outfits were designed by Halston. They made elaborate plans for a laser-light show, a real-life "angel" flying on wires dropping gold glitter all over the crowd, and for thousands of doves to be released. The ASPCA threatened a lawsuit, which kept the doves from flying and the Garden wouldn't let the human "angel" fly unless Stone and company posted a $125,000 security bond. They declined to pay the fee, and also opted not to pay for the 200 extra security guards the venue demanded in order to allow the wedding party to stage a processional right through the audience.


title: Sly Stone

text: They separated in 1976 after their son was mauled by Stone's dog. Silva later told "People" magazine. "I didn't want that world of drugs and weirdness." Still, she remembers, "He'd write me a song or promise to change, and I'd try again. We were always fighting, then getting back together."


title: Sly Stone

text: Sylvester Jr., was born late 1973. His mother is Kathy Silva. Sylvyette, born c. 1976. Her mother was Cynthia Robinson (1944–2015). Novena Carmel, born c. 1982, is a singer and performer and also a booking agent at the Little Temple club in Los Angeles, now known as The Virgil, and currently a co-host for the popular public radio station KCRW on Morning Becomes Eclectic. She also worked with pop/hip hop musician Wallpaper.


title: Richard Donner

text: Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg; April 24, 1930 – July 5, 2021) was an American filmmaker whose notable works included some of the most financially-successful films during the New Hollywood era. According to film historian Michael Barson, Donner was "one of Hollywood's most reliable makers of action blockbusters". His career spanned over 50 years, crossing multiple genres and filmmaking trends.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner began in 1957 as a television director. By the 1960s, Donner had directed episodes of "The Rifleman", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "The Fugitive", "The Twilight Zone", "The Banana Splits" and many others. He made his film debut with the low-budget aviation drama "X-15" in 1961, but had his critical and commercial breakthrough with the horror film "The Omen" in 1976. He directed the landmark superhero film "Superman" in 1978, which provided an inspiration for the fantasy film genre to eventually gain artistic respectability and commercial dominance. Donner later went on to direct films in the 1980s such as "The Goonies" and "Scrooged", while reinvigorating the buddy cop film genre with the "Lethal Weapon" series.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner and his wife Lauren owned their production company The Donners' Company (formerly Donner/Shuler Donner Productions), best known for co- executive producing the "Free Willy" and "X-Men" franchises. Donner also produced the "Tales from the Crypt" television series and co-wrote several comic books for "Superman" publisher DC Comics. In 2000, Donner received the President's Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.


title: Richard Donner

text: Richard Donald Schwartzberg was born in the Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish parents, Hattie (Horowitz) and Fred Schwartzberg. His father owned a small furniture-manufacturing business and his mother was a stay at home mother. He had a sister, Joan. His grandfather owned a movie theatre in Brooklyn, which had an early influence on his perception of film.


title: Richard Donner

text: After graduating from high school, Donner served in the U.S. Navy, becoming an aerial photographer. He briefly attended New York University but left to pursue a career in acting, relocating to Los Angeles and adopting the stage name "Richard Donner".


title: Richard Donner

text: Initially, Donner wanted to develop a career as an actor. He gained a bit part in a television program directed by Martin Ritt, who encouraged Donner to become a director instead. Ritt hired Donner as his assistant. Later, Donner was on the staff of Desilu, where he directed commercials. He made the transition into television dramas in the late 1950s, directing some episodes of the Steve McQueen western serial "Wanted Dead or Alive" and the Chuck Connors western "The Rifleman".


title: Richard Donner

text: During his early career as a director he worked on over twenty-five television series, including " Have Gun – Will Travel", "The Fugitive", "Combat!", "Get Smart", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "The Wild Wild West", "Gilligan's Island", "Kojak", and "The Twilight Zone" (such as the episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" starring William Shatner and "From Agnes—With Love" starring Wally Cox), as well as the serial "Danger Island" from the children's program "The Banana Splits".


title: Richard Donner

text: In the 1990s, Donner served as executive producer of the HBO anthology horror series "Tales from the Crypt", based on the EC Comics series of the same name. He directed three episodes during its run ("Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone", "The Ventriloquist's Dummy", "Showdown"), and also produced three feature film spinoffs; "Demon Knight", "Bordello of Blood", and "Ritual".


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner's first feature film was "X-15" (1961), which starred David McLean, Charles Bronson, and Mary Tyler Moore. Seven years passed before he directed his next, "Salt and Pepper" (1968), with Sammy Davis Jr., and Peter Lawford. His breakthrough film was "The Omen" (1976). A supernatural horror made in the wake of the success of "The Exorcist", the film stars Gregory Peck, David Warner, and Lee Remick. It was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1976.


title: Richard Donner

text: In 1978, Donner directed "Superman: The Movie", starring Christopher Reeve in the title role. Donner approached the film with the concept of creating verisimilitude, an intuitive feeling in the audience evoked that makes the fantasy story feel real within the story's context. It was a hit worldwide, projecting Reeve to international fame. The film co-starred Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, Marlon Brando as Jor-El, and Gene Hackman as archvillain Lex Luthor. At the box office, it grossed $134 million domestically.


title: Richard Donner

text: Principal photography of "Superman" included filming of its first sequel, "Superman II". Donner filmed most of "Superman II" with the expectation he would complete the sequel after the release of "Superman". Despite the first film's success, Donner was fired from "Superman II". Throughout the filming of both "Superman" films, Donner had a difficult relationship with executive producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind and producer Pierre Spengler. The Salkinds refused Donner's demand that Spengler be fired; instead, the Salkinds replaced Donner as director of "Superman II" with Richard Lester, who had worked with the Salkinds on "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" and as an uncredited producer on "Superman". Following Donner's dismissal, Marlon Brando's scenes were removed from "Superman II" and much of the film was re-shot under Lester's direction. Gene Hackman refused to return for re-shoots; consequently, all the Lex Luthor scenes that appear in "Superman II" were filmed by Donner, although Donner refused to be credited.


title: Richard Donner

text: Rotten Tomatoes' summary states that ""Superman II" meets, if not exceeds, the standard set by its predecessor." Donner continued to promote the view that his contribution was superior to the rest of the series. "" was released on November 28, 2006, the same date as the DVD release of the summer film "Superman Returns". This version of the film features the re-insertion of Marlon Brando's scenes as Jor-El and relies on a minimum of footage shot by Richard Lester.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner directed mixed commercial flops ("Inside Moves", "Radio Flyer") and successes ("The Goonies", the "Lethal Weapon" series, "Scrooged", and "Conspiracy Theory"). In the case of "Superman", it was Donner who insisted the subject of the comic book superhero should be treated "straight", that is, portrayed with respect to the fantasy genre's particular conventions and tone, rather than "camp"; this approach strongly influenced later genre directors such as Tim Burton ("Batman", "Batman Returns"), Bryan Singer ("X-Men", "X2", ""), Christopher Nolan ("Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "The Dark Knight Rises"), Kevin Feige (Marvel Cinematic Universe), and Zack Snyder ("Man of Steel", "", "Zack Snyder's Justice League"), who have made successful superhero films of their own.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner's next blockbuster film was the action comedy "Lethal Weapon", written by Shane Black. It starred Mel Gibson as a widowed narcotics detective with a suicidal bent "who breaks every rule for the sheer joy of it". It co-starred Danny Glover as a calm homicide detective with a loving family and consideration for retirement. The film's action sequences were considered "truly spectacular" and made the film one of the year's biggest hits.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner directed six films starring Mel Gibson in total, creating a "Lethal Weapon" franchise with three sequels; the last of these was "Lethal Weapon 4", released in 1998. In an interview in 2000, Gibson described his impressions of Donner:


title: Richard Donner

text: Uncle Dick. He's a great guy, just terrific. Extremely professional. He's an old veteran and has an understanding of film that is the culmination of years of experience. He's got his technical stuff down, his vision down. No matter what you say about Dick, it underrates him. He really loves what he's doing, loves working with actors, and he allows you freedom to explore all kinds of areas. "All right, kid," he'll say, and slap you on the back and let you try something, because even he doesn't know sometimes. He's just an extremely charming, talented, great fuckin' guy. I love him.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner became the executive producer for the 2000 Marvel Comics film "X-Men", then also an executive producer for the 2009 "X-Men" prequel, "". In addition, Donner's wife has produced all of the films in the "X-Men" film series under their Donners' Company brand.


title: Richard Donner

text: On October 16, 2008, Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner received stars in a double ceremony on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their achievements in motion pictures, located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner was the first choice to direct the "unofficial" James Bond film "Never Say Never Again", but turned it down after he decided he disliked Lorenzo Semple Jr's script. He would have served as director of "Jurassic Park" had Columbia/TriStar won the bidding war for the screen rights against other studios. Donner was also considered as director for "The Lost Boys", "The Last Boy Scout", "Memoirs of an Invisible Man", "Dave", "Forever Young", and "The Sandlot". In 2001, Donner claimed he planned to direct a sequel to "The Goonies" after "Timeline", and he planned to direct the fifth and final "Lethal Weapon" film before his death in 2021.


title: Richard Donner

text: One of Donner's assistants in the late 1990s was comic book writer Geoff Johns. In October 2006, Donner, Johns, and artist Adam Kubert became the new creative team on "Action Comics", the publisher's most time honored publication and one of DC Comics' two main "Superman" titles. Together, Johns and Donner collaborated on the stories "Last Son" and "Escape from Bizarro World", both of which have been released in collected book form. Donner and Johns also co-wrote a story for "Action Comics #1000", released in April 2018.


title: Richard Donner

text: In 2010, Donner's authorized biography titled "You're the Director... You Figure It Out: The Life and Films of Richard Donner" by James Christie was published by BearManor Media. The book features a foreword by Mel Gibson.


title: Richard Donner

text: "Script Magazine" described the book as an "engaging portrait of a warm-hearted (if occasionally gruff) man who can justly be considered the modern equivalent of Victor Fleming and Michael Curtiz – a highly talented, professional director of motion pictures who has thrived in the studio system and made some pretty good pictures to boot."


title: Richard Donner

text: The Directors Guild of America called the book "a compelling study of an ebullient, ballsy risk-taker who was a director even before he was aware of it" that "ably captures Donner's joy in doing a job he loves."


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner married film producer Lauren Shuler on November 27, 1985. The two merged their respective production companies to create Shuler-Donner Productions (now The Donners' Company) the same year. Donner and Shuler remained together until the former's death.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner was the cousin of actor Steve Kahan, who played a policeman tracking Otis in "Superman: The Movie", and played Captain Ed Murphy in the "Lethal Weapon" film franchise. Donner also cast Kahan in some of his other films.


title: Richard Donner

text: Donner died on July 5, 2021, at his West Hollywood, California home, at the age of 91. The cause of death was heart failure with atherosclerosis as an underlying cause.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, writer, musician, radio host, director and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film "Real Life" (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series "Fernwood 2 Night".


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" between 1979 and 1980, and 1984 and 1985. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the film "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), a satirical rockumentary, which became a hit. In 1989, he joined the cast of the animated sitcom "The Simpsons"; he provides voices for characters including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, formerly Dr. Hibbert, and more. Shearer has appeared in films including "The Truman Show" (1998) and "A Mighty Wind" (2003), and has directed two, "Teddy Bears' Picnic" (2002) and "The Big Uneasy" (2010). Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program "Le Show", incorporating satire, music, and sketch comedy. He has written three books.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He became an artist in residence at Loyola University, New Orleans in 2013.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer was born December 23, 1943, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Dora, a bookkeeper, and Mack Shearer. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland. Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, since she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show "The Jack Benny Program". Shearer received the role when he was seven years old. He described Jack Benny as "very warm and approachable ... He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy." Shearer said in an interview that one person who took him "under his wing" and was one of his best friends during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble. Shearer made his film debut in the film "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" (1953), in which he had a small part, and appeared in "The Robe" (also 1953). Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio. In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series "Leave It to Beaver". After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a "serious person". However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the "Daily Bruin", UCLA's school newspaper, during his first year. He was editor of the college humor magazine ("Satyr"), including the June 1964 parody "Preyboy". He also worked as a newscaster at KRLA, a top 40 radio station in Pasadena, during this period. According to Shearer, after graduating, he had "a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out of the Draft'." He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968, he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following "disagreements with the administration".


title: Harry Shearer

text: From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean. The group consisted of "a bunch of newsmen" at KRLA 1110, "the number two station" in Los Angeles. They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about it from a friend so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. He found out he was hired that same day. The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues. While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the "Pop Chronicles" music documentary. In 1973, Shearer appeared as Jim Houseafire on "How Time Flys", an album by The Firesign Theatre's David Ossman. The Credibility Gap broke up in 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom "Laverne & Shirley". Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film "Real Life" (1979). Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series "Fernwood 2 Night". In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up.


title: Harry Shearer

text: In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on "Saturday Night Live", one of the first additions to the original 1975 cast, and an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show. Al Franken recommended Shearer to "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels. Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and "not a real pleasant place to work." He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage (although he was added to the montage for latter episodes of the 1979–80 season) and that Lorne Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was just a writer. Michaels left "Saturday Night Live" at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him. Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was "not a fan of Lorne's" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast.


title: Harry Shearer

text: In 1984, while promoting the film "This Is Spinal Tap", Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean performed on "Saturday Night Live". All three members were offered the chance to join the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved but later stated that he "didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars." Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1994. Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was "a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person." In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good, partially because he felt he was not being used enough. Martin Short said Shearer "wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol] wanted something else. ... I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's film "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984). Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20-minute demo of what they wanted to do. It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed. It was filmed in 25 days.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer said in an interview that "The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right." When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, "No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know," so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public. The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and developed a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), "Break Like the Wind" (1992) and "Back from the Dead" (2009). In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons" called "The Otto Show". The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled "Spinal Tap". In 2009, the band released "Back from the Dead" to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film. The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in "This Is Spinal Tap" and its soundtrack, and five new songs. The band performed a one-date "world tour" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film "A Mighty Wind" that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest, was the opening act for the show.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer is known for his work as a voice actor on "The Simpsons". Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write. When approached by Groening to be in the series, Shearer was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt that voice acting was "not a lot of fun" as, traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He was told that the actors would record their lines together, and after three phone calls for executive producer James L. Brooks, Shearer was convinced to join the cast of "The Simpsons". Shearer's first impression of "The Simpsons" was that it was funny. He – who thought it was a "pretty cool" way to work – found it peculiar that his fellow cast members were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, formerly Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Scratchy, Kang, Dr. Marvin Monroe, and Judge Snyder, among others. He has described all of his regular characters' voices as "easy to slip into. ... I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy." Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan. Shearer says that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice. He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he "like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil." Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. In the episode "Bart's Inner Child", Shearer said "wow" in the voice of Otto, which was then used when Otto was seen jumping on a trampoline. Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer Simpson was jealous of, but because Shearer used "such a sweet voice" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer. Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice was based on psychiatrist David Viscott. Monroe has been largely retired since the seventh season barring a few cameo appearances because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat.


title: Harry Shearer

text: In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now." Shearer has also been vocal about "The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, episode two, 1997), one of the most controversial episodes of "The Simpsons". Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's "so" wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." In a December 2006 interview, Shearer added, "Now, [the writers] refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing [the audience] for paying attention."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in "The Simpsons Ride", which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all. In a 2010 interview on "The Howard Stern Show", Shearer alluded that the reason he was not part of the ride was because he would not be getting paid for it. Similarly, Shearer was unable to appear in the "Family Guy" crossover episode "The Simpsons Guy" due to further scheduling conflicts. Therefore, his characters are again mute. When asked about how he felt about the crossover, Shearer replied, "Matter and anti-matter."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The dispute was resolved a month later, and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30% pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. On May 14, 2015, Shearer announced he was leaving the show. After the other voice actors signed a contract for the same pay, Shearer refused, stating it was not enough. Al Jean made a statement from the producers saying "the show must go on," but did not elaborate on what might happen to the characters Shearer voiced. On July 7, 2015, Shearer agreed to continue with the show, on the same terms as the other voice actors.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program "Le Show". The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the "mega morons of the mighty media". It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States. Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either. The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes and by WWNO. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called "Songs of the Bushmen", consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on "Le Show". Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that "the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place" and that "everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on "Saturday Night Live", Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. "I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it's wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting – but it's always good," said Shearer. He collects this material and uses it on "Le Show" and on his website. In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled "The Silent Echo Chamber" which was exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.


title: Harry Shearer

text: In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom "Not Today, Thank You", playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence. He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit. On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer's first feature film as director, "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which he also wrote, was released in 2002. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying "generally negative reviews") on Metacritic from 10 reviews. In 2003, he co-wrote "J. Edgar! The Musical" with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson. It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary "A Mighty Wind" (2003), portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest. Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking "For Your Consideration" released in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award. He also appeared as a news anchor in "Godzilla" (1998) with fellow "The Simpsons" cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright. His other film appearances include "The Right Stuff" (1983), "The Fisher King" (1991), "The Truman Show" (1998), "Small Soldiers" (also 1998), and "EdTV" (1999). He also directed and appeared in the television program "Portrait of a White Marriage" (1988), a sequel to "The History of White People in America".


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times Magazine", but decided that it "became such a waste of time to bother with it." His columns have also been published in "Slate" and "Newsweek". Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post". Shearer has written three books. "Man Bites Town", published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for "The Los Angeles Times" between 1989 and 1992. Published in 1999, "It's the Stupidity, Stupid" analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton. Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with "the least powerful, least credentialed woman cleared into his official compound." His most recent book is "Not Enough Indians", his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling. Without the "pleasures of collaboration" and "spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects", "Not Enough Indians" was a "struggle" for Shearer to write. He said that "the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: "It Must Have Been Something I Said" (1994), "Dropping Anchors" (2006), "Songs Pointed and Pointless" (2007), "Songs of the Bushmen" (2008) and "Greed and Fear" (2010). His most recent CD, "Greed and Fear" is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown – when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just ... understanding." In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer is the director of "The Big Uneasy" (2010), a documentary film about the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Narrated by actor John Goodman, the film describes levee failures and catastrophic flooding in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and includes extended interviews with former LSU professor Ivor Van Heerden, Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Maria Garzino, an engineer and contract specialist for the Los Angeles district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The film is critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its management of flood protection projects in Southern Louisiana. Shearer draws on numerous technical experts to maintain that Hurricane Katrina's "... tragic floods creating widespread damage were caused by manmade errors in engineering and judgment." On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 71% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.85/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Big Uneasy" offers an admittedly uneven – yet still worthy and well-intentioned – look at a horrific disaster's aftermath."


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer married folk singer Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to Welsh singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records. Shearer has homes in Santa Monica, California, the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Notting Hill, London. He first went to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, blasting the coverage of it in the mainstream media and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to the DVD release of his film, "The Big Uneasy", Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members.


title: Harry Shearer

text: Shearer was the last of the six regular voice actors from "The Simpsons" to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. His win came for the season 25 episode "Four Regrettings and a Funeral".


title: Barbarian

text: A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less civilized or orderly (such as a tribal society) but may also be part of a certain "primitive" cultural group (such as nomads) or social class (such as bandits) both within and outside one's own nation. Alternatively, they may instead be admired and romanticised as noble savages. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a "barbarian" may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, and insensitive person.


title: Barbarian

text: The term originates from the ("barbaros" pl. βάρβαροι "barbaroi"). In Ancient Greece, the Greeks used the term not only towards those who did not speak Greek and follow classical Greek customs, but also towards Greek populations on the fringe of the Greek world with peculiar dialects. In Ancient Rome, the Romans adapted and used the term towards tribal non-Romans such as the Berbers, Germanics, Celts, Iberians, Thracians, Illyrians, and Sarmatians. In the early modern period and sometimes later, the Byzantine Greeks used it for the Turks in a clearly pejorative manner. In Ancient China, references to barbarians go back as far as the Shang Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Annals. "" () or areas outside of range of the Emperor were generally labeled as "Barbarians" or uncivilized through the lens of Sinocentrism.


title: Barbarian

text: The Ancient Greek name βάρβαρος ("bárbaros") or "barbarian" was an antonym for πολίτης ("politēs"), "citizen" (from πόλις – "polis", "city"). The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek , "pa-pa-ro", written in Linear B syllabic script.


title: Barbarian

text: The "Greeks" used the term "barbarian" for all non-Greek-speaking peoples, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes and Phoenicians, emphasizing their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar..bar..;" the alleged root of the word βάρβαρος, which is an echomimetic or onomatopoeic word. In various occasions, the term was also used by Greeks, especially the Athenians, to deride other Greek tribes and states (such as Epirotes, Eleans, Macedonians, Boeotians and Aeolic-speakers) and also fellow Athenians in a pejorative and politically motivated manner. The term also carried a cultural dimension to its dual meaning. The verb ("barbarízō") in ancient Greek meant to behave or talk like a barbarian, or to hold with the barbarians.


title: Barbarian

text: "It was on [the appropriation and adaptation of Egyptian gods] that Greece was founded, according to Plato--and there is no more reliable witness," writes Roberto Calasso in The Celestial Hunter. "The barbarians were therefore the opposite of what the word has come to mean in modern times. They were not new, rough, inarticulate, strong people. They were civilizations much older than Greece--particularly Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia--that had achieved a noble and immovable wisdom." Even in Greek culture, however, the connotations of this word changed over time.


title: Barbarian

text: Plato ("Statesman" 262de) rejected the Greek–barbarian dichotomy as a logical absurdity on just such grounds: dividing the world into Greeks and non-Greeks told one nothing about the second group, yet Plato used the term barbarian frequently in his seventh letter. In Homer's works, the term appeared only once ("Iliad" 2.867), in the form () ("of incomprehensible speech"), used of the Carians fighting for Troy during the Trojan War. In general, the concept of "barbaros" did not figure largely in archaic literature before the 5th century BC. It has been suggested that the "barbarophonoi" in the "Iliad" signifies not those who spoke a non-Greek language but simply those who spoke Greek badly.


title: Barbarian

text: A change occurred in the connotations of the word after the Greco-Persian Wars in the first half of the 5th century BC. Here a hasty coalition of Greeks defeated the vast Persian Empire. Indeed, in the Greek of this period 'barbarian' is often used expressly to refer to Persians, who were enemies of the Greeks in this war.


title: Barbarian

text: The Romans used the term "barbarus" for uncivilised people, opposite to Greek or Roman, and in fact, it became a common term to refer to all foreigners among Romans after Augustus age (as, among the Greeks, after the Persian wars, the Persians), including the Germanic peoples, Persians, Gauls, Phoenicians and Carthaginians.


title: Barbarian

text: The Greek term "barbaros" was the etymological source for many words meaning "barbarian", including English "barbarian", which was first recorded in 16th century Middle English.


title: Barbarian

text: A word "barbara-" is also found in the Sanskrit of ancient India, with the primary meaning of "stammering" implying someone with an unfamiliar language. The Greek word "barbaros" is related to Sanskrit "barbaras" (stammering). This Indo-European root is also found in Latin "balbus" for "stammering" and Czech blblati "to stammer". The verb "baṛbaṛānā" in both contemporary Hindi (बड़बड़ाना) as well as Urdu (بڑبڑانا) means 'to babble, to speak gibberish, to rave incoherently'.


title: Barbarian

text: In Aramaic, Old Persian and Arabic context, the root refers to "babble confusedly". It appears as "barbary" or in Old French "barbarie", itself derived from the Arabic "Barbar", "Berber", which is an ancient Arabic term for the North African inhabitants west of Egypt. The Arabic word might be ultimately from Greek "barbaria".


title: Barbarian

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" gives five definitions of the noun "barbarian", including an obsolete Barbary usage.


title: Barbarian

text: The "OED" "barbarous" entry summarizes the semantic history. "The sense-development in ancient times was (with the Greeks) 'foreign, non-Hellenic,' later 'outlandish, rude, brutal'; (with the Romans) 'not Latin nor Greek,' then 'pertaining to those outside the Roman Empire'; hence 'uncivilized, uncultured,' and later 'non-Christian,' whence 'Saracen, heathen'; and generally 'savage, rude, savagely cruel, inhuman.'"


title: Barbarian

text: Greek attitudes towards "barbarians" developed in parallel with the growth of chattel slavery – especially in Athens. Although the enslavement of Greeks for non-payment of debts continued in most Greek states, Athens banned this practice under Solon in the early 6th century BC. Under the Athenian democracy established ca. 508 BC, slavery came into use on a scale never before seen among the Greeks. Massive concentrations of slaves worked under especially brutal conditions in the silver mines at Laureion in south-eastern Attica after the discovery of a major vein of silver-bearing ore there in 483 BC, while the phenomenon of skilled slave craftsmen producing manufactured goods in small factories and workshops became increasingly common.


title: Barbarian

text: Furthermore, slave-ownership no longer became the preserve of the rich: all but the poorest of Athenian households came to have slaves in order to supplement the work of their free members. The slaves of Athens that had "barbarian" origins were coming especially from lands around the Black Sea such as Thrace and Taurica (Crimea), while Lydians, Phrygians and Carians came from Asia Minor. Aristotle ("Politics" 1.2–7; 3.14) characterises barbarians as slaves by nature.


title: Barbarian

text: From this period, words like "barbarophonos", cited above from Homer, came into use not only for the sound of a foreign language but also for foreigners who spoke Greek improperly. In the Greek language, the word "logos" expressed both the notions of "language" and "reason", so Greek-speakers readily conflated speaking poorly with stupidity.


title: Barbarian

text: Further changes occurred in the connotations of "barbari"/"barbaroi" in Late Antiquity, when bishops and "catholikoi" were appointed to sees connected to cities among the "civilized" "gentes barbaricae" such as in Armenia or Persia, whereas bishops were appointed to supervise entire peoples among the less settled.


title: Barbarian

text: Eventually the term found a hidden meaning through the folk etymology of Cassiodorus (c. 485 – c. 585). He stated that the word "barbarian" was "made up of "barba" (beard) and "rus" (flat land); for barbarians did not live in cities, making their abodes in the fields like wild animals".


title: Barbarian

text: From classical origins the Hellenic stereotype of barbarism evolved: barbarians are like children, unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, unable to control their appetites and desires, politically unable to govern themselves. Writers voiced these stereotypes with much shrillness – Isocrates in the 4th century B.C., for example, called for a war of conquest against Persia as a panacea for Greek problems.


title: Barbarian

text: However, the disparaging Hellenic stereotype of barbarians did not totally dominate Hellenic attitudes. Xenophon (died 354 B.C.), for example, wrote the "Cyropaedia", a laudatory fictionalised account of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, effectively a utopian text. In his "Anabasis", Xenophon's accounts of the Persians and other non-Greeks who he knew or encountered show few traces of the stereotypes.


title: Barbarian

text: In Plato's "Protagoras", Prodicus of Ceos calls "barbarian" the Aeolian dialect that Pittacus of Mytilene spoke.


title: Barbarian

text: Aristotle makes the difference between Greeks and barbarians one of the central themes of his book on "Politics", and quotes Euripides approvingly, "Tis meet that Greeks should rule barbarians".


title: Barbarian

text: The renowned orator Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.) made derogatory comments in his speeches, using the word "barbarian".


title: Barbarian

text: In the Bible's New Testament, St. Paul (from Tarsus) – lived about A.D. 5 to about A.D. 67) uses the word "barbarian" in its Hellenic sense to refer to non-Greeks ("Romans 1:14"), and he also uses it to characterise one who merely speaks a different language ("1 Corinthians 14:11").


title: Barbarian

text: About a hundred years after Paul's time, Lucian – a native of Samosata, in the former kingdom of Commagene, which had been absorbed by the Roman Empire and made part of the province of Syria – used the term "barbarian" to describe himself. Because he was a noted satirist, this could have indicated self-deprecating irony. It might also have suggested descent from Samosata's original Semitic population – who were likely called "barbarians by later Hellenistic, Greek-speaking settlers", and might have eventually taken up this appellation themselves.


title: Barbarian

text: The term retained its standard usage in the Greek language throughout the Middle Ages; Byzantine Greeks used it widely until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, (later named the Byzantine Empire) in the 15th century (1453 with the fall of capital city Constantinople}.


title: Barbarian

text: Cicero (106–43 BC) described the mountain area of inner Sardinia as "a land of barbarians", with these inhabitants also known by the manifestly pejorative term "latrones mastrucati" ("thieves with a rough garment in wool").


title: Barbarian

text: The region, still known as "Barbagia" (in Sardinian "Barbàgia" or "Barbàza"), preserves this old "barbarian" designation in its name – but it no longer consciously retains "barbarian" associations: the inhabitants of the area themselves use the name naturally and unaffectedly.


title: Barbarian

text: The statue of the "Dying Galatian" provides some insight into the Hellenistic perception of and attitude towards "Barbarians". Attalus I of Pergamon (ruled 241–197 BC) commissioned (220s BC) a statue to celebrate his victory (ca 232 BC) over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia (the bronze original is lost, but a Roman marble copy was found in the 17th century). The statue depicts with remarkable realism a dying Celt warrior with a typically Celtic hairstyle and moustache. He sits on his fallen shield while a sword and other objects lie beside him. He appears to be fighting against death, refusing to accept his fate.


title: Barbarian

text: The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts' defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery as worthy adversaries. As H. W. Janson comments, the sculpture conveys the message that "they knew how to die, barbarians that they were".


title: Barbarian

text: The Greeks admired Scythians and Galatians as heroic individuals – and even (as in the case of Anacharsis) as philosophers – but they regarded their culture as barbaric. The Romans indiscriminately characterised the various Germanic tribes, the settled Gauls, and the raiding Huns as barbarians, and subsequent classically oriented historical narratives depicted the migrations associated with the end of the Western Roman Empire as the "barbarian invasions".


title: Barbarian

text: The Romans adapted the term in order to refer to anything that was non-Roman. The German cultural historian Silvio Vietta points out that the meaning of the word "barbarous" has undergone a semantic change in modern times, after Michel de Montaigne used it to characterize the activities of the Spaniards in the New World – representatives of the more technologically advanced, higher European culture – as "barbarous," in a satirical essay published in the year 1580. It was not the supposedly "uncivilized" Indian tribes who were "barbarous", but the conquering Spaniards. Montaigne argued that Europeans noted the barbarism of other cultures but not the crueler and more brutal actions of their own societies, particularly (in his time) during the so-called religious wars. In Montaigne's view, his own people – the Europeans – were the real "barbarians". In this way, the argument was turned around and applied to the European invaders. With this shift in meaning, a whole literature arose in Europe that characterized the indigenous Indian peoples as innocent, and the militarily superior Europeans as "barbarous" intruders invading a paradisical world.


title: Barbarian

text: Historically, the term "barbarian" has seen widespread use in English. Many peoples have dismissed alien cultures and even rival civilizations, because they were unrecognizably strange. For instance, the nomadic Turkic peoples north of the Black Sea, including the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, were called barbarians by the Byzantines.