title: Broken windows theory

text: A central argument is that the concept of disorder is vague, and giving the police broad discretion to decide what disorder is will lead to discrimination. In Dorothy Roberts's article, "Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order Maintenance and Policing", she says that broken windows theory in practice leads to the criminalization of communities of color, who are typically disfranchised. She underscores the dangers of vaguely written ordinances that allows for law enforcers to determine who engages in disorderly acts, which, in turn, produce a racially skewed outcome in crime statistics. Similarly, Gary Stewart wrote, "The central drawback of the approaches advanced by Wilson, Kelling, and Kennedy rests in their shared blindness to the potentially harmful impact of broad police discretion on minority communities." It was seen by the authors, who worried that people would be arrested "for the 'crime' of being undesirable". According to Stewart, arguments for low-level police intervention, including the broken windows hypothesis, often act "as cover for racist behavior".


title: Broken windows theory

text: The theory has also been criticized for its unsound methodology and its manipulation of racialized tropes. Specifically, Bench Ansfield has shown that in their 1982 article, Wilson and Kelling cited only one source to prove their central contention that disorder leads to crime: the Philip Zimbardo vandalism study (see Precursor Experiments above). But Wilson and Kelling misrepresented Zimbardo's procedure and conclusions, dispensing with Zimbardo's critique of inequality and community anonymity in favor of the oversimplified claim that one broken window gives rise to "a thousand broken windows". Ansfield argues that Wilson and Kelling used the image of the crisis-ridden 1970s Bronx to stoke fears that "all cities would go the way of the Bronx if they didn't embrace their new regime of policing." Wilson and Kelling manipulated the Zimbardo experiment to avail themselves of the racialized symbolism found in the broken windows of the Bronx.


title: Broken windows theory

text: Robert J. Sampson argues that based on common misconceptions by the masses, it is clearly implied that those who commit disorder and crime have a clear tie to groups suffering from financial instability and may be of minority status: "The use of racial context to encode disorder does not necessarily mean that people are racially prejudiced in the sense of personal hostility." He notes that residents make a clear implication of who they believe is causing the disruption, which has been termed as implicit bias. He further states that research conducted on implicit bias and stereotyping of cultures suggests that community members hold unrelenting beliefs of African-Americans and other disadvantaged minority groups, associating them with crime, violence, disorder, welfare, and undesirability as neighbors. A later study indicated that this contradicted Wilson and Kelling's proposition that disorder is an exogenous construct that has independent effects on how people feel about their neighborhoods.


title: Broken windows theory

text: In response, Kelling and Bratton have argued that broken windows policing does not discriminate against law-abiding communities of minority groups if implemented properly. They cited "Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods", a study by Wesley Skogan at Northwestern University. The study, which surveyed 13,000 residents of large cities, concluded that different ethnic groups have similar ideas as to what they would consider to be "disorder".


title: Broken windows theory

text: Minority groups have tended to be targeted at higher rates by the Broken Windows style of policing. Broken Windows policies have been utilized more heavily in minority neighborhoods where low-income, poor infrastructure, and social disorder were widespread, causing minority groups to perceive that they were being racially profiled under Broken Windows policing.


title: Broken windows theory

text: A common criticism of broken windows policing is the argument that it criminalizes the poor and homeless. That is because the physical signs that characterize a neighborhood with the "disorder" that broken windows policing targets correlate with the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants. Many of the acts that are considered legal but "disorderly" are often targeted in public settings and are not targeted when they are conducted in private. Therefore, those without access to a private space are often criminalized. Critics, such as Robert J. Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush of Harvard University, see the application of the broken windows theory in policing as a war against the poor, as opposed to a war against more serious crimes. Since minority groups in most cities are more likely to be poorer than the rest of the population, a bias against the poor would be linked to a racial bias.


title: Broken windows theory

text: According to Bruce D. Johnson, Andrew Golub, and James McCabe, the application of the broken windows theory in policing and policymaking can result in development projects that decrease physical disorder but promote undesired gentrification. Often, when a city is so "improved" in this way, the development of an area can cause the cost of living to rise higher than residents can afford, which forces low-income people out of the area. As the space changes, the middle and upper classes, often white, begin to move into the area, resulting in the gentrification of urban, poor areas. The local residents are affected negatively by such an application of the broken windows theory and end up evicted from their homes as if their presence indirectly contributed to the area's problem of "physical disorder".


title: Broken windows theory

text: In "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000), economist John Lott, Jr. examined the use of the broken windows approach as well as community- and problem-oriented policing programs in cities over 10,000 in population, over two decades. He found that the impacts of these policing policies were not very consistent across different types of crime. Lott's book has been subject to criticism, but other groups support Lott's conclusions.


title: Broken windows theory

text: In the 2005 book "Freakonomics", coauthors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner confirm and question the notion that the broken windows theory was responsible for New York's drop in crime, saying "the pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk". Levitt had in the "Quarterly Journal of Economics" attributed that possibility to the legalization of abortion with "Roe v. Wade", which correlated with a decrease, one generation later, in the number of delinquents in the population at large.


title: Broken windows theory

text: In his 2012 book "Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society", Jim Manzi writes that of the randomized field trials conducted in criminology, only nuisance abatement per broken windows theory has been successfully replicated.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Daron Malakian (born July 18, 1975) is an Armenian-American musician. He is best known as the guitarist, songwriter, and second vocalist of metal band System of a Down, and as the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter of Scars on Broadway. Malakian is known for his distinctive playing and is ranked 47th in Loudwires list of "Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time" and number 11 in MusicRadars poll "The 20 Greatest Metal Guitarists Ever". He is placed 30th in Guitar Worlds list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time".


title: Daron Malakian

text: Daron Malakian was born on July 18, 1975, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, the only child to Armenian parents Vartan and Zepur Malakian. Vartan Malakian is a painter, dancer, and choreographer from Mosul, Iraq and Zepur Malakian is a sculptor who instructed college-level sculpture earlier in her career. At a very early age, Malakian got into heavy metal music; his distant cousin played him a Kiss record when he was four years old. Malakian started listening to Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne among others. He always wanted to play the drums, but his parents got him a guitar instead because "You can't turn the drums off." Daron first picked up a guitar at age 11, saying in an interview, "For the first year and a half, I learned how to play by ear, and did alright. After a few years I gained a reputation as being a guitar player in high school. And by 16 or 17 I actually realized it was a good songwriting instrument, and, over anything, that's what I feel like. I don't pretend to be Mr. Guitar Virtuoso." During his teens Malakian listened to thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Venom, Metallica, and groove metal bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Malakian then began listening to The Beatles and cites John Lennon as one of his biggest influences as a songwriter. He also cites other British Invasion bands such as The Kinks and The Who as major influences as well as folk-rock such as trio Peter, Paul and Mary and punk pioneer Iggy Pop. Malakian went to Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in the Los Feliz side of Hollywood, which his future bandmates Shavo Odadjian and Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian (System of a Down's original drummer) also attended. System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian attended the school as well, but he was years above Malakian and the others. Malakian attended Glendale High School as a teenager.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Malakian met Serj Tankian in 1993, while they both shared the same rehearsal studio in different bands. Tankian was playing keyboard for a band, and Malakian was playing guitar and singing for another band. They formed a jam band called Soil with bassist Dave Hakopyan and drummer Domingo Laraino. Shavo Odadjian then became their manager, and then rhythm guitarist. Soil broke up and Malakian, Tankian, and Odadjian (who switched to bass) formed a new band using the name "System of a Down", based on a poem that Malakian wrote. The poem's title was "Victims of a Down" but Odadjian thought "system" was a stronger word than "victims". They then recruited drummer Andy Khachaturian, who was replaced by John Dolmayan in 1997.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Malakian co-produced System of a Down's albums with Rick Rubin, as well as albums by The Ambulance and Bad Acid Trip (a band on fellow member Serj Tankian's Serjical Strike Records). In 2003, Malakian started his own label, EatUrMusic, on which Amen was the first signed band. The label is now inactive and its current status is unknown.


title: Daron Malakian

text: In 2003, Daron Malakian (lead guitar and vocals), Greg Kelso (rhythm guitar), Casey Chaos (vocals), and Zach Hill (drums) recorded a demo tape entitled "Ghetto Blaster Rehearsals", credited to the name Scars on Broadway. However, in 2007, an official letter appeared on the band's website that stated that these tracks are not in any way affiliated with Malakian's later project Scars on Broadway. Incidentally, these demo sessions produced "B.Y.O.B.", which would be a major hit for System of a Down in 2005.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Following System's hiatus, Malakian announced his latest project – Scars on Broadway – a band which would include System of a Down bassist, Shavo Odadjian, and himself. Ultimately, Odadjian was not involved with the band, and instead System of a Down drummer, John Dolmayan became a member. After Malakian and Dolmayan experimented with different musicians (for a period of nine months in 2007 – 2008) the band took form and forged its sound in intense rehearsals and recording sessions (under Malakian's direction at his home studio and Sunset Sound) with musicians Danny Shamoun on keyboards, Dominic Cifarelli on bass, and Franky Perez on guitar and backing vocals for live performances (in the studio Malakian played nearly all the instruments with the exception of drums which were played by Dolmayan and some overdubs provided by the other members). The group released an eponymous album in 2008, which featured the hit single "They Say" (written by Malakian). However, shortly before the tour supporting the album, Malakian cancelled all scheduled concert and TV appearances, blaming a lack of enthusiasm and that his "heart wasn't into touring." This sudden cancellation prompted speculation and rumors that the band had broken up. It was the last that would be heard of Malakian for more than a year.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Malakian stayed out of the public eye following his cancellation of the tour in support of Scars on Broadway's debut album in October 2008. In 2009 Malakian made a surprise appearance (his first in a year) at Shavo Odadjian's Halloween Party and played "Suite-Pee", "They Say", and an unknown song with Odadjian, Dolmayan and Scars on Broadway's Franky Perez on guitar. It was the first time that the band members (minus Tankian, who was working on his second solo album) performed together in more than three years.


title: Daron Malakian

text: In August 2009, Scars on Broadway, minus Malakian, traveled to Iraq for a USO tour across the U.S. army bases. Their setlist consisted of covers as well as a few Scars songs. Guitarist/vocalist Franky Perez stated on his Twitter that "the Scars tunes sound amazing but they're not the same without D..." He also stated before they left that Malakian had given them his blessing. In 2009 Franky Perez mentioned on his Twitter that he and the D-Man (Malakian) were going into studio to jam, this was the first news people have heard about Malakian's whereabouts for about a year.


title: Daron Malakian

text: On November 20, 2009, Malakian played at the Chi Cheng Benefit concert along with Deftones, and also performed with Odadjian and Dolmayan. Malakian, Odadjian, and Dolmayan played "Aerials" and "Toxicity". He appeared on Cypress Hill's 2010 album "Rise Up," on one song, "Trouble Seeker", which he also produced.


title: Daron Malakian

text: On May 2, 2010, Malakian reunited with Scars on Broadway at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It was the first time he had performed with the band since October 2008. The group played songs from their album as well as new songs. Odadjian performed with the band for two songs, playing guitar. On August 20, 2010, Malakian played in Hollywood with Scars on Broadway. On November 29, 2010, it was announced that System of a Down would reunite for a European tour to take place in June 2011. They played at the Download Festival on June 11, 2011. Despite playing a number of reunion shows, the band had no plans to record new material. In October 2011, John Dolmayan expressed his interest in writing new material but cited that band members are all busy with their other projects (such as Daron's Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian's solo efforts).


title: Daron Malakian

text: On July 29, 2010, Scars on Broadway released their first new studio recording in exactly two years, a Malakian-penned song called "Fucking". On February 24, 2012, System of a Down announced that the Scars on Broadway website was back online featuring a preview of a new song called "Guns Are Loaded".


title: Daron Malakian

text: In 2014, he appeared on Linkin Park's sixth studio album "The Hunting Party", for which he provided additional guitars for the promotional single "Rebellion". The promotional single was self-produced by Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson. On August 18, 2016, Malakian performed with the Los Angeles-based alternative music project Millennials


title: Daron Malakian

text: On October 28, 2017, Malakian performed with the surviving members of Linkin Park which played a show at the Hollywood Bowl dedicated to the passing of their frontman Chester Bennington. He performed "Rebellion" alongside SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian.


title: Daron Malakian

text: On April 23, 2018, Malakian released a song with Scars on Broadway called "Lives" about the history and culture of Armenia.


title: Daron Malakian

text: Malakian is a lifelong fan of the Edmonton Oilers and has a large collection of Oilers-related memorabilia.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Rachael Atlanta Stirling (born 30 May 1977) is an English stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Laurence Olivier Award for her stage work. She played Nancy Astley in the BBC drama "Tipping the Velvet", and Millie in the ITV series "The Bletchley Circle". She has also guest starred in "Lewis" and one episode of "Doctor Who", co-starring with her mother Diana Rigg.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling was born in St Marylebone, London, England and is the daughter of actress Diana Rigg and theatre producer Archibald Stirling, Laird of Keir. Her parents married in 1982 and divorced in 1990.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling attended Wycombe Abbey School. She graduated with a BA in art history from the University of Edinburgh, where she performed with the Edinburgh University Theatre Company.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling made her first major appearance on stage in 1997 as Desdemona in the National Youth Theatre revival of "Othello" at the Arts Theatre opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role. A year later, again at the Arts Theatre with the NYT, she played Olive in the female version of "The Odd Couple"; while in 1998, portraying Kate in "Dancing at Lughnasa" for NYT at the Arts. She next appeared in a variety of roles in plays such as Dusty Hughes' "Helpless" (Donmar Warehouse, 2000); "A Woman of No Importance" (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2003); "Anna in the Tropics" (Hampstead Theatre, 2004); and "Tamburlaine" (Bristol Old Vic and Barbican, 2005), and she followed in her mother's footsteps as Lionheart's daughter in the National Theatre stage version of "Theatre of Blood" (2005). In 2006, for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal, Bath, she played Helena in Peter Gill's revival of "Look Back in Anger", while in 2007 at Wilton's Music Hall in London, she starred as Yelena in David Mamet's version of "Uncle Vanya", and as Katharina in "The Taming of the Shrew".


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling starred onstage in "The Priory" directed by Jeremy Herrin at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009. Her role as Rebecca earned her a nomination for Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In 2010 she appeared as Helena in Peter Hall's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. Stirling starred as Lady Chiltern in a 2010 production of "An Ideal Husband" at the Vaudeville Theatre, for which she received her second nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award. From February to April 2012, she appeared as Sylvia alongside Mark Gatiss, Tobias Menzies, and Nancy Carroll in "The Recruiting Officer", the production at the Donmar Warehouse directed by newly appointed artistic director Josie Rourke.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Other film appearances include "Maybe Baby", "Redemption Road" (2001), "Complicity" (with her "Tipping the Velvet" co-star Keeley Hawes), "Another Life" (with "Vanity Fair" actress Natasha Little), "The Triumph of Love" (with Mira Sorvino), as Mary Jones in "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen", and as Anna in "Snow White and the Huntsman".


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling's first break in television was in the 2000 NBC miniseries "In the Beginning", which was adapted from Genesis. Stirling played the young Rebeccah, with her mother, Diana Rigg, as the older Rebeccah. Her next notable role was Nan Astley in the 2002 BBC drama series "Tipping the Velvet".


title: Rachael Stirling

text: In 2011, Stirling starred in the BBC Four adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" as Ursula Brangwen. She portrayed Millie in both series of the ITV mystery drama "The Bletchley Circle" in 2012 and 2014, and reprised the role in "" (2018).


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling appeared in a 2013 episode of "Doctor Who" titled "The Crimson Horror" alongside her mother. The episode had been specially written for Stirling and her mother by Mark Gatiss (marking the very first appearance of the two actresses together professionally) and was aired on 4 May 2013 as part of Series 7.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: In 2014, Stirling portrayed Kate Wilkinson in the Cold War spy thriller television series "The Game", and appeared in the BBC Four comedy drama "Detectorists" as Becky, initially girlfriend, then wife, of Andy (played by Mackenzie Crook), also featuring alongside her mother, Diana Rigg, who played Becky's mother.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling appeared as a guest on the BBC1 cookery programme "Saturday Kitchen Live" which was broadcast on 1 March 2014.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: In 2015, Stirling played the part of Arabella Yount, the spendthrift wife of a banker, in the three-part BBCs series "Capital" based on John Lanchester's novel of the same name.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: In December 2016, Stirling appeared on "University Challenge" at Christmas as part of a team made up of notable alumni of the University of Edinburgh.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling is an occasional interviewer on the BBC Radio 4 chat show "Loose Ends", and presented the station's programme "Stage Door" in December 2012. She also wrote a restaurant column for "Diplomat" magazine.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling took part in Occupy London's reading of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, London in December 2011.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: In 2014, Stirling appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's "Midweek" with Libby Purves, Roger Bannister and Kevin Warwick.


title: Rachael Stirling

text: Stirling can speak Russian and is experienced in horse riding and jumping. Until 2012, she was engaged to actor Oliver Chris, whom she had been dating since 2007. Stirling married musician and Elbow frontman Guy Garvey on 3 June 2016. They have one son, born in April 2017.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Corbin Bleu Reivers (; born February 21, 1989), known professionally as Corbin Bleu, is an American actor and singer. He made his acting debut in the 2004 adventure comedy film "Catch That Kid". He has since appeared in the Discovery Kids drama series "Flight 29 Down" (2005–2007). He began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence in the late 2000s for his leading role as Chad Danforth in the "High School Musical" trilogy (2006–2008). Songs from the films also charted worldwide, with the song "I Don't Dance" peaking inside the Top 70 of the "Billboard" Hot 100. During this time, he also starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Jump In!" (2007), as well as the film "To Write Love on Her Arms" (2015). He competed in the 17th season of "Dancing with the Stars".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu has also pursued a music career and his debut album "Another Side" was released in 2007, which included the hit "Push It to the Limit". The album debuted and peaked at number thirty-six on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 album chart, selling 18,000 copies in its first week. His second album, "Speed of Light", was released in 2009. He returned to television, starring in the short-lived Ashton Kutcher–produced CW series, "" (2009), and the movie "Free Style" (2009). He has appeared in the films "The Little Engine That Could" (2011), "Scary or Die" (2012), "Nurse 3D" (2013), "Sugar" (2013), "The Monkey's Paw" (2013), and "Walk. Ride. Rodeo." (2019).


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2010, Bleu played Usnavi in the Broadway company of "In the Heights". In 2012, he returned to Broadway in the revival of "Godspell". In 2013, he was cast as Jeffrey King in the short-lived online revival of the daytime soap "One Life to Live". In 2016, Bleu played Ted Hanover in the Broadway company of "Holiday Inn, the New Irving Berlin Musical". He subsequently signed a recording contract with Ghostlight Records, to distribute his "Holiday Inn" soundtrack music, released in 2017. In 2019, he returned to play Bill Calhoun/Lucentio in the Broadway company of "Kiss Me, Kate". He subsequently signed a recording contract with Ghostlight Records, to distribute his "Kiss Me, Kate" soundtrack music, released on June 7, 2019.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu was born in New York City, in the borough of Brooklyn, the son of Martha (née Callari) and David Reivers (born 1958), an actor. His mother is Italian American and his father is Jamaican American. He has three younger sisters: Jag, Phoenix, and Hunter. As a child, Bleu studied dance for several years, focusing on ballet and jazz. His great-uncle is actor Joseph Callari.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu appeared in television commercials starting at the age of two, for products such as: Life cereal, Bounty, Hasbro and Nabisco. He began taking jazz and ballet classes, usually being the only boy in the class. By the age of four he was a model with the Ford Modeling Agency in New York. He appeared in print ads for stores such as: Macy's, Gap, Target and Toys R Us and appeared in fashion spreads in "Child", "Parents", and "American Baby" magazines, as well as having his image on toys and game packaging.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: At age six, Corbin appeared in his first professional theater production off Broadway, at The Town Hall. This three-concert series, created, written, and hosted by Scott Siegel, took place over one weekend and included a tribute to David Merrick. Corbin Bleu played an abandoned homeless mute in the play "Tiny Tim is Dead".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He trained in dancing at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York as a theater major, following in his mother's footsteps. Bleu graduated from high school in 2007 and was admitted to Stanford University, but declined to matriculate.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu moved with his family from New York to Los Angeles in 1996. He worked steadily in episodic television and feature film roles, including a recurring role on the short-lived ABC police drama "High Incident" and a guest star appearance on "ER". He also appeared in some films, like "Beach Movie" (1998) and the sci-fi thriller "Soldier" (1998). His feature films from this period include the Tim Allen comedy "Galaxy Quest" (1999) and the comedy "Mystery Men" (1999), which starred Ben Stiller and the drama "Family Tree" (1999), alongside Andrew Lawrence and Matthew Lawrence. Bleu also had roles in "Malcolm & Eddie", as Matthew, and "Cover Me: Based on the True Life of an FBI Family" (2000), as Nick Elderby and smaller roles like in the comedy series Nickelodeon's show "The Amanda Show".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Additionally, Bleu was developing his dance skills and in 2001 began intensive training at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in the Los Angeles area. There he undertook a full gamut of dance instruction, including: ballet, jazz, tap, modern, hip-hop, African, break dance, salsa, flamenco and ballroom. Allen, the famous choreographer who starred in the TV series "Fame", told "Dance Spirit" magazine:"I think [Bleu] really has a career. Success is one thing, but a career is a much longer, broader journey".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, a magnet school like the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which was portrayed in the movie and television series "Fame" and which Bleu's mother had attended. During his freshman year, he won his first sizable film role in the teen action caper "Catch That Kid" (2004), about a girl and her friends who decide to rob a bank after learning that money is needed to aid her dying father, alongside Kristen Stewart and Max Thieriot. Although it was a box office flop, having only grossed $10 million, it served as an important step for Bleu, who was still building his acting career at the time. During high school, he performed in such student productions as "Footloose" and "Grease", winning the honor of Theatre Student of the Year.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In the summer of 2004 Bleu landed a starring role in the television series "Flight 29 Down", alongside Allen Alvarado, Hallee Hirsh, Lauren Storm, Jeremy James Kissner, Johnny Pacar and Kristy Wu, which aired for three seasons on the Discovery Kids network. The program, a juvenile version of the ABC series Lost, concerned a group of teenagers stranded on a tropical island after their plane crashes. Bleu played as Nathan McHugh, a Boy Scout whose leadership skills do not quite measure up to his self-confidence.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu's next television project was the Disney Channel original film "High School Musical" (2006) in which he portrayed the basketball player Chad Danforth, who tries to persuade his teammate Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) to give up his interest in theater and focus on winning the basketball championship. "High School Musical" premiered on January 20, 2006; with an audience of 7.7 million television viewers, it was the Disney Channel's most successful TV movie up to that point. The film, which also starred Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Vanessa Hudgens, and Monique Coleman in pivotal roles, became a major success and helped Bleu gain recognition among teenage audiences. The film's soundtrack was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Corbin Bleu

text: He joined co-stars on the 51-date "" (2006–2007) tour to promote the film, work on the second film in the High School Musical series began, and Bleu was confirmed to be returning for the sequel. "High School Musical 2" (2007) was released on August 17, 2007. The premiere was seen by a total of over 17.2 million viewers in the U.S., which is almost 10 million more than its predecessor, making it the highest-rated Disney Channel Movie of all time. Disney Channel aired a weekly program called "Road to High School Musical 2", beginning on June 8, 2007, and leading up to the premiere of "High School Musical 2" in August. The show offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the production of the movie. The world premiere of the opening number "What Time Is It" was on Radio Disney May 25, 2007, and similarly the song "I Don't Dance" premiered on August 14, 2007. The film was generally well received by critics, gaining a score of 77/100 at Metacritic and 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film broke opening weekend records and grossed over $250 million worldwide. The soundtrack for the film, featuring numerous contributions from Bleu, went on to sell over three million copies in the United States alone. The song "I Don't Dance" (2007), a duet with Lucas Grabeel, became his first top forty hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was named as the official theme song for the 2007 Little League World Series. During this time, Bleu began song on soundtracks for the Disney Channel, and released a cover of "Two Worlds" (2007) to promote "Tarzan".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2007, Bleu starred in his next film, another Disney Channel original entitled "Jump In!" (2007), which aired on January 12, 2007. Directed by Paul Hoen, the television movie revolved around a young boy named Izzy Daniels who trains regularly in order to try to follow in his father's footsteps and win the Golden Glove, an amateur boxing tournament. While Bleu played the lead role of Daniels, Keke Palmer portrayed the role of Mary, his friend who has a crush on Daniels. Again, Disney scored a crossover hit with the "Jump In! soundtrack" album, was released in January 2007, on which Bleu sings the track, "Push It to the Limit" (2006). Reaching the screens on the Disney Channel that January, "Jump In!" was a major hit amongst young viewers and quickly became the highest-rated premiere the network has ever since, breaking the previous record set by "The Cheetah Girls 2" in 2006. Similar to "High School Musical", its soundtrack was also a commercial hit, having achieved gold status from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) three months after its release. He appeared in a music video of a new Atlanta group Small Change's video, "Don't Be Shy" featuring Chani and Lil' JJ.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: He guest starred as Johnny Collins in the premiere two episodes of Disney's "Hannah Montana" (2006–2008). He also had a small role as Spencer on "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide", appearing in the episodes entitled "" and "". and "Mother Goose Parade" as Grand Marshal in 2006 and 2007. While with Disney Channel, Bleu also participated in the first ever Disney Channel Games and co-captained the blue team along with Jake T. Austin, Maiara Walsh, Cole Sprouse and Kiely Williams. A year before, he returned to repeat his captaincy of the blue team with Brenda Song, Vanessa Hudgens, Monique Coleman and Jason Earles. In August 2007, Bleu starred in "Flight 29 Down: The Hotel Tango", an teen drama film version of the television series of the same name. Also in 2007, he is voice in "The Secret of the Magic Gourd" (2007), He appeared on "The Tyra Banks Show" in 2008.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu went on to reprise his role of Chad Danforth in "" (2008), the first film in the "High School Musical" franchise to receive a theatrical release. It opened at number one at the North American box office in October 2008, earning $42 million in its first weekend, which broke the record previously held by "Mamma Mia!" for the biggest opening by a musical. The film finished with $252 million worldwide, which exceeded Disney's expectations. The song "The Boys Are Back" (2008), a duet with Zac Efron, became his second top forty hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The phenomenon of High School Musical has changed Bleu's life, delivering him to the heights of media celebrity while still in his teens. For his role as Chad Danforth, the team captain of the school's basketball team, he was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a Young Artist Award and Teen Choice Awards in 2007 and 2009 respectively. Bleu lent his voice for the role of Chad Danforth in "High School Musical video games", a video game.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: The following year, Bleu played the lead role in the film called "Free Style" (2009). It concerns Cale Bryant, an eighteen-year-old man who tries to find himself by winning the Amateur National Motocross Championships. "Free Style" performed poorly in the box office, having only grossed $720,000 from a $10 million budget. Over the next few years, Bleu's television roles included the drama series The CW Television Network's show "." The series was subsequently cancelled on September 25, 2009 after televising 2 episodes. In December 2009, the technology company HP became the show's sponsor and began airing the show's five episodes on YouTube. Also in 2009, he was a voice actor in "Beyond All Boundaries", and appeared on "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet". Also in 2009, he was the voice of Coltrane in the premiere two episodes of Disney's "Phineas and Ferb".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Corbin Bleu made his Broadway stage debut in 2010 as the lead character, bodega-owner Usnavi, in the critically acclaimed musical "In the Heights". and guest starred in one episode of "The Good Wife" as DJ Javier Berlin in October 2010. in 2010, Corbin starred in the short comedy film "I Owe My Life to Corbin Bleu", alongside Andrew Caldwell, Drake Bell, Sarah Hyland, Ryan Pinkston, Sterling Knight, Matt Prokop, Matt Shively and Josh Sussman. In 2011, he performed the voice Lou in "The Little Engine That Could" (2011). From August 5–7, Bleu performed in the musical "Hairspray" as Seaweed at the Hollywood Bowl, alongside Nick Jonas, Harvey Fierstein, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Drew Carey and Darlene Love. and he performed the voice Flip in "Tonka Chuck and Friends: Big Air Dare".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2012, Bleu also had a role in and co-produced the indie horror anthology "Scary or Die" (2012), a collection of five short horror films. In 2012, he joined the cast of "Godspell" as Jesus beginning April 17 at the Circle in the Square Theatre. He joined co-stars on the 66th Annual Tony Awards, to performing "Day by Day" and "Light of the World" at Beacon Theatre, with Neil Patrick Harris as the host. During this time, he recorded the duet "If I Never Knew You" (2012), with Anna Maria Perez de Tagle to promote "Pocahontas". He guest starred in one episode of "Blue Bloods" as Officer Blake in 2012. In 2012, he performed the voice Drew in "Twinkle Toes", Bleu starred in the drama film "To Write Love on Her Arms" (originally titled "Renee") in 2012, with Kat Dennings, Chad Michael Murray and Rupert Friend. The film began production in Orlando, Florida, in February 2011.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In March 2013, Bleu had a role in the horror film "The Monkey's Paw" (2013). and guest starred in one episode of "Franklin & Bash" as Jordan Allen French in 2013. In April 2013, Bleu was cast in the role of Jeffrey King on the ABC daytime soap opera "One Life to Live". In 2013, Bleu starred in the film "Sugar" (2013), alongside Shenae Grimes and Marshall Allman. about a runaway girl living on the streets of Venice, Los Angeles. The film began production in Venice, Los Angeles, on November 30, 2010. Also in 2013, Bleu appeared in the horror films "Nurse 3D" (2013), alongside Paz de la Huerta and Katrina Bowden. The film began production in Toronto, on September 6, 2011 and wrapped on October 21, 2011. In 2014 he also appeared as a guest star in "Psych", the USA Network television series in Season 8.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In September 2013, Bleu took part in the seventeenth-season of ABC's dancing competition "Dancing with the Stars". He finished as runner-up.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu's only release in 2015 was the moderately successful "Megachurch Murder" (2015), in which he played a Marcus King, with Tamala Jones, Shanica Knowles and Romeo Miller. In addition, Bleu appeared in "Family Shots" with The Human Race Theatre Company. In 2016, he also made a guest appearance in an episode of the family drama, "The Fosters", playing the role of Mercutio, a character who appears in a school musical production of "Romeo and Juliet". Bleu and fellow guest-star Ashley Argota also co-starred in a production of "Romeo and Juliet: Love Is a Battlefield" at Rockwell Table and Stage, produced by "The Fosters" co-creator Bradley Bredeweg. He also had a small role as Spencer on "Castle" in 2016.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In January 2016, he joined the cast of "The Dodgers" as Simon, the rational voice amid the habitually stoned chatter, and beginning January 21 at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre. In October 2016, he took part in Broadway productions notably the leading role in "Holiday Inn, The New Irving Berlin Musical" (originally titled "Holiday Inn"), a musical based on the 1942 Academy Award-winning film of the same name. Returning to his tap dancing roots was "like riding a bike". His former Disney co-stars attended a performance in October 2016. The Broadway alum and "High School Musical" favorite grabbed a camera as Broadway websites' newest vlogger, resulting in "Bleu Skies": Backstage at "Holiday Inn" with Corbin Bleu. Bleu, who played Ted in the new Irving Berlin musical, gave a glimpse of backstage life at Studio 54, where he and his co-stars (including former vlogger Bryce Pinkham, Lora Lee Gayer, Megan Lawrence and Megan Sikora) celebrated an entire year's worth of special occasions eight times a week. "Bleu Skies" launched off on August 23 and ran every Tuesday for eight weeks. with Bleu being nominated for a Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography in 2017, for outstanding dancing in a Broadway show and eventually winning a Chita Rivera Award for his performance.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: While with ABC television, Bleu also participated in the revival of "Battle of the Network Stars", joining the red team along with Joey Lawrence, Nolan Gould, Lisa Whelchel and Kim Fields, with Ronda Rousey as the captain. The series premiered on June 29, 2017. From July 28–30, Bleu performed in the musical "Mamma Mia!" as Sky at the Hollywood Bowl, alongside Dove Cameron, Lea DeLaria and Jennifer Nettles. The theatre premiered on July 28, 2017. Corbin Bleu's career also included voice over work with "Breathe Bible". In December 2017, Corbin Bleu hosted the 2017 Looking Ahead Awards, presented by The Actors Fund.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In November 2017, Bleu returned to 25th season of the show and in Week 8, he performed in a trio Salsa with Jordan Fisher and his professional partner Lindsay Arnold. After the trio delivered their Salsa to audiences, they ended with a score of 30 from the judges,


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In January 2018, he guest starred in one episode of "The Middle" as Luke, a handsome drummer that catches Brad's attention. In 2018 he also appeared as a guest star in "Chicago Med", the NBC television series in Season 3, as Tommy Oliver. From June 27 – July 3, Bleu performed in the musical "Singin' in the Rain" as Don Lockwood at the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, a musical based on the 1952 BAFTA Film Awards-winning film of the same name. The theatre premiered on June 27, 2018. with Bleu being nominated for a St. Louis Theater Circle Awards in 2019, for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. Near the end of 2018, Bleu played Billy Crocker in "Anything Goes", which will be seen in-the-round at Arena Stage in D.C. Washington from November 2, 2018 to December 23, 2018. with Bleu being nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in 2019, for Outstanding Actor in a Musical and eventually winning a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In March 2019, he was cast in the Netflix drama film "Walk. Ride. Rodeo." (2019), alongside Missi Pyle, Spencer Locke and Bailey Chase, directed by Conor Allyn. He appeared on "Show Offs" in 2019. In 2019, Bleu played Bill Calhoun/Lucentio in the Broadway revival of "Kiss Me, Kate" at the Roundabout Theatre's Studio 54. The musical originally opened on Broadway in 1948 and five years later was the basis for a liberally adapted 1953 film of the same name. The production, directed by Scott Ellis, began previewing on February 14, 2019. The limited engagement is scheduled to continue through June 30 at Studio 54. For his performance, Bleu was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical. Bleu was also nominated for a 2019 Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography, for Outstanding Male Dancer in a Broadway Show and for an Audience Choice Awards for Favorite Featured Actor in a Musical. He was cast in a co-starring role in the Jordan Barker film "Witches in the Woods" (2019), The project also stars Hannah Kasulka and Sasha Clements. Bleu filmed an independent movie titled "Ovid and the Art of Love". Filmed partially at the old St. Agnus Church in Michigan, the project also stars John Savage, Tamara Feldman and Tara Summers.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2020, he appeared on The Disney Family Singalong, which aired on ABC on April 16, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In May 2020, he also appeared as a guest star in "Supergirl", the CBS television series in Season 5, as Trevor Crane. On June 30, 2020, Bleu joined in a live reading adaptation of Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air" to help raise funds for Acting for a Cause. The event's purpose was to help industry personnel impacted by COVID-19. Bleu was later announced as the host of the 2021 Jimmy Awards, in honor of legendary Broadway producer and theater owner James M. Nederlander.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2021, he guest starred as Blaine in the premiere two episodes on The CW Television Network soap opera "Dynasty". In July 2021, he was cast in the Hallmark Channel original entitled "Love, for Real" (2021), alongside Chloe Bridges, Camille Kostek and Scott Michael Foster, directed by Maclain Nelson. In December 2021, he appeared as the male lead in the a Lifetime Christmas movie, titled "A Christmas Dance Reunion" (2021), alongside Monique Coleman, directed by Brian Herzlinger. During this time, Bleu began song on soundtracks for the "", and released a cover of "Winnie the Pooh" (2021).


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In July 2022, he was cast in the Hallmark Channel original entitled "Campfire Christmas" (2022), alongside Tori Anderson and Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, directed by David I. Strasser. He is set to return to the "High School Musical" franchise, guest starring as himself in the third season of "". From July 5-13, Bleu performed in the musical "Mary Poppins" as Bert at the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre, directed by John Tartaglia, choreographed by Patrick O'Neill, with music direction by Brad Haak.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu's first professionally recorded song was titled "Circles" or "Circles in My Mind" for his then TV show, "Flight 29 Down". Bleu signed a contract with Hollywood Records, a Disney-owned label. His debut album "Another Side", was released in May 2007. The album debuted at No. 36 on the "Billboard" 200 album charts, selling 18,000 in its first week. Bleu, who admires Prince, Michael Jackson, and Justin Timberlake, cowrote five songs on the album. One of those tracks was titled "Shake It Off", an ode to the musician Prince. In 2007 he toured in support of "Another Side" with the teen sister duo Aly & AJ.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Blue worked with Ne-Yo on "I Get Lonely", and with other performers such as Matthew Gerrard and Eric Hudson. A music video for his first single, "Push It to the Limit" premiered on the Disney Channel, and was used to promote the movie "Jump In!" "Push It to the Limit" reached the Top 20 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and his second single, "Deal With It", was originally written and sung by Jay Sean. He later gave it to Bleu, whose version of the song features background vocals by Sean. The song went on to earn Sean a BMI Songwriter Award. Bleu sang the duet "Still There for Me" with Vanessa Hudgens for his debut album "Another Side".


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu toured with fellow "High School Musical" cast members from late November 2006 to late January 2007 in "", and with Drake Bell and Aly & AJ performing in about 40 different cities. To promote his debut album, Bleu performed at the "Nextfest Summer Tour" with the teen sister duo Aly & AJ and Drake Bell with Special Guest Bianca Ryan.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: His debut single "Run It Back Again" was featured in the movie "Minutemen", on January 22, 2008. The song is also featured on "Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 10". Bleu performed at the Crawford County Fair Grandstand with Vanessa Hudgens, on August 18, 2008. A week later, on August 25, Bleu performed at the Michigan State Fair with Raven-Symoné.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: His second album "Speed of Light" was released on March 10, 2009, via Hollywood Records. The album's first single, "Moments That Matter", was performed by Bleu at .


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2017, Bleu signed a one-album recording contract with Ghostlight Records to distribute his "Holiday Inn, The New Irving Berlin Musical" soundtrack music, was released digitally on June 2, 2017. The album featured twenty-one songs, and was produced by Kurt Deutsch with Todd Whitelock serving as coproducer and Universal Stage Productions as executive producer.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu released his a two-album recording contract with Ghostlight Records to distribute his "Kiss Me, Kate" soundtrack music, the 24th cast album recording for Roundabout Theatre Company, since launching the musical theatre program with "She Loves Me" in 1993.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In an interview with Paul Wontorek, Bleu discussed that he is naturally a Lyric Baritone. As a musical theatre performer, Bleu claimed that he is a huge fan of Brian d'Arcy James and says that he gets vocal influences from him.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: Bleu has been a supporter of Do Something. On March 16, 2010, Bleu is added to the "Broadway Wall of Fame" as his portrait was unveiled at Tony's Di Napoli Restaurant in New York City.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2011, Bleu began dating actress Sasha Clements. On October 15, 2014, Bleu and Clements became engaged, and they married on July 23, 2016.


title: Corbin Bleu

text: In 2011, Bleu worked for charities such as Starlight Children's Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. In May 2011, Bleu also attended the Do Something Awards kick-off event.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The Nibiru cataclysm is a supposed disastrous encounter between Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near-miss) that certain groups believed would take place in the early 21st century. Believers in this doomsday event usually refer to this object as "Nibiru" or Planet X. The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder claims she is a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later postponed) causing Earth to undergo a physical pole shift that would destroy most of humanity.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The prediction has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups. In the late 2000s, it became closely associated with the 2012 phenomenon. Since 2012, the Nibiru cataclysm has frequently reappeared in the popular media, usually linked to newsmaking astronomical objects such as Comet ISON or Planet Nine. Although the name "Nibiru" is derived from the works of the "ancient astronaut" writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, he denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse. A prediction by self-described "Christian numerologist" David Meade that the Nibiru cataclysm would occur on 23 September 2017 received extensive media coverage.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The idea that a planet-sized object will collide with or closely pass by Earth in the near future is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected by astronomers and planetary scientists as pseudoscience and an Internet hoax. Such an object would have destabilised the orbits of the planets to the extent that their effects would be easily observable today. Astronomers have hypothesized many planets beyond Neptune, and though many have been disproved, there are some that remain viable candidates such as Planet Nine. All the current candidates are in orbits that keep them well beyond Neptune throughout their orbit, even when they are closest to the Sun.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The idea of the Nibiru encounter originated with Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman who claims that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetans, who implanted a communications device in her brain. In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk to disseminate her ideas. Lieder first came to public attention on Internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale–Bopp's 1997 perihelion. She stated, claiming to speak as the Zetans, that: "The Hale–Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale–Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer." She claimed that the Hale–Bopp story was manufactured to distract people from the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, "Planet X", which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilization. After Hale–Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century, Lieder removed the first two sentences of her initial statement from her site, though they can still be found in Google's archives. Her claims eventually made the "New York Times".


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Lieder described Planet X as roughly four times the size of Earth, and said that its closest approach would occur on May 27, 2003, resulting in Earth's rotation ceasing for exactly 5.9 terrestrial days. This would be followed by Earth's pole destabilising in a pole shift caused by magnetic attraction between Earth's core and the magnetism of the passing planet. This in turn would disrupt Earth's magnetic core and lead to subsequent displacement of Earth's crust. After the 2003 date passed without incident, Lieder said that it was merely a "white lie ... to fool the establishment". She refused to disclose the true date, saying that to do so would give those in power enough time to declare martial law and trap people in cities during the shift, leading to their deaths.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Although Lieder originally referred to the object as "Planet X", it has become deeply associated with "Nibiru", a planet from the works of ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin, particularly his book "The 12th Planet". According to Sitchin's interpretation of ancient Mesopotamian religious texts, which has been shown to be based on a faulty understanding of Sumerian text a giant planet (called Nibiru or Marduk) passes by Earth every 3,600 years, allowing its sentient inhabitants to interact with humanity. Sitchin identified these beings with the Anunnaki in Sumerian mythology and claimed that they were humanity's first gods. Lieder first made the connection between Nibiru and her Planet X on her site in 1996 ("Planet X does exist, and it is the 12th Planet, one and the same").


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Sitchin, who died in 2010, denied any connection between his work and Lieder's claims. In 2007, partly in response to Lieder's proclamations, Sitchin published a book, "The End of Days", which set the time for the last passing of Nibiru by Earth at 556 BC, which would mean, given the object's supposed 3,600-year orbit, that it would return sometime around AD 2900. He did say that he believed that the Annunaki might return earlier by spaceship, and that the timing of their return would coincide with the shift from the astrological Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, sometime between 2090 and 2370.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Modern proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm often cite the winged sun symbol as actually representing Nibiru, whom they believe would appear like a "winged star".


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Though Lieder herself has not specified a new date for the object's return, many groups have taken up her idea and cited their own dates. One frequently cited date was December 21, 2012. This date had many apocalyptic associations, as it was the end of a cycle (bʼakʼtun) in the long count in the Maya calendar. Several writers published books connecting the encounter with 2012. Despite that date having passed, many websites still contend that Nibiru/Planet X is en route to Earth.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In 2012, Lieder claimed that U.S. President Barack Obama futilely attempted to announce the presence of Nibiru near the Sun. After 2012, she claimed that several world leaders had intended to announce the presence of Nibiru near the Sun on October 20, 2014. Two weeks after the supposed date of announcement, she claimed that it did not occur because of consternation amongst the establishment.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In 2017, a conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed "Christian numerologist" named David Meade revived the Nibiru cataclysm by tying it to various passages from the Bible. Meade declared that these passages contained secret numerological codes, which revealed the exact date on which Nibiru would arrive. He also based his predictions on the geometry of the Giza Pyramids. Meade initially predicted that Nibiru would arrive in October 2017, but he later revised the date back to September 23. The specific focus of his prediction revolved around the Woman of the Apocalypse referring to a supposedly unique configuration on that date of the Sun, Moon, and planets in Virgo. He cited the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 as a harbinger.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Meade's claims received extensive media attention. Viral fake news stories circulated across the Internet, adducing non-existent confirmations by NASA of Nibiru's existence on a course "headed straight for Earth". In reality, NASA's position is, and always has been, that Nibiru does not exist. Meade also faced criticism from fellow Christians; Ed Stetzer, writing for "Christianity Today", stated that "there is no such thing as a 'Christian numerologist, and described Meade as "a made-up expert in a made-up field talking about a made-up event". Christopher M. Graney, a professor with the Vatican Observatory Foundation, noted that the supposedly unique event was, in fact, quite common, having occurred four times in the last millennium. His September 23 theories were also debunked by "Time" writer Jeff Kluger. Brazilian astronomer Duília de Mello called his predictions and conjectures rubbish, and also said Nibiru would have been seen during the eclipse and that Meade was using calculations based on the Gregorian calendar.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: After his predictions failed to come true, Meade revised them and declared that Nibiru would arrive on October 5, 2017, not on September 23. Meade announced that, on 5 October, Nibiru would eclipse the Sun, and North Korea, China and Russia would launch a combined nuclear attack on the United States. Then, Earth would be devastated by a series of magnitude 9.8 earthquakes, Earth's magnetic pole would shift by 30 degrees, the United States would be split in half, and Barack Obama would be elected president for an unconstitutional third term. He predicted that the seven-year Great Tribulation would begin on October 15.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: When October came, another apocalyptic writer, Terral Croft, predicted the arrival of Nibiru for November 19, a prediction again reported in the British tabloid press. Croft describes Nibiru as a "black star" at the edge of the Solar System, which, rather than colliding with Earth, would form an apocalyptic conjunction with Earth, leading to massive earthquakes. Croft claimed that earthquakes have been increasing worldwide in the leadup to the conjunction, though "The Washington Post", quoting the United States Geological Survey, was quick to point out that earthquakes had decreased in both power and frequency over the year. Paul Begley, a YouTube conspiracy theorist and pastor at the Community Gospel Baptist Church in Knox, Indiana, also predicted in one of his YouTube videos that Nibiru would appear in 2017 and declared that the solar eclipse was a sign of the apocalypse and the rogue planet. Around 12 April 2018, Meade cited an alleged 23 April astrological conjunction in Virgo and predicted that Nibiru would appear during the conjunction and presage the Rapture; Space.com commented that nothing resembling such a conjunction is actually forecast for April 23.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Astronomers reject the idea of Nibiru and have made efforts to inform the public that there is no threat to Earth. They point out that such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye and would cause noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets. Most photographs purporting to show "Nibiru" beside the Sun are lens flares, false images of the Sun caused by reflections within the lens. Claims that the object has been concealed behind the Sun are untenable.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: An orbit like that of Nibiru (within the planetary region of the Solar System) is inconsistent with celestial mechanics. David Morrison, a NASA space scientist, explains that after just one previous flyby of Earth, such as proponents claim happened in Sumerian times, Earth itself would no longer be in its current near-circular orbit and would be likely to have lost its Moon. If Nibiru were a brown dwarf it would have even worse effects, as brown dwarfs are far more massive. Since Pluto is now frequently observed by backyard telescopes, any giant planet beyond Pluto would be easily observed by an amateur astronomer, and if such an object existed in the Solar System, it would have passed through the inner Solar System a million times by now.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Astronomer Mike Brown notes that if this object's orbit were as described, it would only have remained in the Solar System for about a million years before Jupiter expelled it, and, even if such a planet existed, its magnetic field would have no effect on Earth's. Lieder's assertions that the approach of Nibiru would cause Earth's rotation to stop or its axis to shift violate the laws of physics. In his rebuttal of Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision", which made the same claim that Earth's rotation could be stopped and then restarted, Carl Sagan noted that "the energy required to brake the Earth is not enough to melt it, although it would result in a noticeable increase in temperature: The oceans would [be] raised to the boiling point of water ... [Also,] how does the Earth get started up again, rotating at approximately the same rate of spin? The Earth cannot do it by itself, because of the law of the conservation of angular momentum."


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In a 2009 interview with the Discovery Channel, Mike Brown noted that, while it is not impossible that the Sun has a distant planetary companion, such an object would have to be lying very far from the observed regions of the Solar System to have no detectable gravitational effect on the other planets. A Mars-sized object could lie undetected at 300 AU (10 times the distance of Neptune); a Jupiter-sized object at 30,000 AU. To travel 1000 AU in two years, an object would need to be moving at 2400 km/s – faster than the galactic escape velocity. At that speed, any object would be shot out of the Solar System, and then out of the Milky Way galaxy into intergalactic space.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Many believers in the imminent approach of Planet X/Nibiru accuse NASA of deliberately covering up visual evidence of its existence. Certain polls have suggested that a number of people perceive NASA as a vast government agency that receives as much funding as the Department of Defense. However, NASA's budget amounts to roughly 0.5% of that of the US government.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: One such accusation involves the IRAS infrared space observatory, launched in 1983. The satellite briefly made headlines due to an "unknown object" that was at first described as "possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System". This newspaper article has been cited by proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm, beginning with Lieder herself, as evidence for the existence of Nibiru. However, further analysis revealed that of several initially-unidentified objects, nine were distant galaxies and the tenth was "galactic cirrus"; none were found to be Solar System bodies.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Another accusation made by websites predicting the collision is that the US government built the South Pole Telescope (SPT) to track Nibiru's trajectory, and that the object has been imaged optically. However, the SPT (which is not funded by NASA) is a radio telescope, and cannot take optical images. Its South Pole location was chosen due to the low-humidity environment, and there is no way an approaching object could be seen only from the South Pole. A purported "picture" of Nibiru posted on YouTube was revealed to be a Hubble Space Telescope image of the expanding light echo around the star V838 Mon, which is more than 19,000 light-years away from Earth.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Another conspiracy claim regards a patch of missing data in Google Sky near the constellation of Orion, which has often been cited as evidence that Nibiru has been redacted. However, the same region of sky can still be viewed by thousands of amateur astronomers. A scientist at Google said that the missing data is due to a software error when piecing images together.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Another piece of claimed evidence drawn from Google Sky is the carbon star CW Leonis, which is the brightest object in the 10 μm infrared sky and has been incorrectly claimed to be Nibiru.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Believers in Planet X/Nibiru have given it many names since it was first proposed. All are, in fact, names for other real, hypothetical or imaginary Solar System objects that bear little resemblance either to the planet described by Lieder or to Nibiru as described by Sitchin.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Lieder drew the name Planet X from the hypothetical planet once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. In 1894, Bostonian astronomer Percival Lowell became convinced that the planets Uranus and Neptune had slight discrepancies in their orbits. He concluded that they were being tugged by the gravity of another, more distant planet, which he called "Planet X". However, nearly a century of searching failed to turn up any evidence for such an object (Pluto was initially believed to be Planet X, but was later determined to be too small).


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The discrepancies remained through to the 1990s when the astronomer Robert Harrington put forward his hypothesis for an extra planet beyond Neptune with, as one example, a semi-major axis 101.2 AU and eccentricity 0.411 which makes its perihelion 59.60, so the closest to the Sun it would get is one and a half times the distance to Pluto.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Six months before Harrington died of throat cancer in 1992, astronomer E. Myles Standish showed that the supposed discrepancies in the planets' orbits were illusory, the product of overestimating the mass of Neptune. When Neptune's newly determined mass was used in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Developmental Ephemeris (JPL DE), the supposed discrepancies in the Uranian orbit, and with them the need for a Planet X, vanished. There are no discrepancies in the trajectories of any space probes such as "Pioneer 10", "Pioneer 11", "Voyager 1", and "Voyager 2" that can be attributed to the gravitational pull of a large undiscovered object in the outer Solar System. Today astronomers accept that Planet X, as originally defined, does not exist.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In 1999, New Age author V. M. Rabolú (1926–2000) wrote in "Hercolubus or Red Planet" that Barnard's Star is actually a planet known to the ancients as Hercolubus, which purportedly came dangerously close to Earth in the past, destroying Atlantis, and will come close to Earth again. Lieder subsequently used Rabolú's ideas to bolster her claims.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Barnard's star has been directly measured to be 5.98 ± 0.003 light years (56.6 Pm) from Earth. While it is approaching Earth, Barnard's Star will not make its closest approach to the Sun until around 11,700 AD, when it will approach to within some 3.8 light-years. This is only slightly closer than the closest star to the Sun (Proxima Centauri) lies today.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Believers in Planet X/Nibiru have often confused it with Nemesis, a hypothetical star first proposed by physicist Richard A. Muller. In 1984, Muller postulated that mass extinctions were not random, but appeared to occur in the fossil record with a loose periodicity that ranged from 26 to 34 million years. He attributed this supposed pattern to a heretofore undetected companion to the Sun, either a dim red dwarf or a brown dwarf, lying in an elliptical, 26-million-year orbit. This object, which he named Nemesis, would, once every 26 million years, pass through the Oort cloud, the shell of over a trillion icy objects believed to be the source of long-period comets that orbit at thousands of times Pluto's distance from the Sun. Nemesis's gravity would then disturb the comets' orbits and send them into the inner Solar System, causing Earth to be bombarded. However, to date no direct evidence of Nemesis has been found. Though the idea of Nemesis appears similar to the Nibiru cataclysm, they are, in fact, very different, as Nemesis, if it existed, would have an orbital period thousands of times longer, and would never come near Earth itself.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Other people also confuse Nibiru with Sedna (90377 Sedna) or Eris (136199 Eris), trans-Neptunian objects discovered by Mike Brown in 2003 and 2005 respectively. However, despite having been described as a "tenth planet" in an early NASA press release, Eris (then known only as 2003 UB) is now classified as a dwarf planet. Only slightly more massive than Pluto, Eris has a well-determined orbit that never brings it closer to Earth than . Sedna is slightly smaller than Pluto, and never comes closer to Earth than . Mike Brown believes the confusion results from both the real Sedna and the imaginary Nibiru having extremely elliptical orbits.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Others have tied it to Tyche, the name proposed by John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for an object they believe to be influencing the orbits of comets in the Oort cloud. In February 2011, Whitmire and his colleagues took their hypothesis to the public in an article in "The Independent", in which they named the object "Tyche" and claimed that evidence for its existence would be found once data from the WISE infrared telescope was collated, leading to a spike in calls to astronomers. The name, after the "good sister" of the Greek goddess Nemesis, was chosen to distinguish it from the similar Nemesis hypothesis as, unlike Nemesis, Matese and Whitmire do not believe that their object poses a threat to Earth. Also, this object, if it exists, would, like Nemesis, have an orbit hundreds of times longer than that proposed for Nibiru, and never come near the inner Solar System. In March 2014, NASA announced that the WISE survey had ruled out the existence of Tyche as its proponents had defined it.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Some associated Nibiru with Comet Elenin, a long-period comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010. On October 16, 2011, Elenin made its closest approach to Earth at a distance of , which is slightly closer than the planet Venus. Nevertheless, in the leadup to its closest approach, claims spread on conspiracy websites concluded that it was on a collision course, that it was as large as Jupiter or even a brown dwarf, and even that the name of the discoverer, Leonid Elenin, was in fact code for ELE, or an Extinction Level Event.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Although the sizes of comets are difficult to determine without close observation, Comet Elenin is likely to be less than 10 km in diameter. Elenin himself estimates that the comet nucleus is roughly 3–4 km in diameter. This would make it millions of times smaller than the supposed Nibiru. Comet hysteria is not uncommon. Attempts have been made to correlate Elenin's alignments with the 2011 Japan earthquake, the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and 2010 Chile earthquake; however, even discounting Elenin's tiny size, earthquakes are driven by forces within the earth, and cannot be triggered by the passage of nearby objects. In 2011, Leonid Elenin ran a simulation on his blog in which he increased the mass of the comet to that of a brown dwarf (0.05 solar masses). He demonstrated that its gravity would have caused noticeable changes in the orbit of Saturn years before its arrival in the inner Solar System.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In August 2011, Comet Elenin began to disintegrate, and by the time of its closest approach in October 2011 the comet was undetected even by large ground-based telescopes.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: On September 21, 2012, Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, using the International Scientific Optical Network of telescopes (ISON), discovered the comet C/2012 S1, known as "Comet ISON". Its orbit was expected to bring it within of Earth on December 26, 2013. Nonetheless, believers tied it to the Nibiru cataclysm, claiming it would hit Earth on that date, or that it would fragment and pieces of it would hit Earth. Images of the "fragments" of the comet circulating on the Internet were shown to be camera artifacts. On April 30, 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope took three pictures of the comet over the course of 12 hours, which were published as a composite in Hubble's archives. This led to speculation on conspiracy sites that the comet had split into three pieces, or even that it was a UFO. After ISON passed perihelion on November 28, it rapidly began to fade, leaving many to suspect that it had been destroyed as it passed the Sun. While a dim remnant did eventually return round the Sun, it was generally accepted to be a cloud of dust, rather than a solid object. On December 2, 2013, the CIOC (NASA Comet ISON Observing Campaign) officially announced that Comet ISON had fully disintegrated. The Hubble Space Telescope failed to detect fragments of ISON on December 18, 2013. On May 8, 2014, a detailed examination of the comet disintegration was published, suggesting that the comet fully disintegrated hours before perihelion.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In March 2014, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Scott Sheppard published a paper in "Nature" arguing that the apparent clustering of the arguments of perihelion of distant trans-Neptunian objects suggested the existence of a large trans-Neptunian planet. On January 20, 2016, Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin announced that they had corroborated Trujillo and Sheppard's findings, and that they believed the planet, which they dubbed "Planet Nine", would have a mass roughly ten times that of Earth, and a semimajor axis of approximately 400–1500 AU (60–225 billion km). Believers in Nibiru and the Nibiru cataclysm immediately argued that this constituted evidence for their claims. However, astronomers pointed out that this planet, if it exists, would have a perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) of roughly .


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: In March 2016, the "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society" published a paper by Daniel Whitmire (who had proposed the existence of Tyche) in which he reconsidered a modified version of the Nemesis model he had first proposed in 1985 due to recent speculations concerning the possibility of a trans-Neptunian planet. The hypothesis argues that an object far closer to the Sun than Nemesis could have a similar effect if its orbit precessed at a rate thousands of times slower than its actual speed, which would mean it might only interact with the Kuiper belt every 27 million years, potentially sending comets into the inner Solar System and triggering mass extinctions. However, the paper had been initially published online in November 2015, before Brown and Batygin went public with Planet Nine, and concerns a different object far closer to the Sun (100 AU vs. ~600 AU); Planet Nine, if it exists, is too far away, says Brown, to have such an effect on the Kuiper belt. Nonetheless, an article in the British tabloid "The Sun" (later republished in the "New York Post") conflated the three ideas of Nibiru, Planet Nine, and Whitmire's planet to suggest that not only had Planet Nine been found, but that it would collide with Earth at the end of April, which resulted in Batygin receiving a spike in panicked calls. In October 2017, science writer Pat Brennan wrote that this planet has no chance of ever colliding with Earth.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: The impact of the public fear of the Nibiru cataclysm has been especially felt by professional astronomers. In 2008, Mike Brown said that Nibiru was the most common pseudoscientific topic he was asked about.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Before his retirement after 2012, David Morrison, director of the SETI Institute, CSI Fellow and Senior Scientist at NASA's Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, said he received 20 to 25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru: some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public, and still others asking whether or not they should kill themselves, their children or their pets. Half of these emails were from outside the US. Science writer Govert Schilling noted, "Planetary scientists are being driven to distraction by Nibiru. ... And it is not surprising; you devote so much time, energy and creativity to fascinating scientific research, and find yourself on the tracks of the most amazing and interesting things, and all the public at large is concerned about is some crackpot theory about clay tablets, god-astronauts and a planet that doesn't exist." Similarly, Professor Brian Cox posted on Twitter in 2012 that, "If anyone else asks me about 'Nibiru' the imaginary bullshit planet I will slap them around their irrational heads with Newton's "Principia"".


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: NASA frequently has to evaluate whether or not to respond to such claims, and the value of reassuring the public is outweighed by the risk of granting further exposure to a completely non-scientific idea. Prior to the 2012 date, Morrison stated that he hoped that the non-arrival of Nibiru could serve as a teaching moment for the public, instructing them on "rational thought and baloney detection", but doubted that would happen. During the 2017 revival, Morrison stated that the Nibiru phenomenon "keeps popping up over and over" despite his original assumption that it would be short-lived.


title: Nibiru cataclysm

text: Morrison noted in a lecture recorded on FORA.tv that there was a huge disconnect between the large number of people on the Internet who believed in Nibiru's arrival and the majority of scientists who have never heard of it. To date he is the only major NASA scientist to speak out regularly against the Nibiru phenomenon.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Toshiro Mifune was born on April 1, 1920 in Seitō, Japanese-occupied Shandong (present-day Qingdao, China), the eldest son of Tokuzo and Sen Mifune. His father Tokuzo was a trade merchant and photographer who ran a photography business in Qingdao and Yingkou, and was originally the son of a medical doctor from Kawauchi, Akita Prefecture. His mother Sen was the daughter of a "hatamoto", a high-ranking samurai official. Toshiro's parents, who were working as Methodist missionaries, were some of the Japanese citizens encouraged to live in Shandong by the Japanese government during its occupation before the Republic of China took over the city in 1922. Mifune grew up with his parents and two younger siblings in Dalian, Fengtian from the age of 4 to 19.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In his youth, Mifune worked at his father's photo studio. After spending the first 19 years of his life in China, as a Japanese citizen, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army Aviation division, where he served in the Aerial Photography unit during World War II.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In 1947, a large number of Toho actors, after a prolonged strike, had left to form their own company, Shin Toho. Toho then organized a "new faces" contest to find new talent.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Nenji Oyama, a friend of Mifune's who worked for the Photography Department of Toho Productions, sent Mifune's resume to the New Faces audition as the Photography Department was full, telling Mifune he could later transfer to the Photography Department if he wished. He was accepted, along with 48 others (out of roughly 4000 applicants), and allowed to take a screen test for Kajirō Yamamoto. Instructed to mime anger, he drew from his wartime experiences. Yamamoto took a liking to Mifune, recommending him to director Senkichi Taniguchi. This led to Mifune's first feature role, in "Shin Baka Jidai".


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune first encountered director Akira Kurosawa when Toho Studios, the largest film production company in Japan, was conducting a massive talent search, during which hundreds of aspiring actors auditioned before a team of judges. Kurosawa was originally going to skip the event, but showed up when Hideko Takamine told him of one actor who seemed especially promising. Kurosawa later wrote that he entered the audition to see "a young man reeling around the room in a violent frenzy ... it was as frightening as watching a wounded beast trying to break loose. I was transfixed." When Mifune, exhausted, finished his scene, he sat down and gave the judges an ominous stare. He lost the competition but Kurosawa was impressed. "I am a person rarely impressed by actors," he later said. "But in the case of Mifune I was completely overwhelmed." Mifune immersed himself into the six-month training and diligently applied himself to studying acting, although at first he still hoped to be transferred to the camera department.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Among Mifune's fellow performers, one of the 32 women chosen during the new faces contest was Sachiko Yoshimine. Eight years Mifune's junior, she came from a respected Tokyo family. They fell in love and Mifune soon proposed marriage.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Director Senkichi Taniguchi, with the help of Akira Kurosawa, convinced the Yoshimine family to allow the marriage. The wedding took place in February 1950 at the Aoyama Gakuin Methodist Church. Yoshimine was a Buddhist but since Mifune was a Christian, they were married in church as per Christian tradition.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In November of the same year, their first son, Shirō was born. In 1955, they had a second son, Takeshi. Mifune's daughter was born to his mistress, actress Mika Kitagawa, in 1982.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: His imposing bearing, acting range, facility with foreign languages and lengthy partnership with acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa made him the most famous Japanese actor of his time, and easily the best known to Western audiences. He often portrayed samurai or rōnin who were usually coarse and gruff (Kurosawa once explained that the only weakness he could find with Mifune and his acting ability was his "rough" voice), inverting the popular stereotype of the genteel, clean-cut samurai. In such films as "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo", he played characters who were often comically lacking in manners, but replete with practical wisdom and experience, understated nobility, and, in the case of "Yojimbo", unmatched fighting prowess. "Sanjuro" in particular contrasts this earthy warrior spirit with the useless, sheltered propriety of the court samurai. Kurosawa highly valued Mifune for his effortless portrayal of unvarnished emotion, once commenting that he could convey in only three feet of film an emotion for which the average Japanese actor would require ten feet.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: He was also known for the effort he put into his performances. To prepare for "Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon", Mifune reportedly studied footage of lions in the wild. For the Mexican film" Ánimas Trujano", he studied tapes of Mexican actors speaking so that he could recite all of his lines in Spanish. Many Mexicans believed that Toshiro Mifune could have passed for a native of Oaxaca due to his critically acclaimed performance. When asked of why he chose Mexico to do his next film, Mifune quoted, “Simply because, first of all, Mr. Ismael Rodríguez convinced me; secondly, because I was eager to work in beautiful Mexico, of great tradition; and thirdly, because the story and character of 'Animas Trujano' seemed very human to me”. The film was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Interestingly, Mifune gave a Japanese pistol as a gift to then-Mexican president Adolfo López Mateos when they met in Oaxaca.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune has been credited as originating the "roving warrior" archetype, which he perfected during his collaboration with Kurosawa. His martial arts instructor was Yoshio Sugino of the Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū. Sugino created the fight choreography for films such as "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo", and Kurosawa instructed his actors to emulate his movements and bearing.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Clint Eastwood was among the first of many actors to adopt this wandering ronin with no name persona for foreign films, which he used to great effect in his Western roles, especially in Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone where he played the Man with No Name, a character similar to Mifune's seemingly-nameless ronin in "Yojimbo".


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune may also be credited with originating the Yakuza archetype, with his performance as a mobster in Kurosawa's "Drunken Angel" (1948), the first Yakuza film. Most of the sixteen Kurosawa–Mifune films are considered cinema classics. These include "Drunken Angel", "Stray Dog", "Rashomon", "Seven Samurai", "The Hidden Fortress", "High and Low", "Throne of Blood" (an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth"), "Yojimbo", and "Sanjuro".


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune and Kurosawa finally parted ways after "Red Beard". Several factors contributed to the rift that ended this career-spanning collaboration. Mifune had a passion for film in his own right and had long wanted to set up a production company, working towards going freelance. Kurosawa and Taniguchi advised against it out of concern they would not be able to cast Mifune as freely. Most of Mifune's contemporaries acted in several different movies in this period. Since "Red Beard" required Mifune to grow a natural beard — one he had to keep for the entirety of the film's two years of shooting — he was unable to act in any other films during the production. This put Mifune and his financially strapped production company deeply into debt, creating friction between him and Kurosawa. Although "Red Beard" played to packed houses in Japan and Europe, which helped Mifune recoup some of his losses, the ensuing years held varying outcomes for both Mifune and Kurosawa. After the film's release, the careers of each man took different arcs: Mifune continued to enjoy success with a range of samurai and war-themed films ("Rebellion", "Samurai Assassin", "The Emperor and a General", among others). In contrast, Kurosawa's output of films dwindled and drew mixed responses. During this time, Kurosawa attempted suicide. In 1980, Mifune experienced popularity with mainstream American audiences through his role as Lord Toranaga in the television miniseries "Shogun". Yet Kurosawa did not rejoice in his estranged friend's success, and publicly made derisive remarks about "Shogun". In contrast, Mifune spoke respectfully of Kurosawa and loyally attended the premiere of "Kagemusha".


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune turned down an opportunity from United Artists to play the Japanese spy chief Tiger Tanaka in the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice" (1967). According to his daughter, he also turned down an offer from George Lucas to play either Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars" (1977).


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune himself was always professional, memorizing all of his lines and not carrying scripts on set. He was unusually humble for an international star, and was known for treating his costars and crew very generously, throwing lavish catered parties for them and paying for their families to go to "onsen" resorts.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In 1979, Mifune joined the ensemble cast of the Steven Spielberg war comedy "1941" as the commander of a lost Imperial Japanese Navy submarine searching for Hollywood shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. Mifune received wide acclaim in the West after playing Toranaga in the 1980 TV miniseries "Shogun". However, the series' blunt portrayal of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the greatly abridged version shown in Japan meant that it was not as well-received in his homeland.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: The relationship between Kurosawa and Mifune remained ambivalent. Kurosawa criticized Mifune's acting in "Interview" magazine and also said that "All the films that I made with Mifune, without him, they would not exist". He also presented Mifune with the Kawashita award which he himself had won two years prior. They frequently encountered each other professionally and met again in 1993 at the funeral of their friend Ishirō Honda, but never collaborated again.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In 1992, Mifune began suffering from a serious unknown health problem. It has been variously suggested that he destroyed his health with overwork, suffered a heart attack, or experienced a stroke. He retreated from public life and remained largely confined to his home, cared for by his estranged wife Sachiko. When she died from pancreatic cancer in 1995, Mifune's physical and mental state declined rapidly.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Mifune won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor twice, in 1961 and 1965. Mifune was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 1986 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1993. In 1973 he was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. In 1977 he was a member of the jury at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: On November 14, 2016, Mifune received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the motion pictures industry, located at 6912 Hollywood Boulevard.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: On August 19, 2022, the Turner Classic Movies channel remembered Mifune in its "Summer Under The Stars" series, broadcasting several of his films.


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: Of Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune said, "I have never as an actor done anything that I am proud of other than with him".


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: "Since I came into the industry very inexperienced, I don't have any theory of acting. I just had to play my roles my way."


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: "Generally speaking, most East-West stories have been a series of cliches. I, for one, have no desire to retell 'Madame Butterfly'."


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: "An actor is not a puppet with strings pulled by the director. He is a human being with seeds of all emotions, desires, and needs within himself. I attempt to find the very center of this humanity and explore and experiment."


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: In 2015, Steven Okazaki released "", a documentary chronicling Mifune's life and career. Due to variations in translation from the Japanese and other factors, there are multiple titles to many of Mifune's films (see IMDB link). The titles shown here are the most common ones used in the United States, with the original Japanese title listed below it in parentheses. Mifune's filmography mainly consists of Japanese productions, unless noted otherwise (see Notes column).


title: Toshiro Mifune

text: All programs originally aired in Japan except for "Shōgun" which aired in the U.S. on NBC in September 1980 before being subsequently broadcast in Japan on TV Asahi from March 30 to April 6, 1981.


title: Erik Prince

text: Erik Dean Prince (born June 6, 1969) is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater. He served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and served as chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group until 2021. Prince is the son of engineer and businessman Edgar Prince, and the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince was born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, the son of Edgar D. Prince and his wife, Elsa (Zwiep), and the youngest of four children. He graduated from Holland Christian High School. Prince and his father toured the world together, visiting the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, divided Berlin, and the battlefields of Normandy. According to his mother, these trips "made a big impression" on the young Prince.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince was accepted into the United States Naval Academy and attended for three semesters before leaving, explaining that he loved the Navy but disliked the Academy. He went on to receive his B.A. in economics from Hillsdale College in 1992. During his time at Hillsdale, he served as a volunteer firefighter and as a cold-water diver for the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department. Prince eventually became an emergency medical technician.


title: Erik Prince

text: In 1990, Prince secured an internship in the White House under George H. W. Bush, but soon left to intern for California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, President Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter. Rohrabacher described Prince as "a bright, driven young man." At the age of 21, Prince volunteered to search for a mass grave in Nicaragua, to expose killings that had taken place under President Daniel Ortega and later said that he had found the mass grave.


title: Erik Prince

text: After college, Prince was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy via Officer Candidate School in 1992. He went on to become a Navy SEAL and deployed with SEAL Team 8 to Haiti, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He credits the SEALs for being an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit. In his autobiography he states that during the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, he realized that there was a need for private training facilities for special operations.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. He bought of the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and set up a school for special operations. The name "Blackwater" comes from the peat-colored bogs in which the school is located.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince credits the 1994 Rwandan genocide with his decision to found Blackwater. He later said, "It really bothered me. It made me realize you can't sit back and pontificate. You have to act."


title: Erik Prince

text: From 1997 to 2010, Blackwater was awarded $2 billion in government security contracts, more than $1.6 billion of which were unclassified federal contracts and an unknown amount of classified work. From 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates. It became the largest of the State Department's three private security companies, providing 987 guards for embassies and bases abroad. Prince built a shooting range on his rural Virginia land to serve as a nearby training facility to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.


title: Erik Prince

text: Blackwater came under increasing criticism after the Nisour Square massacre in September 2007, in which Blackwater employees opened fire in a crowded square in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounding 20 more. Three guards were convicted in October 2014 of 14 manslaughter charges, and another of murder, in a U.S. court in 2019.


title: Erik Prince

text: The criticism continued after president Barack Obama took office in 2009. Prince said he believes that much of this criticism stems from politics. "I put myself and my company at the CIA's disposal for some very risky missions", Prince told "Vanity Fair" for its January 2010 issue. "But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus." Blackwater lost a $1 billion contract with the State Department to protect American diplomatic personnel in 2009, after the Iraqi government refused to renew the company's operating license. Nevertheless, in 2010 the Obama administration awarded the company a $120 million United States Department of State security contract and about $100 million in new CIA work.


title: Erik Prince

text: In 2012 Blackwater's successor company, Academi, paid a combined $49.5 million to settle charges of arms trafficking violations dating back to the period Prince was CEO and chairman of the company. In 2020 Prince again became the focus of an FBI investigation into arms trafficking violations related to the conversion of crop dusters into military aircraft. According to a UN report, Prince also violated a UN arms embargo by aiding a plot to arm a Libyan warlord attempting to overthrow the US and UN backed government in Libya.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince has defended Blackwater's work, pointing to the fact that during the course of 40,000 personal security missions, only 200 involved guards firing their weapons. He has said, "No one under our care was ever killed or injured. We kept them safe, all the while we had 30 of our men killed."


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince, according to author Robert Young Pelton, reportedly thinks of Blackwater's relationship to the military as something similar to FedEx's relationship to the U.S. Post Office: "an efficient, privatized solution to sclerotic and wasteful government bureaucracy." He credits his father's competitive streak in the automotive business with the inspiration to design a lighter, faster army.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince resigned as CEO of Blackwater on March 2, 2009, and remained chairman of the board until he sold the company in late 2010 to a group of investors.


title: Erik Prince

text: As Americans and others were being evacuated following the August 2021 collapse of the Afghan government, Prince said he was offering seats on a chartered flight for $6,500 per person.


title: Erik Prince

text: Prince was part of a CIA task force created to engage in targeted killings of suspected terrorists. Prince alleged that the House intelligence congressional committee leaked his name to the press. Prince has said that he is convinced that former CIA director Leon Panetta revealed him as a CIA asset, after shutting down the covert CIA training operation in 2009.


title: Erik Prince

text: After Blackwater faced mounting legal problems in the United States, Prince was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010. His task was to assemble an 800-member group of foreign troops for the U.A.E., which was planned months before the Arab Spring. He helped the UAE found a new company named Reflex Responses, or R2, with 51 percent local ownership, carefully avoiding his name on corporate documents. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit troops, among others from Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm hired by several African governments during the 1990s to defeat violent rebellions in addition to protecting oil and diamond reserves.