JANE AUSTEN. MR BEST YOU ARE VERY BAD. POEMAS ESCOGIDOS. POESÍAS ESCOGIDAS EN INGLÉS. TRADUCIDAS AL ESPAÑOL.

Hemos elegido un poema titulado «Mr. Best you are very bad», de la famosa y exitosa escritora británica del siglo XVIII Jane Austen.

 

Oh! Mr Best You’Re Very Bad – Poem by Jane Austen

Oh! Mr. Best, you’re very bad
And all the world shall know it;
Your base behaviour shall be sung
By me, a tunefull Poet.–
You used to go to Harrowgate
Each summer as it came,
And why I pray should you refuse
To go this year the same?–

The way’s as plain, the road’s as smooth,
The Posting not increased;
You’re scarcely stouter than you were,
Not younger Sir at least.–

If e’er the waters were of use
Why now their use forego?
You may not live another year,
All’s mortal here below.–

It is your duty Mr Best
To give your health repair.
Vain else your Richard’s pills will be,
And vain your Consort’s care.

But yet a nobler Duty calls
You now towards the North.
Arise ennobled–as Escort
Of Martha Lloyd stand forth.

She wants your aid–she honours you
With a distinguished call.
Stand forth to be the friend of her
Who is the friend of all.–

Take her, and wonder at your luck,
In having such a Trust.
Her converse sensible and sweet
Will banish heat and dust.–

So short she’ll make the journey seem
You’ll bid the Chaise stand still.
T’will be like driving at full speed
From Newb’ry to Speen hill.–

Convey her safe to Morton’s wife
And I’ll forget the past,
And write some verses in your praise
As finely and as fast.

But if you still refuse to go
I’ll never let your rest,
Buy haunt you with reproachful song
Oh! wicked Mr. Best!—

 

Oh! Mr Best You’Re Very Bad de Jane Austen (traducción libre al español).

¡Oh! Sr. Best, es usted muy malo
Y todo el mundo lo sabrá;
Su comportamiento básico será cantado
por mí, un poeta melodioso .–
Solía ir a Harrowgate
Cada verano que venía,
¿Y porque se lo ruego debería rehusar

ir este año lo mismo?

El camino es tan sencillo, el camino es tan suave,
El precio del envío no aumentó;
Usted es apenas más rápido de lo que era,
No menor Señor al menos.

Si las aguas fueran de utilidad.
¿Por qué ahora renunciar a su uso?
Usted no puede vivir otro año,
Todo es mortal aquí abajo.

Es su deber Mr. Best
dar a su salud reparo.
En vano más las píldoras de Richard serán,
Y en vano el cuidado de su consorte.

Pero aún un deber más noble le llama
Ahora hacia el Norte.
Levántate ennoblecido – como acompañante
de Martha Lloyd sale adelante.

Ella quiere su ayuda – ella te honra
con una llamada distinguida.
Salga adelante para ser la amiga de ella
que es la amiga de todos.

Tómela y pregúntese por su suerte,
En tener tal confianza.
Su conversa sensible y dulce
eliminará el calor y el polvo.

Ella hará que el viaje parezca tan corto
que usted apostará que el coche de caballos permaneció quieto.
Será como conducir a toda velocidad
de Newb’ry a la colina de Speen.

Transpórtela segura a la esposa de Morton
Y me olvidaré del pasado,
Y escribo algunos versos en tu alabanza
Tan finamente y tan rápido.

Pero si todavía te niegas a ir
nunca voy a dejarte descansar,
Buy te persigue con una canción de reproche
¡Oh! ¡Malvado Mr. Best!

 

 

>> Para leer la biografía y obras de Jane Austen en otra entrada del blog pinchar aquí <<

 

Academia de Inglés Paraninfo

C/ Princesa, 70 1º izq. exterior
28008 Madrid

 Phone number             +34 91 543 31 39

 

Ginger Rogers. Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Ginger Rogers biography:

 

Early Life:

Ginger Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri, USA, on July 16^th 1911. Her actual name was Virginia Katherine McMath. Her mother, Lelee Owens McMath, and her father, Eddins McMath, divorced when she was very young. Ginger and her mother then moved to Texas. Her father tried to take Ginger back twice, but both times he failed. In Texas, Ginger went to school, while her mother worked in the theatre. The name “Ginger” actually came from her younger cousin, who couldn’t pronounce “Virginia”, but “Ginger”. In 1918, Ginger’s mother met John Rogers, and in 1920, they got married.

 

Growing Up

When Ginger was younger, she always thought that when she would grow-up, she would be a schoolteacher. But because of her mother working in a theatre, she changed her mind. Ginger would act, sing and dance on stage, she joined lots of drama classes and at the age of 14, she would also joined charity shows.

The Big Career

Ginger Rogers would act in “Vaudeville” and “Broadway”, at the age of 17. She was in a few short films. She moved to New York and starred in her first entire film in 1929, “A night in a dormitory”, followed by two further movies (A day of a man of affairs & Campus sweethearts).

 

Adult Life

Ginger Rogers was married five times, remained childless. Her best friends were Lucille Ball and Bette Davis, whom she met at her mother’s theatre workshops. She was a teetotaller, her favourite drink was an Ice-cream soda, which is the only thing stocked in her bar at home. Pink was her favourite colour.

 

 

The Star Fame

In 1933, Ginger Rogers was paired with Fred Astaire, in “Flying down to Rio”. That is where she achieved her real fame and they were called one of the Best film couples ever. Later on in 1935, Fred & Ginger filmed “Roberta” and “Top Hat”, they made over ten films together. Ginger Rogers starred in comedies and films, throughout the 40’s, 50’s & 60’s. Fred nicknamed her “Feathers” because of the dress she wore in “Cheek to Cheek” as the feathers got stuck on his perfect black suit.

 

 

The End of Rogers

In 1984, Ginger Rogers retired and wrote her autobiography in 1991. Which was titled “Ginger, my story”.

On April 25^th, 1995, in Ranch Mirage CA, Ginger died at the aged of 83 due to natural causes.

She is remembered for her fantastic dancing and many continue to use her moves on stage.

 

 

CURSOS DE INGLES EN MADRID.

Calle Princesa, 70 1º

28008 Madrid

Teléfono – 915433139

paraninfo@paraninfo.com

ELIZABETH BISHOP. NORTH HAVEN. POESÍAS ESCOGIDAS EN INGLÉS. TRADUCIDAS AL ESPAÑOL. BIOGRAFÍA Y OBRAS.

Este mes hemos seleccionado un poema de título North Haven, de la escritora y poeta estadounidense Elizabeth Bishop. Fue poeta laureada de su país en 1949 y recibió el premio Pulitzer de poesía en 1956.

 

North Haven – Poem by Elizabeth Bishop

In Memoriam: Robert Lowell

I can make out the rigging of a schooner
a mile off; I can count
the new cones on the spruce. It is so still
the pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky
no clouds except for one long, carded horse¹s tail.

The islands haven’t shifted since last summer,
even if I like to pretend they have–
drifting, in a dreamy sort of way,
a little north, a little south, or sidewise–
and that they¹re free within the blue frontiers of bay.

This month our favorite one is full of flowers:
buttercups, red clover, purple vetch,
hackweed still burning, daisies pied, eyebright,
the fragrant bedstraw’s incandescent stars,
and more, returned, to paint the meadows with delight.

The goldfinches are back, or others like them,
and the white-throated sparrow’s five-note song,
pleading and pleading, brings tears to the eyes.
Nature repeats herself, or almost does:
repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.

Years ago, you told me it was here
(in 1932?) you first «discovered girls»
and learned to sail, and learned to kiss.
You had «such fun,» you said, that classic summer.
(«Fun»–it always seemed to leave you at a loss…)

You left North Haven, anchored in its rock,
afloat in mystic blue…And now–you’ve left
for good. You can’t derange, or rearrange,
your poems again. (But the sparrows can their song.)
The words won’t change again. Sad friend, you cannot change.

 

North Haven – Poem by Elizabeth Bishop

A la memoria: Robert Lowell

Puedo distinguir el aparejo de un velero

A una milla de distancia; puedo contar

las nuevas piñas en el abeto. Es así que todavía

la pálida bahía lleva una tez lechosa; el cielo

sin nubes a excepción de una larga, cardada cola de caballo.

Las islas no han cambiado desde el verano pasado,
aún si me gusta pretender que lo han hecho–
a la deriva, como en sueños del camino,
un poco al norte, un poco al sur, o de soslayo —
y que son libres dentro de las fronteras azules de la bahía.

Este mes, nuestro favorito, está lleno de flores:
ranúnculos, trébol rojo, púrpura vicia,
la vellosilla sigue ardiendo, margaritas de varios colores, eufrasia,
el fragante galio de incandescentes estrellas,
y más, regresó, para pintar los prados con deleite.

Los jilgueros están de vuelta, o otros como ellos,
y el canto de cinco notas del gorrión de cuello blanco,
rogando y suplicando, trae lágrimas a los ojos.
La naturaleza se repite a sí misma, o casi lo logra:
repetir, repetir, repetir; revisar, revisar, revisar.

Hace años, me dijiste que estaba aquí
(En 1932?) Primero «descubriste chicas»
y aprendiste a navegar, y aprendiste a besar.
Tenías «tanta diversión», dijiste, ese clásico verano.
(«Diversión» – siempre parecía dejarte perdido …)

Dejaste North Haven, anclado en su roca,
flotando en azul místico … Y ahora – te has marchado
para bien. No puedes desarreglar, o arreglar otra vez,
tus poemas de nuevo. (Pero los gorriones pueden cantar)
Las palabras no van a cambiar de nuevo. Amigo triste, no puedes cambiar.

>> Biografía y obras de Elizabeth Bishop, en otra entrada del blog. Pinchar aquí<<

 

Academia de Inglés Paraninfo
C/ Princesa, 70 1º izq. exterior
28008 Madrid
Phone number 915433137

JOHN BETJEMAN. A Bay In Anglesey. Business Girls. POESÍAS ESCOGIDAS EN INGLÉS. TRADUCIDAS AL ESPAÑOL. BIOGRAFÍA Y OBRAS.

Este mes hemos seleccionado dos poemas de un poeta inglés, poeta Laureado del Reino Unido (1972-1984): John Betjeman. A Bay In Anglesey y Business Girls son los dos poemas que hemos seleccionado como muestra de su aclamada obra poética.

 

A Bay In Anglesey. John Betjeman

 The sleepy sound of a tea-time tide

Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried,

Too lazy, almost, to sink and lift

Round low peninsulas pink with thrift.

The water, enlarging shells and sand,

Grows greener emerald out from land

And brown over shadowy shelves below

The waving forests of seaweed show.

Here at my feet in the short cliff grass

Are shells, dried bladderwrack, broken glass,

Pale blue squills and yellow rock roses.

The next low ridge that we climb discloses

One more field for the sheep to graze

While, scarcely seen on this hottest of days,

Far to the eastward, over there,

Snowdon rises in pearl-grey air.

Multiple lark-song, whispering bents,

The thymy, turfy and salty scents

And filling in, brimming in, sparkling and free

The sweet susurration of incoming sea.

Business Girls by John Betjeman

From the geyser ventilators
Autumn winds are blowing down
On a thousand business women
Having baths in Camden Town

Waste pipes chuckle into runnels,
Steam’s escaping here and there,
Morning trains through Camden cutting
Shake the Crescent and the Square.

Early nip of changeful autumn,
Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors,
At the back precarious bathrooms
Jutting out from upper floors;

And behind their frail partitions
Business women lie and soak,
Seeing through the draughty skylight
Flying clouds and railway smoke.

Rest you there, poor unbelov’d ones,
Lap your loneliness in heat.
All too soon the tiny breakfast,
Trolley-bus and windy street!

 

Una Bahía en Anglesey. John Betjeman

 El sonido somnoliento de una marea a la hora del té
abofetea las rocas que el sol ha secado,

Demasiado perezoso, casi, para hundirse y ascender
rodea las bajas penínsulas rosas con frugalidad.

El agua, ampliando las conchas y la arena,
Crece más verde esmeralda hacia fuera de la tierra

Y marrón sobre los salientes oscuros debajo
Los bamboleantes bosques de algas marinas se muestran.

Aquí en mis pies en la hierba corta del acantilado
están las conchas, fucus seca, vidrios rotos,

Pálido escilas (plantas) azules y rosas amarillas de las rocas.
La próxima cresta baja que subimos revela

Uno campo más para que ovejas pasten
Mientras, apenas se ven en este más caliente de los días,

Lejos hacia el este, más allá,
Snowdon (una montaña) se eleva en el aire gris perla.

Múltiples canciones de alondra, inclinaciones susurrantes,
Los olores a tomillo, césped y olores salados

Y rellenar, rebosante en, brillante y libre
El dulce susurro del mar nuevo.

 

Chicas de negocios de John Betjeman

Desde los ventiladores géiser
vientos de otoño soplan hacia abajo
sobre mil mujeres de negocios
tomando baños en Camden Town.

Tubos de desagüe se ríen en arroyuelos,
el vapor está escapando aquí y allá,
Los trenes de la mañana atraviesan a través de Camden
Agitan la Media Luna y la plaza.

Temprano pellizco del otoño cambiante,
Dalias que se vislumbran a través de puertas de jardín,
En los baños precarios de atrás
Que sobresalen de los pisos superiores;

Y detrás de sus tabiques frágiles

Las mujeres de negocios se tumban y remojan,

Mirando a través de la claraboya con corrientes de aire

Nubes volando y el humo del ferrocarril.

Descansad allí, pobres no queridas,
poner vuestra soledad a calentar.
Todo demasiado pronto: el pequeño desayuno,
el trolebús y la calle ventosa!

John Betjeman nación en Highgate (Londres), el 28 de agosto de 1906 y murió en Trebetherick (Cornualles), el 19 de mayo de 1984.

Fue un poeta y presentador inglés. Fue uno de los miembros fundadores de la Victorian Society. Aunque su carrera empezó como periodista, Betjeman se convirtió en uno de los poetas laureados más populares del Reino Unido, así como en una de las figuras más queridas de la televisión británica.

Biografía

Primeros años y educación

Su nombre era originalmente John Betjemann, pero cambió su apellido por uno menos alemán durante la Primera Guerra Mundial. Betjeman nació en Highgate, al norte de Londres. Sus padres fueron Mabel y Ernest Betjemann, quienes eran dueños de un negocio familiar que manufacturaba muebles y ornamentos victorianos. La familia de su padre era neerlandesa y se habían asentado en Islington (Londres) durante el siglo XIX. En 1909, los Betjemann abandonaron Hampstead y se mudaron a la villa de Highgate.

Inicialmente, Betjeman estudió en la Byron House y en la Highgate School, en donde fue pupilo de T. S. Eliot. Posteriormente, fue enviado a la Dragon School en Oxford y al Marlborough College en Marlborough. Durante su penúltimo año en el Marlborough College, Betjeman se unió a la Society of Amici, en donde fue contemporáneo de Louis MacNeice y Graham Shepard. Mientras estaba en la universidad, Betjeman leyó las obras de Arthur Machen y se unió a la Iglesia Alta Anglicana.

 

Magdalen College, Oxford

Betjeman entró en la Universidad de Oxford con bastante dificultad, luego de haber reprobado la sección de matemática del examen de admisión de la universidad. Sin embargo, fue admitido como un estudiante sin beca en el Magdalen College. Sin embargo, Betjeman no sobresalió como estudiante en Oxford. C. S. Lewis, quien fue uno de sus profesores, lo consideraba un «mojigato haragán,» mientras que Betjeman consideraba que Lewis era antipático, exigente un profesor poco inspirado. A Betjeman le desagradaba el énfasis de la carrera en lingüística y dedicó la mayor parte de su tiempo haciendo vida social, cultivando su interés en la arquitectura eclesiástica y estudiando literatura de su agrado. Durante 1927, publicó un poema en la revista universitaria Isis y fue el editor del periódico estudiantil Cherwell. Su primer libro de poesía fue publicado por cuenta propia con la ayuda de su compañero Edward James. Muchas de sus vivencias en Oxford fueron incluidas en su autobiografía en verso blanco Summoned by Bells, la cual fue publicada en 1960 y fue adaptada en un telefilme en 1976.

 

 

Betjeman fue capaz de obtener su título en Oxford debido a que reprobó el examen obligatorio de Escrituras Sagradas. Su situación empeoró cuando reprobó el examen por segunda ocasión durante el periodo Hilary de 1928, por lo que fue suspendido durante el periodo Trinity para que se preparara para tomar el examen en octubre. Betjeman le escribió al Secretario de la Junta de Tutores del Magdalen College solicitando entrar en Pass School, un conjunto de exámenes para estudiantes de pregrado que probablemente no se graduarían con honores.

Betjeman fue aceptado en Pass School, en donde decidió realizar una tesis en galés. Un tuto tenía que viajar en tren desde Aberystwyth para enseñar a Betjeman, a pesar de que el Jesus College tenía varios profesores de galés que hubieran podido enseñarle. Sin embargo, Betjeman fue expulsado definitivamente de la universidad al final del periodo Michaelmas de 1928. A pesar de que Betjeman había aprobado el examen obligatorio de Escrituras Sagradas en su tercer intento, fue expulsado después de solo haber obtenido una nota satisfactoria en uno de los tres ensayos requeridos en Pass School.

Su fracaso académico en Oxford lo marcó por el resto de su vida y nunca fue capaz de reconciliarse con C. S. Lewis. A pesar de esto, Betjeman siempre estimó grandemente la Universidad, de la cual recibió un doctorado honorario en 1974.

 

 

Luego de la universidad

Después de abandonar la universidad, Betjeman trabajó brevemente como secretario, maestro de escuela e incluso como crítico de cine del Evening Standard. Entre 1930 y 1935, trabajó como editor asistente de la revista Architectural Review y publicó varios trabajos como freelancer. El historiador Timothy Mowl considera que los años que Betjeman pasó en Architectural Review fueron su verdadera universidad. Durante este periodo, Betjeman se unió al MARS Group, un grupo de jóvenes arquitectos modernistas y críticos de arquitectura del Reino Unido.

El 29 de julio de 1933, Betjeman se casó con Penelope Chetwode, la hija del Mariscal de Campo Philip Chetwode. La pareja vivió en Berkshire y tuvo un hijo, Paul, en 1937 y una hija, Paula (mejor conocida como Candida Lycett Green), en 1942.

 

 

Junto a Jack Beddington, Betjeman publicó las Shell Guides, una serie de guías sobre los condados de Gran Bretaña y sus sitios históricos para los motoristas británicos. Las guías fueron publicadas por la Architectural Press y financiadas por Royal Dutch Shell. Para el inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial ya se habían publicado 13 de estas guías, de las cuales Betjeman escribió las de Cornualles (1934) y Devon (1936).

En 1939, Betjeman no fue aceptado para el servicio activo durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pero encontró trabajo en la división de cine del Ministerio de Información. En 1941, fue enviado como corresponsal a Dublín (Irlanda). Posteriormente, Betjeman escribiría varios poemas sobre sus experiencias en ese país.

 

 

Periodo de posguerra

La esposa de Betjeman, Penelope, se convirtió al Catolicismo en 1948, por lo que la pareja se separó. En 1951, conoció a Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, con quien desarrolló una duradera amistad.

Durante los años 1960 y los años 1970, Betjeman continuó publicando guías y obras sobre arquitectura. Así mismo, durante este periodo, empezó a trabajar como presentador. En 1958, fue uno de los miembros fundadores de la Victorian Society. También estuvo relacionado con la cultura de Metro-land, el nombre con el que eran conocidas las zonas suburbanas servidas por el Metropolitan Railway. Betjeman incluso participó en un documental de la BBC llamado Metro-land, dirigido por Edward Mirzoeff.

En 1975, Bejteman propuso que se usaran los Fine Rooms de la Somerset House para albergar el Turner Bequest, con lo que ayudó a desbaratar el plan del Ministro de Artes de albergar el Bequest en el Theatre Museum.

 

Muerte

Durante la última década de su vida, Betjeman sufrió de la enfermedad de Parkinson. Murió en su hogar en Trebetherick (Cornualles) el 19 de mayo de 1984, a los 77 años. Fue enterrado en el cementerio de la St Enodoc’s Church.

Reconocimientos

• Miembro honorario de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Letras (1980)

• Poeta Laureado del Reino Unido (1972-1984)

• Knight Bachelor (1969)

• Comandante de la Orden del Imperio Británico (1960)

• Queen’s Medal for Poetry (1960)

 

Academia de Inglés Paraninfo
C/ Princesa, 70 1º izq. exterior
28008 Madrid
Phone number +34 91 543 31 39

 

LEWIS CARROLL. ALL IN THE GOLDEN AFTERNOON . POESÍAS ESCOGIDAS EN INGLÉS. TRADUCIDAS AL ESPAÑOL. BIOGRAFÍA Y OBRAS DE LEWIS CARROLL.

 

Este mes hemos seleccionado una poesía titulada All In The Golden Afternoon. Su autor es el famoso Lewis Carroll, cuya obra principal es Alicia en el país de las Maravillas. Es un autor británico del siglo XIX.

 

All In The Golden Afternoon – Poem by Lewis Carroll:

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretense
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict to «begin it»–
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
«There will be nonsense in it»–
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast–
And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
«The rest next time»–«It is next time!»
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out–
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land.

 

Todo en la tarde dorada- por Lewis Carroll

Todo en la tarde dorada;

Completamente relajados nos deslizamos;
por ambos nuestros remos, con poca habilidad,
Por pequeños brazos están manejados,
Mientras que las pequeñas manos hacen vana la pretensión
de guiar nuestros paseos.

Ah, cruel Tres! En esa hora,
Bajo tal clima soñador,
Para rogar por un cuento de aliento demasiado débil
Para agitar la pluma más pequeña!
Sin embargo, ¿qué puede una pobre voz valer
contra tres lenguas juntas?

La Imperiosa Prima parpadea progresivamente
su edicto para «empezarlo» –
En tonos más suaves Secunda espera que
«No habrá tonterías en ello» –
Mientras Tertia interrumpe el cuento
No más de una vez por minuto.

Anon, de repente el silencio ganó,
En la fantasía ellos persiguen
El sueño infantil moviéndose a través de una tierra
De maravillas salvajes y nuevas,
En charla amistosa con el pájaro o bestia —
Y la mitad cree que es cierto.

Y alguna vez, como la historia consumió
los pozos de la fantasía en seco,
Y se esforzó débilmente en uno agotado
para sujetarlo,
«La próxima vez el resto» – «Es la próxima vez!»
Las voces felices lloran.

Así se desarrolló la historia de las maravillas:
Así lentamente, uno por uno,
Sus eventos pintorescos fueron elaborados–
Y ahora la historia está terminada,
Y nos dirigimos a casa, un equipo alegre,
Bajo el sol poniente.

Alice! una historia infantil toma,
Y con una mano suave
Ponla en donde los sueños de la niñez estén torcidos
En la banda mística de la Memoria,
Como la guirnalda de flores marchitas del peregrino
arrancados en una tierra lejana.

 

>> Biografía de Lewis Carroll, en otra entrada del blog. Pinchar aquí <<

 

Academia de Inglés Paraninfo
C/ Princesa, 70 1º izq. exterior
28008 Madrid
Phone number +34 91 543 31 39

 

 

Bruce Springsteen . Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Biography:

Bruce Springsteen (born 23.9.1949)
Bruce Springsteen is an American singer / songwriter, known affectionately among his fans as ‘The Boss’. He has won many Grammy Awards and an Academy Award. His most famous albums are Born to Run and Born In The USA.

Childhood: Bruce Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Douglas F. Springsteen (a bus driver with a dual Dutch / Irish heritage) and Adele A. Zirilli (a legal secretary of Irish heritage). He has two sisters: Virginia (older) and Pamela (younger).

 

 

Springsteen was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended the St. Rose of Lima school and then transferred to Freehold High School. Springsteen graduated from high school but skipped his graduation ceremony, as he had felt so out of place at the school.

When Bruce Springsteen was seven years old, he saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show and it was this that made him want to take up music. He bought his first guitar for $18 when he was 13.

Later, Springsteen became the lead guitarist in the local band, The Castiles and the band made a handful of original recordings.

 

 

Early Musical Career: Between 1969 and ’71, Bruce played in the band Steel Mill (originally called Child) with Steve Van Zandt, Danny Federici and Vini Lopez. Over these two formative years, however, Springsteen played with a number of outfits, and drew a following in the Jersey Shore and Asbury Park areas. The bands included Dr Zoom and the Sonic Boom, Sundance Blues band and The Bruce Springsteen Band.

Springsteen’s prolific songwriting, which encompassed a number of genres including blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, came to the attention of music managers Mike Appel, Jim Cretecos and John Hammond, the now-legendary Columbia Records scout. Hammond auditioned Springsteen in 1972.

 

 

Commercial Breakthrough: In 1972, Bruce Springsteen signed a record deal with Columbia Records. A number of his New Jersey band mates entered the studio with him (they later became known as the E-Street band) and his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. was released in 1973. The album was heavily compared to Bob Dylan and Van Morrison.

Springsteen’s second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle was released later the same year. The critics looked favourably on the album but it achieved little commercial success. However, songs like ‘Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)’ became live favourites with his fans.

 

 

In 1975, the band’s five night, 10-show run at the Bottom Line club in New York, garnered a lot of press attention. Later that year, the album Born To Run was released. The album was given a huge budget, as a last-ditch attempt for Springsteen to achieve mass commercial success. The singles, ‘Born To Run’ and ‘Thunder Road’ achieved huge commercial success.

Over the next few years, Springsteen toured with the E-Street band, but a legal feud with ex-manager Mike Appel kept him out of the studio and unable to record new music.

Eventually, an agreement was reached and Springsteen returned to the studio, to record Darkness On The Edge of Town in 1978. ‘Badlands’ and ‘The Promised Land’ showed Bruce’s political edge and became live favourites for years to come.

 

 

Springsteen earned a reputation as a songwriter that could provide popular hits for other musicians. Notable, he co-wrote Patti Smith’s ‘Because The Night’ as well as The Pointer Sisters version of his unreleased track, ‘Fire’, which earned them a number two single.

In 1980, Springsteen released a 20-sing double album entitled The River. The album was a commercial success and a huge arena tour of the US followed its release.

Following this huge success, Springsteen surprised many people by releasing Nebraska, a solemn acoustic album, in 1982. The songs started life as demos for a new band album but during the recording process, it was decided that they would work better as solo songs. The album was names ‘Album of the Year’ by Rolling Stone magazine.

Springsteen’s next album is probably his best known. Born In The USA (1984) sold over 15 million copies in the US alone. It is now one of the best-selling albums of all time. Seven singles released from the album were top 10 hits. The commercial success that he enjoyed around this time was boosted by the release of Live 1975-85, which sold over 13 million units in the US and was the first box set to debut at the top of the US album charts.

The Tunnel Of Love was released in 1987 and brought with another major tour schedule. His first marriage to Julianne Phillips had broken up and his relationship with backing singer Patti Scialfa became public knowledge. The couple married in 1991 and now have three children, Evan James (b.1990), Jessica Rae (b.19991) and Sam Ryan (b.1994).

Amidst heavy criticism for moving to LA and using session musicians, Bruce Springsteen released the albums Human Touch and Lucky Town in 1992.

In 1995, he released his second solo album, entitled The Ghost Of Tom Joad. The album was less well acclaimed than Nebraska and Springsteen had to ask his audiences to be quiet during the tour performances that accompanied the release of the album.

 

 

Four years later, the E-Street Band enjoyed a reformation and embarked upon the ‘Reunion Tour’, which lasted over a year. The tour ended with a massive 10-night sell-out at Madison Square Gardens. The final performances were released on the Live In New York City DVD. The band’s first full studio output in 18 years was released in 2002. The Rising was largely a reflection on the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York. The band played 10 nights in the Giants Stadium in New Jersey and the Rising tour culminated with three nights in Shea Stadium.

As a tribute to Joe Strummer of The Clash, Springsteen performed ‘London calling’ at the Grammy Awards of 2003. Fellow performers included Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl and Steven Van Zandt.

Another solo acoustic album was released in 2005: Devils & Dust. The album was hugely popular in Europe though ticket sales for his live shows were disappointing elsewhere.

The next year, Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, which was an exploration of the American roots music popularized by Pete Seeger.

The E-Street band was drafted back in for Springsteen’s 2007 release, Magic. The album debuted at number one in the UK and Ireland, selling 563,000 copies worldwide in its first week.

In April 2008, long-time organist with the E-Street band, Danny Federici passed away, following a three-year battle with a melanoma.

 

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Sean Connery. Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Biography:

Sean was born as Thomas Sean Connery in Fountainbridge Scotland on August 25, 1930. His parents were honest, hardworking people, but were also very poor. His father was a truck-driver. At an early age, Sean displayed keen athletic abilities, and even had professional soccer potential.

 

Sean joined the Royal Navy, but a distinct distaste for authority, led his elsewhere. Officially, he left it because of having ulcers. A frustrated, though determined young man, he attempted to drown his anger in weight lifting, and he was Scotland’s representative to the 1953 Mr. Universe contest, finishing the third one. He also worked as a though laborer, lifeguard and model for art classes. He also had a job in the chorus of the touring company of South Pacific.

 

Sean eventually drifted into acting, heavily encouraged by an American named Robert Henderson. Gradually he started in stage productions. His first tv appearance was in 1956.

After wading through several low-key, cameo roles in mediocre films, Sean landed a respectable role in Disney’s «Darby O’Gill and the Little People» (1959). Then, after a few more forgettable films, came «The Longest Day» (1962), which starred countless famous actors, offering little screen time for our charming Scot.

 

 

Having dropped out of school at 13, he spent much of his free time in libraries as he traveled about performing in plays. Connery beat out many far bigger (and more expensive) names to play Ian Fleming’s superspy James Bond in «Dr. No» (1962), which made him a major 60s icon. He leavened he inherent violence of the character with his unflappably cool sophistication and humor. However, Sean would quickly grow disillusioned with the public’s inability to differentiate between him and Bond. During this time, Sean was struggling with his first marriage to Diane Cilento, who was growing increasingly estranged. Eventually, they divorced.

 

 

Connery periodically played a wider range of roles in other features, such as Alfred Hitchcock’s «Marnie» (1964); «A Fine Madness» (1966) and «The Molly Maguires» (1970), but most were box-office duds. He did some of his best work  with director Sidney Lumet: «The Hill» (1965), as a convict in a military prison; «The Anderson Tapes» (1972), as an ex-con masterminding; «The Offence» (1973), as a London detective who beats a suspect to death; «Murder on the Orient Express» (1974), as part of the all-star ensemble; and Family Business (1989), in which he portrays the proud patriarch of a criminal clan, with Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick.

 

 

Sean left the role of James Bond after «You Only Live Twice» (1967).  The role was filled by newcomer, George Lazenby, an Australian model. However, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Lazenby’s only film as Bond, was a financial failure by Bondian standards, and producers Broccoli and Saltzman were determined to get Sean back at all costs. This led to «Diamonds Are Forever» (1971), with one of the most lucrative contracts in film history. Sean’s old friend (and one of Ian Fleming’s first picks as Bond) Roger Moore would take over the helm of Her Majesty’s favorite errand boy, for a whopping seven films, over the next twelve years. 

 

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TOM CRUISE. Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

Biography:

An actor whose name became synonymous with all-American entertainment, Tom Cruise spent the 1980s as one of Hollywood’s brightest-shining golden boys. Born on July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, NY, Cruise was high-school wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorization aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia. Moving to New York in 1980, Cruise’s first big hit was Risky Business in 1982, in which he entered movie-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents’ absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the «Brat Pack,» a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early ’80s.

 

Top Gun 1985 established Cruise as an action star, but again he refused to be pigeonholed, and followed it up with a solid characterization of a fledgling pool shark in the Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money in 1986, for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, a dramatic turn for sure, though Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face.

 

His chance came in 1989, when he played a paraplegic Vietnam vet in Born on the Fourth of July. Though his bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away in 1990 (though it did give him a chance to co-star with his-then wife Nicole Kidman), 1992’s A Few Good Men brought him back into the game. By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise’s casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor’s performance, and publicly praised Cruise’s portrayal.

 

In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the big-budget action film Mission: Impossible, but it was with his multilayered, Oscar-nominated performance in Jerry Maguire that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. 1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. The film, which was the director’s last, had been the subject of controversy, rumor, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation, and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood’s most well-placed movers and shakers.

 

Cruise’s enviable position was again solidified later in 1999, when he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as a loathsome «sexual prowess» guru in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. In 2000, he scored again when he reprised his role as international agent Ethan Hunt in John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II, which proved to be one of the summer’s first big moneymakers. He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los Ojos titled Vanilla Sky. Though Vanilla Sky’s sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year’s massively successful sci-fi chase film Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg , or of the historical epic The Last Samurai, directed by Edward Zwick.

 

For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he’d ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the Michael Mann psychological thriller Collateral. He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he’d built his career on, and for doing so convincingly. By 2005, he teamed up with Steven Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds.

 

The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began in 2005, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, calling going so far as to call the psychological science a «Nazi science» in an Entertainment Weekly interview. On June 24, 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a «pseudoscience,» and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world.

 

This behavior caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise’s enthusiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 23, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes. The actor’s newly outspoken attitude about Scientology linked to the buzz surrounding his new relationship, and the media was flooded with rumors that Holmes had been brainwashed.

Some audiences found Cruise’s ultra-enthusiastic behavior refreshing, but for the most part, the actor’s new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring 2006 release of Mission: Impossible III, his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years.

Despite this, the movie ended up performing essentially as expected, and Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front, when — in November 2006 — he and corporate partner Paula Wagner (the twin forces behind the lucrative Cruise-Wagner Productions) officially «took over» the defunct United Artists studio. Originally founded by such giants as Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin in 1921, UA was all but completely defunct. The press announced that Cruise and Wagner would «revive» the studio, with Wagner serving as Chief Executive Officer and Cruise starring in and producing projects.

One of the fist films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs, which took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie. Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with films like Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Rock of Ages. Cruise and Holmes would announce they were divorcing in 2012.

 

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Judy Garland. Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

A Brief Biography

  Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and immediately nicknamed «Baby.» Her father managed the town movie theatre; her mother accompanied silent films on the piano. Both parents performed, as did Baby’s two older sisters, and she joined the family act on December 26, 1924, in a song-and-dance routine with her sisters and her own solo, a scheduled one-chorus arrangement of «Jingle Bells.» To the delight of the audience, Baby refused to leave the stage and went into reprise after reprise of the latter number; her grandmother finally had to walk on from the wings and carry the child offstage as she protested, «I wanna sing some more!»

 
     The family moved to California in 1926, and over the next nine years, «The Gumm Sisters» made hundreds of stage and radio appearances. In 1929, they were seen in The Big Revue (Mayfair Pictures) and then sang in three other «Vitaphone Varieties» shorts for First National: A Holiday in Storyland, The Wedding of Jack and Jill, and Bubbles. By 1932, Baby was the center of the act, drawing astounded, astounding response from the public and critics alike. In 1934, the Los Angeles Evening Express compared the scope and depth of her talent to that of legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt and offered, «Little Frances…sang in a way that produced in the audience sensations that haven’t been equaled in years. She must have the divine spark to be able to sing as she did….».

 
     By 1935, Baby had been rechristened Judy Garland — the last name chosen by vaudevillian George Jessel, the first her own selection from a contemporary Hoagy Carmichael/Sammy Lesser song. Her sisters bowed out of the act that same year, and Judy signed an M-G-M contract. The studio first tested her appeal in a 1936 one-reel exhibitor’s short in which she was paired with another teenage singer, Edna Mae Durbin. Response to both girls was strong enough to spur production (a month later) of a second one-reeler, Every Sunday. Inexplicably, Durbin’s Metro contract was allowed to lapse; she was immediately signed by Universal, which changed her first name to Deanna and made her a film star.
 
     M-G-M, however, was far from nonplussed. They’d already arranged a showcase loanout for Judy at Twentieth Century-Fox (Pigskin Parade, 1936) and then cast her in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937). Her rendition in that film of «Dear Mr. Gable: You Made Me Love You» created a sensation; she walked away with the reviews and won a Decca recording contract. The studio began immediate, intensive plans for her future. The Wizard Of Oz (1939) was paramount among the vehicles in development, but during its preparation, she made four other features. The earliest of these, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry (1937), cast her for the first time with Mickey Rooney; they’d actually met four years earlier as fellow students at Lawlor’s Professional School.

 
     Judy next costarred with Allan Jones, Fanny Brice, and Billie Burke in Everybody Sing, and went on to work with Freddie Bartholomew, Mary Astor, and Walter Pidgeon in Listen, Darling (both 1938). But the on-and-off-screen chemistry between Garland and Rooney had already been noted, and the two were purposely and purposefully reunited when a role was created for her in the fourth of the «Judge Hardy’s Family» series, Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938).
 
     Their coupling had the earmarks of such success that — even before the picture was released — Metro songwriter Arthur Freed began plans to launch his own career as a film producer by costarring the duo in a film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, Babes In Arms. By autumn 1938, its production was scheduled to follow Judy’s Listen, Darling and six months of adventures in Oz.

 
     Oz and Babes In Arms led Judy to Top Ten box office prominence in 1940; she appeared on the list in 1941 and 1945 as well. There were two more «Hardy» films with Rooney (Andy Hardy Meets Debutante [1940] and Life Begins for Andy Hardy [1941]) and three additional musical pictures in which they costarred: Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes On Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). Judy also played the title roles in Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), and Presenting Lily Mars (1943). A year earlier, she’d received her first solo billing above the title in For Me And My Gal — proof positive that she had become such an artistic and box office sensation that no other name was required to bring in the cash customers. M-G-M began to commission top-flight vehicles for her and, in quick succession, she appeared in such subsequent screen classics as Meet Me In St. Louis (1944), The Clock (1945), The Harvey Girls (1946), Till The Clouds Roll By (1947), The Pirate and Easter Parade (both 1948), In The Good Old Summertime (1949), and Summer Stock (1950). She also did «guest» appearances in the all-star musicals Thousands Cheer (1943), Ziegfeld Follies (1946), and Words and Music (1948).

 
     Additionally, between 1936 and 1950, Judy recorded over eighty sides for Decca, made over two hundred radio appearances, and — during World War II — served as a tireless force among the entertainers who performed for stateside servicemen and women. The cumulative effects of such a work schedule led to both emotional and physical exhaustion for the diminutive Garland, and (after she’d completed twenty-eight feature films in fourteen years), M-G-M dissolved her contract in 1950.
 
     In April 1951, «Baby Gumm» returned to her roots with a sensational four-week stage engagement at the London Palladium. The subsequent tour led straight to Broadway; in March 1952, Judy was presented with a special Antoinette Perry «Tony» Award for breaking the all-time vaudeville box office and attendance records during a nineteen week engagement at the legendary Palace Theatre in New York.

The continuing phenomenon of «Judy Garland Live» would ultimately result in over 1100 stage, nightclub, and concert appearances between 1951 and 1969. There were acclaimed returns to the Palace in 1956 and 1967; a precedent-shattering engagement as the first popular singer to play the Metropolitan Opera House in 1959; eight record-breaking Las Vegas engagements (in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1962, 1965, and 1967); United States appearances everywhere from the Hollywood Bowl to the Newport Jazz Festival; international successes in Amsterdam, Paris, Sydney, and Germany, Ireland, and Scotland; and the immediately historic «Judy At Carnegie Hall» in 1961. The two-record set of that performance won an unprecedented five Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal Performance) and remained on the charts for 97 weeks — 13 of those in the number one position.

Judy returned to the screen as well, winning a best actress Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born (Warner Bros./1954). There would be a similar citation as best supporting actress for Judgment At Nuremberg (United Artists) in 1961; Judy had already been presented with a special miniature «juvenile» Oscar in 1940 for her work in Oz and Babes in Arms. She did another straight dramatic role for Stanley Kramer in A Child Is Waiting (United Artists/1963).
 
     Garland’s television debut in 1955 attracted the largest audience to that time for a «spectacular» program. She went on to nearly 60 other TV appearances, including acclaimed «specials» in 1962 and 1963 and her own series in 1963-64. (Her individual telecasts and Garland herself garnered a total of 10 Emmy nominations.) In addition to film soundtracks for Columbia (Pepe/1960) and Warner Bros. (Gay Purr-ee/1962), Judy cut a dozen albums during a ten-year tenure with Capitol Records (1955-1965) — including the soundtrack for her final film, I Could Go On Singing (United Artists/1963).

 
     Judy Garland’s final concert appearances in March 1969 won ten-minute standing ovations in Stockholm and Copenhagen. She died in her London home on June 22, 1969, of an accidental overdose of prescription medication.
 
      Since her death, her professional reputation and legend have only grown — fired by the continued clamor from all ages for her films, television shows, and recordings.
 
     Judy is the mother of entertainers Liza Minnelli (born 1946) and Lorna Luft (born 1952) and photographer Joe Luft (born 1955). She was married five times: to composer/conductor David Rose (1941-44), film director Vincente Minnelli (1945-51), producer Sid Luft (1952-1965), actor Mark Herron (1965-1966), and musician/entrepreneur Mickey Deans (1969).

 

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John Wayne. Biografía. Famous people in English. Personajes famosos en inglés.

JOHN WAYNE BIOGRAPHY:

John Wayne (26 May 1907-11 June 1979 was an actor

He was born Marion Robert Morrison  in Winterset, Iowa, the son of Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist clerk, and Mary Alberta Brown. In 1914 Wayne moved with his parents and younger brother, Robert Emmett Morrison, to southern California, where his father tried farming near Lancaster for two years before settling in Glendale, just north of Los Angeles. In 1925 Wayne enrolled as a pre-law student at the University of Southern California on a football scholarship.

Denied renewal of his scholarship after two years, Wayne dropped out of USC and was hired full time as a prop man by the William Fox Studio, where he had worked the previous two summers. For the next two years Wayne also hired out as an extra, to include several films directed by John Ford. It was not Ford, however, but director Raoul Walsh who chose the good-looking, 6′ 4″ prop man known then as Marion «Duke» Morrison for the lead role in Fox’s epic western, The Big Trail (1930). Morrison’s name was changed to John Wayne and instant fame seemed assured. But the film proved a financial failure, and after two more films for Fox his contract was dropped. For the remainder of the depression decade, Wayne was relegated to smaller parts in several productions (even playing a corpse in The Deceiver [1931]) and starring roles in some four dozen low-budgeted B films, most of them westerns for «poverty row» studios Monogram and Republic. He was halfway through a Republic contract for eight «Three Mesquiteer» westerns when John Ford offered him the lead role of the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (1939). This classic western revived Wayne’s career and initiated one of Hollywood’s most inspired star-director relationships.

By the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Wayne was thirty-four, married to Josephine Saenz (since 1933), and the father of four children. Legally exempt from military service during the course of the war, Wayne pursued building his career with an assortment of westerns, combat films, and screen romances opposite such leading ladies as Marlene Dietrich (three films), Joan Crawford, and Jean Arthur.

Averaging nearly four films per year from 1940 to 1945, Wayne alternated between routine Republic productions and larger-budgeted films of major studios, for which he often took second billing to more established stars. Most of Wayne’s prodigious fare remained undistinguished, with the possible exceptions of Cecil B. De Mille’s Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and John Ford’s The Long Voyage Home (1940) and They Were Expendable (1945). By the end of 1945, meanwhile, Wayne was divorced, and in January 1946 he married a would-be Mexican actress he had met in 1941, Esperanza Diaz Ceballos Morrison. Theirs proved a stormy relationship that ended in a bitter divorce trial in October 1953. The next year Wayne married Peruvian actress Pilar Palette Weldy; they had three children before they separated in the mid-1970s.

Beginning with Howard Hawks’s classic epic western Red River (1948), the late forties marked a turning point in both Wayne’s popularity and development as an actor. The first of several successful collaborations with director Hawks, notably Rio Bravo (1959), Red River highlighted an unprecedentedly powerful performance by Wayne as an aging, violently driven cattle baron. The following year The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) earned Wayne his first Oscar nomination for his performance as the film’s tough-minded but duty-bound combat leader, a role that from The Flying Tigers (1942) to The Green Berets (1968) was second only to that of the western hero in Wayne’s evolving screen image. John Ford combined Wayne’s military and western personae in three cavalry-Indian films: Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950). The second of these was distinguished by Wayne’s moving performance as the elderly Captain Nathan Brittles. For Rio Grande Ford paired Wayne with Maureen O’Hara, thereafter the star’s most frequent leading lady. Wayne’s romancing of O’Hara was the centerpiece of Ford’s The Quiet Man (1952), an Irish battle-of-the-sexes romp and an engaging departure from Wayne’s usual action fare. But it was in his next western for Ford, The Searchers (1956), that Wayne delivered what is commonly regarded as the finest performance of his career as the alienated, Indian-hating Ethan Edwards. A 1982 survey of international critics by Sight and Sound ranked The Searchers among the ten greatest films of all time.

Wayne’s growing credibility as a screen actor coincided with his skyrocketing popularity. In 1949 he broke into the exhibitors’ annual list of the nation’s top ten box-office stars, where he remained for all but one of a record-breaking twenty-six consecutive years (ranking number one in four of those years). Sheer star appeal was usually enough to help ensure the success of Wayne’s worst films, as evidenced by his widely ridiculed Genghis Khan epic, The Conqueror, having grossed nearly as much as The Searchers in 1956. Wayne’s marketability also provided him considerable leverage in script approval and related matters affecting the kinds of roles he played. Beginning with Angel and the Badman (1946), Wayne was among the first of his generation of film stars to produce many of his own films, and with the formation of Wayne-Fellows and then Batjak Productions, he produced other films as well. His own productions seldom approached the quality of his best works as an actor, and some were given to excessive displays of his political conservatism, as in the anticommunist Big Jim McClain (1952) and equally didactic The Alamo (1960). Wayne invested heavily and debuted as director (with some assistance from John Ford) for The Alamo; but initial box-office returns proved disappointing, and despite promotion efforts for Oscar recognition, only the film’s soundtrack was awarded.

Wayne quickly rebounded with a steady succession of profitable films, beginning with the rambunctious comedy-adventure North to Alaska (1960) and including his last classic western for Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962). Several epics of the early 1960s featured him as part of an all-star cast in bit roles. Although the western ceased to dominate Hollywood’s output as it had in the 1950s, it became more than ever Wayne’s stock in trade. Increasingly he played characters commensurate with his own advancing years and reinforcing his self-image of a traditionalist frequently at odds with modern trends. While Wayne remained at his best when directed by veterans such as Ford, Hawks, and Henry Hathaway, his own Batjak productions from McLintock (1963) to Cahill, United States Marshal (1973) represented the clearest expressions of his conservative defense of rugged individualism, personal and family loyalty, and other values he associated with America’s frontier heritage. Politically outspoken off screen, Wayne had actively embraced the attack on Hollywood leftists during the McCarthy period and thereafter generally supported Republican policies and candidates; partisanship did not, however, preclude his invitational attendance at Jimmy Carter’s preinaugural gala or supporting President Carter’s Panama Canal treaty. The Green Berets (1968), which Wayne produced and directed as well as starred in, vividly expressed his support of the Vietnam War at a time when other filmmakers refused to broach the issue. Reviewers typically attacked Wayne’s hawkish bias, but the film was the tenth largest moneymaker in 1968.

Political differences mattered little the next year when audiences and critics alike warmed to Wayne’s Oscar-winning performance as the cantankerous one-eyed marshal, Rooster Cogburn, in True Grit (1969). Of Wayne’s remaining dozen screen appearances, mostly formulaic westerns and two ill-received attempts at the currently popular crime genre (McQ [1974] and Brannigan [1975]), only his last film, The Shootist (1976), generated much favorable notice. This elegiac western about a gunfighter dying of cancer was a grim reminder of Wayne’s real-life battle with the disease that he had apparently won in the mid-1960s but would soon be fighting again. Two years after making The Shootist Wayne underwent open-heart surgery and in early 1979 was operated on for stomach cancer. Shortly after an appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony in April to present the Oscar for best picture, Wayne succumbed to what he had termed «the Big C.» He died at the UCLA Medical Center.

«In an age of few heroes,» President Jimmy Carter eulogized on Wayne’s death, «he was the genuine article.» Two weeks earlier, Wayne was awarded a congressional gold medal–with the inscription «John Wayne, American.» These and similarly worded tributes speak to Wayne’s iconic importance as a celebrity whose public life had become inseparable from the heroic screen image he had cultivated in a career that spanned five decades. Ideological hostility had dissipated somewhat since the mid-1970s, and in his many interviews and public appearances Wayne appeared less strident and more good natured, if still unwavering and forthright, in voicing his traditionalist beliefs. Short of according him the status of a great actor, colleagues commonly attested to his professionalism and film critics/scholars increasingly credited the emotive power of his unique screen presence as indispensable to the artistic merits of his best films.

 

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