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justforbooks · 3 months ago

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Dame Maggie Smith

A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter

Not many actors have made their names in revue, given definitive performances in Shakespeare and Ibsen, won two Oscars and countless theatre awards, and remained a certified box-office star for more than 60 years. But then few have been as exceptionally talented as Maggie Smith, who has died aged 89.

She was a performer whose range encompassed the high style of Restoration comedy and the sadder, suburban creations of Alan Bennett. Whatever she played, she did so with an amusing, often corrosive, edge of humour. Her comedy was fuelled by anxiety, and her instinct for the correct gesture was infallible.

The first of her Oscars came for an iconic performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Miss Brodie’s pupils are the “crème de la crème”, and her dictatorial aphorisms – “Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life” – disguise her intent of inculcating enthusiasm in her charges for the men she most admires, Mussolini and Franco.

But Smith’s pre-eminence became truly global with two projects towards the end of her career. She was Professor Minerva McGonagall in the eight films of the Harry Potter franchise (she referred to the role as Miss Brodie in a wizard’s hat) between 2001 and 2011. Between 2010 and 2015, in the six series of Downton Abbey on ITV television (sold to 250 territories around the world), she played the formidable and acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lady Violet, a woman whose heart of seeming stone was mitigated by a moral humanity and an old-fashioned, if sometimes overzealous, sense of social propriety.

Early on, one critic described Smith as having witty elbows. Another, the US director and writer Harold Clurman, said that she ��thinks funny”. When Robin Phillips directed her as Rosalind in As You Like It in 1977 in Stratford, Ontario, he said that “she can respond to something that perhaps only squirrels would sense in the air. And I think that comedy, travelling around in the atmosphere, finds her.” Like Edith Evans, her great predecessor as a stylist, Smith came late to Rosalind. Bernard Levin was convinced that it was a definitive performance, and was deeply affected by the last speech: “She spoke the epilogue like a chime of golden bells. But what she looked like as she did so, I cannot tell you; for I saw it through eyes curtained with tears of joy.”

She was more taut and tuned than any other actor of her day, and this reliance on her instinct to create a performance made her reluctant to talk about acting, although she had a forensic attitude to preparation. With no time for the celebrity game, she rarely went on television chat shows – her appearance on Graham Norton’s BBC TV show in 2015 was her first such in 42 years – or gave newspaper interviews.

Her life she summed up thus: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.” That was it. She first went “public”, according to her father, when, attired in pumps and tutu after a ballet lesson, she regaled a small crowd on an Oxford pavement with one of Arthur Askey’s ditties: “I’m a little fairy flower, growing wilder by the hour.”

Unlike her great friend and contemporary Judi Dench, Smith was a transatlantic star early in her career, making her Broadway debut in 1956 and joining Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre as one of the 12 original contract artists in 1963.

In 1969, after repeatedly stealing other people’s movies, with Miss Brodie she became a star in her own right. She was claiming her just place in the elite, for she had already worked with Olivier, Orson Welles and Noël Coward in the theatre, not to mention her great friend and fellow miserabilist Kenneth Williams, in West End revue. She had also created an international stir in two movies, Anthony Asquith’s The VIPs (1963) – she didn’t just steal her big scene with him, Richard Burton complained, “she committed grand larceny” – and Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater (1964), scripted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Penelope Mortimer.

Before Harry Potter, audiences associated Smith most readily with her lovelorn, heartbreaking parishioner Susan in Bed Among the Lentils, one of six television monologues in Bennett’s Talking Heads (1988). Susan was a character seething with sexual anger; the first line nearly said it all – “Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.”

And the funniest moment in Robert Altman’s upstairs/downstairs movie Gosford Park (2001) – in some ways a template for Downton Abbey, and also written by Julian Fellowes — was a mere aside from a doleful Smith as Constance Trentham turning to a neighbour on the sofa, as Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello took a bow for the song he had just sung. “Don’t encourage him,” she warned, archly, “he’s got a very large repertoire.” Such a moment took us right back to the National in 1964 when, as the vamp Myra Arundel in Coward’s Hay Fever, she created an unprecedented (and un-equalled) gale of laughter on the single ejaculation at the breakfast table: “This haddock is disgusting.”

Born in Ilford, Essex, she was the daughter of Margaret (nee Hutton) and Nathaniel Smith, and educated at Oxford high school for girls (the family moved to Oxford at the start of the second world war because of her father’s work as a laboratory technician). Maggie decided to be an actor, joined the Oxford Playhouse school under the tutelage of Frank Shelley in 1951 and took roles in professional and student productions.

She acted as Margaret Smith until 1956, when Equity, the actors’ union, informed her that the name was double-booked. She played Viola with the Oxford University dramatic society in 1952 – John Wood was her undergraduate Malvolio – and appeared in revues directed by Ned Sherrin. “At that time in Oxford,” said Sherrin, “if you wanted a show to be a success, you had to try and get Margaret Smith in it.”

The Sunday Times critic of the day, Harold Hobson, spotted her in a play by Michael Meyer and she was soon working with the directors Peter Hall and Peter Wood. “I didn’t think she would develop the range that she subsequently has,” said Hall, “but I did think she had star quality.”

One of her many admirers at Oxford, the writer Beverley Cross, initiated a long-term campaign to marry Smith that was only fulfilled after the end of her tempestuous 10-year relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, with whom she fell in love at the National and whom she married in 1967. This was a golden decade, as Smith played a beautiful Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello; a clever and impetuous Hilde Wangel to first Michael Redgrave, then Olivier, in Ibsen’s The Master Builder; and an irrepressibly witty and playful Beatrice opposite Stephens as Benedick in Franco Zeffirelli’s Sicilian Much Ado About Nothing, spangled in coloured lights.

Her National “service” was book-ended by two particularly wonderful performances in Restoration comedies by George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (1963) and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1970), both directed by William Gaskill, whom she called “simply the best teacher”. In the first, in the travesty role of Sylvia, her bubbling, playful sexuality shone through a disguise of black cork moustache and thigh-high boots on a clear stage that acquired, said Bamber Gascoigne, an air of sharpened reality, “like life on a winter’s day with frost and sun”.

In the second, her Mrs Sullen, driven frantic by boredom and shrewish by a sodden, elderly husband, was a tight-laced beanpole, graceful, swaying and tender, drawing from Ronald Bryden a splendidly phrased comparison with some Henri Rousseau-style giraffe, peering nervously down her nose with huge, liquid eyes at the smaller creatures around, nibbling off her lines fastidiously in a surprisingly tiny nasal drawl.

With Stephens, she had two sons, Chris and Toby, who both became actors. When the marriage hit the rocks in 1975, after the couple had torn strips off each other to mixed reviews in John Gielgud’s 1973 revival of Coward’s Private Lives, Smith absconded to Canada with Cross – whom she quickly married – and relaunched her career there, far from the London hurly-burly, but with access to Hollywood.

She played not just Rosalind in Stratford, Ontario, but also Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra to critical acclaim, as well as Judith Bliss in Coward’s Hay Fever and Millamant in William Congreve’s The Way of the World (this latter role she repeated triumphantly in Chichester and London in 1984, again directed by Gaskill). But her films at this time especially reinforced her status as a comedian of flair and authority, none more than Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978), in which Smith was happily partnered by Michael Caine, and won her second Oscar in the role of Diana Barrie, an actor on her way to the Oscars (where she loses).

Smith’s comic genius was increasingly refracted through tales of sadness, retreat and isolation, notably in what is very possibly her greatest screen performance, in Clayton’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), based on Brian Moore’s first novel, which charts the disintegration of an alcoholic Catholic spinster at guilty odds with her own sensuality.

This tragic dimension to her comedy, was seen on stage, too, in Edna O’Brien’s Virginia (1980), a haunting portrait of Virginia Woolf; and in Bennett’s The Lady in the Van (1999), in which she was the eccentric tramp Miss Shepherd. Miss Shepherd was a former nun who had driven ambulances during blackouts in the second world war and ended up as a tolerated squatter in the playwright’s front garden. Smith brought something both demonic and celestial to this critical, ungrateful, dun-caked crone and it was impossible to imagine any other actor in the role, which she reprised, developed and explored further in Nicholas Hytner’s delightful 2015 movie based on the play.

She scored two big successes in Edward Albee’s work on the London stage in the 1990s, first in Three Tall Women (1994, the playwright’s return to form), and then in one of his best plays, A Delicate Balance (1997), in which she played alongside Eileen Atkins who, like Dench, could give Smith as good as she got.

The Dench partnership lay fallow after their early years at the Old Vic together, but these two great stars made up for lost time. They appeared together not only on stage, in David Hare’s The Breath of Life (2002), playing the wife and mistress of the same dead man, but also on film, in the Merchant-Ivory A Room With a View (1985), Zeffirelli’s Tea With Mussolini (1999) and as a pair of grey-haired sisters in Charles Dance’s debut film as a director, Ladies in Lavender (2004). Smith referred to this latter film as “The Lavender Bags”. She had a name for everyone. Vanessa Redgrave she dubbed “the Red Snapper”, while Michael Palin, with whom she made two films, was simply “the Saint”.

With Palin, she appeared in Bennett’s A Private Function (1984), directed by Malcolm Mowbray – “Moaner Mowbray” he became – in which an unlicensed pig is slaughtered in a Yorkshire village for the royal wedding celebrations of 1947. Smith was Joyce Chilvers, married to Palin, who carries on snobbishly like a Lady Macbeth of Ilkley, deciding to throw caution to the winds and have a sweet sherry, or informing her husband matter-of-factly that sexual intercourse is in order.

She had also acted with Palin in The Missionary (1982), directed by Richard Loncraine, who was responsible for the film of Ian McKellen’s Richard III (1995, in which she played a memorably rebarbative Duchess of York) and My House in Umbria (2003), a much-underrated film, adapted by Hugh Whitemore from a William Trevor novella. This last brought out the very best in her special line in glamorous whimsy and iron-clad star status under pressure. She played Emily Delahunty, a romantic novelist opening her glorious house in Umbria to her three fellow survivors in a bomb blast on a train to Milan. One of these was played by Ronnie Barker, who had been at architectural college with Smith’s two brothers and had left them to join her at the Oxford Playhouse. Delahunty finds her new metier as an adoptive parent to a little orphaned American girl.

She was Mother Superior in the very popular Sister Act (1992) and its sequel, and her recent films included a “funny turn” as a disruptive housekeeper in Keeping Mum (2005), a vintage portrait of old age revisited by the past in Stephen Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary (on television in 2007) and as a solicitous grandmother of a boy uncovering a ghost story in Fellowes’s From Time to Time (2009).

As this latter film was released she confirmed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone an intensive course of chemotherapy, but had been given the all-clear – only to be struck down by a painful attack of shingles, a typical Maggie Smith example of good news never coming unadulterated with a bit of bad.

Her stage appearance as the title character in Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 2007 was, ironically, about death from cancer. She returned to the stage for the last time in 2019, as Brunhilde Pomsel in Christopher Hampton’s one-woman play A German Life, at the Bridge theatre, London.

Cross, who was a real rock, and helped protect her from the outside world, died in 1998. But Smith picked herself up, and went on to perform as sensationally and beguilingly as she had done all her life, including memorable appearances in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films (2011 and 2015) and two Downton Abbey movie spin-offs (2019 and 2022). Her final film role was in The Miracle Club (2023), co-starring Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.

She had been made CBE in 1970 and a dame in 1990, and in 2014 she was made a Companion of Honour. Her pleasure would have been laced with mild incredulity. A world without Smith recoiling from it in mock horror, and real distaste, will never seem the same again.

She is survived by Chris and Toby, and by five grandchildren.

🔔 Maggie Smith (Margaret Natalie Smith), actor, born 28 December 1934; died 27 September 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Maggie Smith #in memoriam

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shakespearenews · 2 months ago

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Smith went on to appear at the National opposite her future first husband, Robert Stephens, father to her two actor sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, in an acclaimed and unconventional 1967 Franco Zefferelli production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, with a script updated by the poet and author Robert Graves.

The Observer was delighted: “Not for years has the human substance of Shakespeare been [reflected] like this.” The public agreed. After a month in repertory, the production was reportedly still selling out right back to the standing room behind the stalls.

#shakespeare #william shakespeare #maggie smith #much ado #much ado about nothing #robert graves

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sturnioz · 16 days ago

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haiiiiii so i was thinking about what the girls' letterbox top 4 would be and decided to write it down in my notes app but i really got into it and somehow ended up with a whole ass essay about it so here it is😞 kinda nervy bc I'm scared you'll disagree but😞

bun:

tuck everlasting, buffalo 66, sabrina, fantastic mr. fox

she's not a big film nerd bc she prefers books so her favorite actress would be emma watson bc she was a harry potter kid so she just loves her for a long time now, same goes w her fav movies, it's mainly just her childhood faves!! doesn't really have a favorite genre but cannot stand horror

kitty:

heathers, the craft, lisa frankenstein, gia

she's also a BIG sofia coppola & twilight girl though and literally made her whole personality about wanting to be a vampire at the age of like 14 bc she's team edward. probably adores brittany murphy (that might be biased bc i love brittany myrphy..😞). doesn't really have a fav genre either, just loves "weird girl cinema". mainly watches 80s/90s movies and cries about missing heath ledger at least once a month

bee:

how to lose a guy in 10 days, the notebook, uptown girls, la la land

her top 4 would be pretty basic as u see but she's suchhh a film nerd and logs like 150 movies per year. loves rom coms, and generally movies from the 2000s. she forced nate to watch la la land & the notebook with her and he acted so tough and swore he wouldn't cry but the big softie he is he was actually sobbing by the end of the movie 🦧 literally stole her whole personality from molly gunn (the mc in uptown girls)

cherry:

mean girls (let me be basic), jennifer's body, marie antoinette, the bling ring

she says she's never watched the godfather so men can get heated and explain it to her bc that makes her laugh (she thinks mansplaining is the funniest thing ever). she's also a sofia coppola girlie and when kitty found out she was absolutely furious bc well, we all know how she feels abt cherry and also my girl kitty is a BIG gatekeeper so that made her rage even more. loves problematic men i fear 😬 probably had a "i ❤️ james franco" pfp at some point... ew

-🍂

this is so interesting !!!! like this is so cool .. also accurate me thinks. (i would like to add 'ginger snaps' to kittys letterboxd too cos !!! good film)

#ᯓ꒰asks꒱#ᯓ꒰🍂anon꒱#☆ shy!reader #☆ confident!reader

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hopefulsidney · 1 year ago

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Some people believe that AFO could be Deku’s father, while some others believe Monoma could be AFO’s son, or related to him in some way. But, ever considered that both Deku and Monoma could be AFO sons?

With the end of the series rapidly approaching, and the amount of evidence that has been gathered, it's very likely that the DFO theory could be true and that AFO could very possibly be Deku’s father. But there’s another character that could very possibly be related to AFO; Monoma. As characters have developed and with the discovery of quirk marriages, it is very likely that AFO would have multiple children, very much in the same idea of Endeavor and having the “perfect” child. This could be backed up by the fact that there’s a possibility he could have experimented on them due to the knowledge of his work with Dr. Garaki. These ideas make it a possibility that Monoma and Deku could both be children of AFO, in turn making them half-brothers.

Monoma & AFO

Parallels/Similarities

Quirks - Monoma’s and AFO’s quirks are almost exactly the same, and some people see Copy as a weaker and inferior version of AFO since there’s a time limit and an inability to use two quirks at once. Plus they’re two of the three quirk-based quirks.

Monomania - They both have a singular obsession, Monoma’s being Class A and AFO’s being OFA and becoming Demon King.

Poses - AFO and Monoma do very similar poses, and have one of them for their pop figures.

Comics - AFO has said that he’s influenced by comics (Chapter 364) and Monoma has Franco-Belgian comics listed as his likes in his Shifuku. If he was his son and/or groomed by AFO, he could’ve had Monoma read the comics that he and his brother read in their youth to influence him to help with his plan to become “Demon King,” then resulting in him having his hobby in reading Franco-Belgian comics.

Similar appearances/features with AFO and Yoichi

Monoma and Yoichi have similar features, some being similar hair and eye shapes, and they both have white pupils. In my opinion, if someone drew Monoma or with longer hair I don’t think anyone would be able to tell the difference. And it’s not uncommon for a parent's child to take after their siblings instead of themselves due to the complexity of genetics.

I also noticed that Young AFO looks like a slightly older Monoma. They have similar eye and head shapes, other than AFO having a more defined chin, which makes sense as facial features tend to sharpen with age. As of recent chapters, as AFO continues to de-ages with the effects of rewind, he gains a similar appearance to Monoma as seen in these panels.

Monoma’s Birthplace

This could be a coincidence, but The League of Villain’s old bar base and Nomu warehouse was located in Kamino Ward, Yokohama City. This is located in Kanagawa prefecture, which happens to be where Monoma was born. (Ultra Analysis).

Horikoshi Loves Making Star Wars References

In Class B’s Sports Festival play, ‘Romeo and Juliet and the Return of the Prisoner King of Azkaban,’ Monoma reenacts the “I am your father” scene from Empire Strikes Back with him portraying Romeo, who’s an amalgamation of the characters Romeo, Luke Skywalker, Frodo and Harry Potter. Tetsutetsu could be a representation of AFO, as both Kamino Ward and Final Arc AFO and Tetsutetsu's play character are based on Darth Vader, like AFO. Monoma, being in the role of Luke, could be a foreshadowing element of his connection to AFO. Additionally, this is the only scene of the play we see illustrated/animated which potentially highlights its importance to the overall story.

On top of that, Mirio and Eri referred to him as the “dark side of U.A.'' which can be a reference to the dark side that the Sith practiced and was associated with in Star Wars, that could anticipate a connection with AFO.

———————————

Now, it is possible that Deku being AFO’s son could be a red herring. However, with all of the evidence supporting the 'AFO is Deku’s father' theory, I find this doubtful. This also brings attention to all the evidence supporting the 'Monoma could be AFO's son' theory. I am surprised that I have never heard anyone talk about a possible relation, and with all of this in mind I believe there is some likely evidence that could point to Deku and Monoma being half-brothers.

Horikoshi loves making Star Wars references pt 2

When the original DFO theory became popular people would say Deku, All Might, Gran Torino and AFO would fit into the role of Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan, Yoda and Darth Vader. However, we’re missing out on who would fit into the role of Leia. Most people would answer with Shigaraki but it wouldn’t make sense for Shigraki, the main villain, to be Leia since Luke and Leia were always allies. So if Deku and Monoma were, in fact, half-siblings, this would mean that the role of Leia would fit Monoma more than it would Shigaraki.

Mirror AFO and Yoichi

The Deku and Monoma quirk dynamic shares a similarity to the Shigaraki brothers, Yoichi and AFO. Monoma and Yoichi share similar features/appearances, like them sharing the trait of white eyes. However, Monoma has a similar power to AFO and also shares similar personality traits with AFO, like having a singular obsession over one thing. Deku, on the other hand, shares similar features with AFO, most notably his curly hair and people have said his silhouette could look like an adult Deku. Even so, Deku is the one that possesses the power of OFA and shares personality traits with Yoichi like their similar strong sense of justice.

Battle Intellect

AFO is shown on multiple occasions to have a genius intellect. Deku and Monoma have both proven that they have a high intelligence and skill when it comes to strategizing and analyzing in battle. They could have inherited their intelligence from AFO if he was their father.

Ability to hold multiple quirks naturally

AFO, Deku and Monoma are the only 3 characters who have quirk-based quirks, meaning that their base level quirks only work when coming into contact with another quirk. They are the only ones who can naturally hold multiple quirks without body modifications or suffer any repercussions, i.e. becoming incapacitated, having cracks form on their body, having their lifespan shortened, etc.

Class counterparts

Speaking of parallels, Monoma and Deku are very similar to each other to the point they can be called each other's counterparts for class A and B. Both characters share similar backgrounds, being told they can’t live up to being a hero because of their quirk status. Both are the biggest influences to their classmates, despite not being the official leaders or representatives. Their quirks are direct counterparts as well; Deku’s quirk can be given to others and Monoma’s “takes” quirks from others. They’re also, coincidentally, both placed in seat 18 of their respective classrooms.

However, I believe Deku isn’t the only counterpart Monoma could have. It’s been shown multiple times that Aoyoma and Monoma counterpart each other as well. Their personalities are very similar; both are fond of posing dramatically, frequently attempt to grab the attention of their classmates, despite frequently being ignored or brushed off, and are highly insecure of themselves and their quirks and try to hide it by acting eccentric and flamboyant. Additionally, both characters have a habit of breaking the 4th wall in their own respective ways, both shown to be very observant, hinted to come from French descent, and are highly insecure of themselves and their quirks and try to hide it by acting eccentric and flamboyant.

These character traits that all three characters have could indicate all of them having a connection with AFO, especially since two characters already have a canon connection.

#monoma neito #neito monoma #my hero academia #mha theory #mha monoma #mha deku #bnha monoma #bnha theory #boku no hero academia #all for one #izuku midoriya #midoriya izuku #deku #afo

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cloutchaserkineme · 9 days ago

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yeah i doubt it

11:07 p.m. on my table still but in a happier state than before

I came on here because I just redownloaded all of my socials after deleting the apps to focus on work and real life situations (which always get a little hectic around the holidays), so I only just now saw Franco Colapinto's video where he states that he is a Sagittarius rising, and in the same breath says he is a Pisces descendant.

Which is, you know. Wrong. Pisces is the IC, Gemini is the DSC point if you have a Sagittarius ASC no matter what house system you use because the angles are angled in such a way that they are roughly around 90-180 deg away from each other.

Buuuut Astrotheme, one of my beloved astrology sites, has recently update 43's chart rating as A, as collected by Sy Scholfield. He is listed as Sagittarius rising through memory- which I'm assuming is also based on that video where he says it to a fan, as it was calculated in the second decan of Sagittarius at 16 degrees- the literal middle of the whole 30 degrees of the sign.

As much as I love Astrotheme (it's got a good database despite being free software, much like astro-seek and astro.com), I don't think it should be rated A even if it did come straight from the horse's mouth. It is completely plausible that he- by virtue of being early 2000s Gen Z as well as being a native Spanish speaker*- would remember his Rising sign better than his Descendant sign (which is generally only calculated or mentioned, really, when in terms of partners/girlfriends/boyfriends of relationship astrology, because usually guys his age mostly know about astrology because of girls his age), but he could have had someone really give him a reading and detailing his chart, and him being confused in the moment about which term was used in which.

In whichever case, according to Franco himself, he would still be a mutable Ascendant point, either a Virgo or Sagittarius rising, and his Gemini Sun would be angular, either in 7H of partners/contracts or 10H of career/public image.

While I think there is still every chance that he has Virgo rising- he doesn't look like it. He is too chill to be one- as Virgo is ruled by Mercury (the mind), and they are flighty and nervous and tend to have obsessive worries and whatnot. He just looks like a chill guy.

To be fair, he doesn't look much like a Sagittarius rising either. His Taurus placements shine through so much (6H in Sagittarius, 9H in Virgo) with those sleepy eyes, more prominent neck when compared to other racers, and a softness to his face that is usually not present when someone has Pluto in Sagittarius on the 1H of the self.

He is also young. He has yet to grow into his face. It will change, the same way that Charles Leclerc's [Libra Sun-Scorpio ASC] face went from baby Harry Potter to Monegasque fanon Tony Stark after puberty, or Max Verstappen's [Sagittarius Rising-with Mars in 1H] face looking less swollen, red-faced and puffy as he grows older**, or Esteban Ocon [night chart, Leo rising with Mars and Venus in 1H] and Lewis Hamilton [possible day chart, possible Pisces rising with Venus and Mars in 1H] having the sharpness (Mars) of their faces be smoothed out with fat (Venus, to a lesser degree than Jupiter) as Venus matures after 25 years of age so they look more oval than arrow-like.

It doesn't matter though- as long as he's not on the grid for the 2025 season, there wouldn't be a need to read the astroweather for him, as I don't watch F2.

(30) 11:50 p.m.

*I will always assume that any native Spanish speaker outside of the Philippines and Spain casually knows at least their Sun, Moon, and Rising because of famous Puerto Rican astrologer Walter Mercado and the popularity of his readings. The Philippines, while superstitious, generally practice a lot more folk Catholicism, Chinese astrology, and Feng Shui owing to their neighbors, and I don't know much about Spain's occult situation.

**Mars in a person's chart matures after 28 years. Since it is a racing planet, expect for him to face some challenges next year, since he is a day chart and Mars is the malefic out-of-sect. Ocon's night chart (but sad Solarian placement) would be good to compare with his as he is also a fellow 1H Mars who has already turned 28 in 2024.

#f1 #astrology #franco colapinto

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kevrocksicehouse · 3 months ago

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Maggie Smith

1934-2024

When Maggie Smith won her Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie playing a middle-aged eccentric teacher (with fascist sympathies) at a girls boarding school, nobody could have guessed she was just getting started. A renowned stage actress who had only dabbled in film, for the next fifty years she would have an unparalleled screen career playing roles both elevated (the Dutchess of York in 1995’s Richard III) and bawdy (a sex-starved aristocrat in 1982’s The Missionary) always with a tinge of irony. She won another Oscar playing an Oscar-losing actress in the Neil Simon written California Suite. She was also nominated for her Desdemona to Laurence Olivier’s Othello (1965); as an adventuress teaching/corrupting her nephew in George Cukor’s Travels with My Aunt (1972); playing a “poor relation” in James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1986) and as a Dowager Countess in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park.

Over her career you could sometimes see her roles talking to each other. The delusional dictator-loving Lady Hester Random in Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea with Mussolini (1999) could have been Jean Brodie’s Aunt. She followed up her comic turn as a spinster aunt in Room with a View with The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), playing roughly the same role, but with a desperation turning into despair that revealed an adeptness with tragedy. And her role in Gosford Park (written by Julien Fellowes) was clearly a dry run at the Dowager Countess Violet Crawley in Fellowes’s Downton Abbey which, along with her portrayal of Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series (Her creation of an army of stone knights to protect Hogwarts had an almost dreadful majesty) gave her an audience bigger than any she’d had before. After Ten Potters and Downton’s six-seasons-and-two-movies, while pushing seventy and then eighty she achieved something like superstardom. And in the first movie Fellowes gave her a short goodbye speech that I have never forgotten and is worth all the eulogies she will receive (present company much included). “No, no…save your tears for something sad. There’s nothing sad here. I have lived a privileged and interesting life and now it’s time to go.” RIP.

#maggie smith #in memoriam #kevrock #RIP

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archxngxl · 6 months ago

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Rules

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BASICS

This is a highly selective blog! I reserve the right to not respond to starters, asks, or messages! Please do not take offence to this, as that is not my intention. I'm just trying to keep a clean, drama free dash.

I do not write on Discord!

Due to countless weird messages, my chats are disabled. This does not mean we cannot plot in DMs, but due to previous mention weird messages, I will put this barrier up. After some writing together, I may reach out in messages! You may reach out to me through asks, but the anon feature will remain off.

I will not write with muses or muns under 21.

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THREADS

I reserve the right to not reply to starters & memes!

Thread cap: 5

I drop threads after 2 months of no activity.

I don't mind smut, and I do write it but this is not a smut heavy blog. I reserve the right to fade to black, or refuse to write a scene. Plotting and character development is also prioritized, and smut can happen so long as it's plotted and makes sense within the plot.

Communication is key. Feel free to express any opinions you have, any changes you want to do, plotting etc.

SHIPS & MUSES & PLOTTING

My muses' sexualities will not be changed.

I write fxf, fxm, fxnb, nbxnb etc. However, I am selective with MxM ships and will not write smut for them.

I love plotting, and I would like that my writing partner pulls their weight within the plot.

Don't use me for my males.

Age Gaps are fine with me, so long as both muses are +25.

ON DARK THEMES

This is a +18 / +21 blog. Mature and Dark themes will be present.

I am a fan of psychological thrillers, murder mystery stories and slashers, so plots in that similar vein intrigue me. My muses have a variety of dark themes in their bios, some are also just dark muses (like my cult muses). I am willing to explore toxic relationships, dark situations, in threads as long as none of the triggers mentioned in the list below are not committed.

TRIGGERS / I WILL NOT WRITE : Rape, Incest / Stepcest, Extreme Gore, Huge Age Gaps, Extreme Descriptions of Abuse

FORMATTING

I'm not really picky on formatting but here are the main things:

Cut your posts.

I am a multi paragraph / novella writer, so I tend to gravitate towards people who do the same. But it's understandable if someone is tired, or just doesn't feel like writing too much.

I am completely fine with going icon less.

No large gifs or gifs from the gif finder.

All long as it's legible, we're good.

BANNED FC'S & FANDOMS

If I am using a Fc that is problematic / a shit human being, please let me know so I can change it!

Anyone who has asked to not be used.

Those who have passed away.

Animated FC's (anime, cartoons etc)

Certain book characters

Johnny Depp , Amber Header , Gal Gadot , Franco Brothers , Chris Pratt , Josh Brolin , John Ham , Percy Hynes White , Camilla Morrone , Armie Hammer , Matthew Daddario , Dominick Sherwood , Jared Leto Ian Somerhalder , Kardashian/Jenners , Ben Affleck , Olivia Wilde , Sabrina Carpenter , Aubrey Plaza Nathaniel Buzolic , Youtubers/Tiktokers/Influencers , Kj Apa , Sprouse Twins , Reality TV show stars , One direction members , Phoebe Tonkin , Claire Holt, Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerholder, Most singers and bands, twitch streamers

Fandoms - These are banned for either having a problematic author, I have not read the material, or had bad experiences with in the past:

ACOTAR, Fourth Wing, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Disney

#mun speaks: ooc

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skiasurveys · 1 year ago

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survey #idk

I have Traveled To:

More than three states in the US

Mexico

Canada (tech i live here)

A place that starts with the letter L

Austria

An island

A big city

Anywhere in Africa

Japan

A place where English is not the main language

Anywhere in the southern hemisphere

India

Netherlands

I Have Read:

Any of the Bible

At least two Harry Potter books

The entire Twilight series

Catch-22

Animal Farm

A Dr. Seuss book

Instructions to a piece of Ikea information

A warning label that made me laugh

A biography/autobiography

Dante’s Inferno

A Chuck Palahniuk book

A newspaper in the last week

Something that made me cry

I Like to Eat:

Spam

Mexican food

Brussell sprouts

Onions

Watermelon

Vegan food

Bacon

Chocolate

New things

Escargot

Hummus

Haggis

Indian food

Home cooking

Fast food

My Favorite Actors Include:

Mark Wahlberg

Morgan Freeman

James Franco

Leonardo DiCaprio

Robert DeNiro

Samuel L. Jackson

Chris Hemsworth

Elijah Wood

Johnny Depp

Steve Buscemi

Robin Williams

Jack Black

Channing Tatum

I Have Listened to These Bands:

Taylor Swift

AC/DC

Jay-Z

Frank Sinatra

Pink Floyd

Fall Out Boy

Incubus

No Doubt

The White Stripes

Skrillex

Tenacious D

Metallica

Britney Spears

Ke$ha

The Beatles

I Have/Had These Pets:

Dog

Cat

Horse

Bird

Hamster

Lizard

Snake

Guinea Pig

Goat

Fish

Mouse

Spider

Pig

Hedgehog

Ferret

I Have Seen These Movies:

Fifth Element

Gone With the Wind

Nightmare Before Christmas

High School Musical

Kickin’ It Old School

Casablanca

Predator

White Men Can’t Jump

AVATAR

12 Years A Slave

Saving Private Ryan

MASH

Mamma Mia!

Dark Shadows

Riding In Cars With Boys

If I Could Have A Super Power, I Would Choose:

Mind control

Mind reading

Teleportation

Flying

Bullet-proof

Speed

Super-strength

Invisibility

All-Knowing

X-Ray vision

Freeze-touch

Time traveling

Invulnerability

Telekenisis

I Am Scared of:

Clowns

Heights

Spiders

Open spaces

Small spaces

Vacuums

Snakes

Needles

Strangers

Michael Myers

Bugs

Tiny holes

Highways

Germs

Police

My Favorite Color Is:

Red

Yellow

Orange

Green

Blue

Purple

Gray

Black

Brown

White

Pink

I Am Currently Wearing:

A t-shirt

A hoodie

Capris

Shoes

A bra

Make-up

Perfume

Deodorant

Hat

Something with a superhero/symbol on it

Nail polish

Scarf

Pajamas

Boxers

Sweatpants

I Would Describe My Best Friend As:

Bossy

Intelligent

Promiscuous

Funny

Whiny

Honest

Reliable

Loyal

Lazy

Adventurous

Unique

Complicated

Open-minded

Well-read

In the Last 24 Hours, I Have:

Read

Drank alcohol

Had sex

Eaten meat

Danced in public

Went swimming

Changed my clothes more than once

Said something mean

Cleaned

Spent money on something pointless

Sang aloud

Met someone new

Played a game of some sort

Things In the Room With Me Now Are:

A TV

Another person

Something that belongs to a child

A pet

Food

Bed

Art

Clock not connected to a phone/computer

A mirror

Medicine

Books

Drugs or alcohol

The Last Person I Texted Is:

My significant other

Someone who sucks at spelling

A different race than me

A relative

Someone I don’t really like

Someone I went to high school with

My best friend

A person I work with

At home

In the room with me

Knows more than one language

Is female

Is under the age of 21

Someone I live with

I Am For:

Abortion

Death penalty

Amnesty

Gun control

Gay marriage

Prayer in school

War in the middle east

Marijuana legalization

Banning cigarettes in public places

Higher taxes

Higher minimum wage

Standardized testing

Lowering the legal age for drinking

I Have Committed These Crimes:

Jaywalking

Smoking weed

Shooting heroin

Shoplifting

Breaking & entering

Public intoxication

Hit & Run

Speeding

Opening someone else’s mail without their permission

Burglary

Vehicular manslaughter

Lying under oath

Truancy

I Took These Classes In High School/College:

Home Ec

Physics

Photography

Criminal Justice

Journalism

Debate

Creative Writing

Art

Music Theory

Philosophy

French

Theater

Choir

Psychology

What I Watch On TV:

Reality shows about celebrities

Game shows

News

Reruns of classic shows

Award shows

Modern Family

Doctor Who

Scandal

Infomercials

HSN

MTV

Singing competitions

Cooking shows

Traveling shows

#surveys

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airasilver · 2 days ago

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Moments before Franco Harris made the most improbable play in NFL history, maybe in pro sports history, his mom sensed something was wrong, even from nearly 300 miles away.

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 1972 season was on the brink, and Harris, their star rookie running back, knew he was probably lining up for his final play that year. In an AFC divisional playoff game Dec. 23 — only the franchise's second postseason game — the Steelers trailed the Oakland Raiders 7-6 with 22 seconds left and faced fourth and 10 at Pittsburgh's 40-yard line.

At home in Jersey, my brothers and sisters and my dad are watching the game,” Harris — whose death at age 72 was announced by his son Wednesday — said in an interview with The Times last month. “My mom, being from Italy, didn’t know much about football, so she’s in the kitchen drinking coffee. She could feel that something wasn’t right, though, so she went and got her Italian album out and put it on.

“My brothers and sisters swear that when the Immaculate Reception happened, ‘Ave Maria’ was playing.”

The play the Steelers ran 50 years ago Friday, 66 Circle Option, turned out to be a “Hail Mary” indeed.

Their third-year quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, faced heavy pressure from the Raiders' defense. He was able to fire the ball to Oakland's 35-yard line — he has said that he saw a black Steelers jersey and simply threw to it — and a violent collision occurred between fearsome Oakland safety Jack Tatum and Pittsburgh running back John “Frenchy” Fuqua.

Diagram shows how ball deflected off Raider Jack Tatum (31) or Steeler

Still debated today, this diagram shows how the ball deflected off either Oakland's Jack Tatum (31) or Pittsburgh's "Frenchy" Fuqua (33) before Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception." The Raiders' Phil Villapiano (41) and Harris can be seen to the right trailing the action. (Pro Football Hall of Fame via Associated Press)More

“What I should have done was grab Franco and pull him in tight, so it looked to the ref like he was blocking me,” Villapiano said. “But instead I see the ball bounce up in the air and then the next thing I know, Franco is running down the field. I thought to myself, ‘What the hell is he doing that for?’ ”

Harris also had run toward the ball, which he grabbed just before it hit the turf. Without breaking stride, he headed for the Steelers' sideline, the left side of the field.

When Bradshaw threw the ball, my first thought was to go toward the ball, because you never know what’s going to happen,” Harris said. “So I started to go to the ball and the next thing I remember was stiff-arming Jimmy Warren along the sideline.

Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris poses in his famous

Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris poses in his famous "Immaculate Reception" catch position during a ceremony commemorating the play. (Keith Srakocic / Associated Press)More

“It blows my mind that I have no visual recollection of catching the ball. That wasn’t an easy ball to catch. It just doesn’t make any sense. How did I track it? How did I keep in stride? You normally don’t catch a ball in that way. If I had dived for it, I would have been ruled down because the rules were different back then.”

In the stadium’s upper deck, 16-year-old Mike Bodura was watching the game with his father, a steelworker. The Steelers were moving away from them, which meant that the football had rocketed back in their direction after Tatum’s punishing hit on Fuqua.

“You saw that collision in the middle of the field, and people around us slumped in their seats because we all figured the pass was incomplete,” said Bodura, a lifelong Pittsburgher. “And then some guy near us yelled, ‘Hey, Franco’s got the ball!’ and we saw him running down the left sideline.”

Harris encountered Warren, the Raiders' veteran cornerback, around the 10-yard line but managed to fend him off and run into the end zone, setting off pandemonium. Harris’ teammates mobbed him, and fans poured out of the stands. Five seconds remained on the game clock.

Art Rooney II, now owner and president of the Steelers, was 20 at the time and worked as an assistant equipment manager for the team that season. The play had unfolded right in front of him.

“There were a lot of people on the field, and one of the things I remember most,” Rooney said, “is that one of our former players from the ’60s, Brady Keys, ran onto the field and gave me a bear hug so hard that I almost passed out.”

Pittsburgh Steelers owner-president Art Rooney II.

Art Rooney II, now owner and president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was 20 years old when he witnessed the "Immaculate Reception" at Three Rivers Stadium. (Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press)More

But should Harris’ touchdown count? At the time, NFL rules stated that an offensive player was ineligible to catch the ball if it had caromed off one of his teammates without a defensive player also touching it. Had the ball bounced off Tatum, or had it struck Fuqua? Or had both touched it?

“I don’t think that any of us players knew the rule about two offensive players touching the ball, but the one guy who did was John Madden,” Villapiano said, referring to the Hall of Fame coach of the Raiders. “He was storming onto the field and trying to tell the officials about it.”

The officials huddled to try to sort out what had happened, as the entire stadium waited for a verdict. “There were no replays on the scoreboard in those days, so you couldn’t see the play again,” Bodura points out.

Eventually someone called the press box and Steelers public relations director Joe Gordon answered.

“There was a phone in the dugout … and our stadium operations manager called me directly and said, ‘[Referee Fred] Swearingen wants to talk to [Art] McNally.’ He was the NFL supervisor of officials, who happened to be at the game,” said Gordon, who handled PR for the Steelers from 1969 to 1998.

“So I handed the phone to McNally and I heard him say, ‘What did you see?’ He listened for a bit and then said, ‘Well, call it then.’ The whole conversation lasted 10 to 15 seconds.”

NFL officials confer on the validity of the

NFL officials confer on the validity of the "Immaculate Reception" as Raiders and Steelers players huddle around them. Oakland coach John Madden is also present (center, back). (Pro Football Hall of Fame via Associated Press)More

“It was getting scary on the field. All it would have taken was for one person to throw a punch and things could have gotten really bad. Those Steelers fans were crazy.”

Phil Villapiano, former Raiders linebacker, on the field conditions after the "Immaculate Reception"

When the touchdown was confirmed, bedlam resumed. The Steelers kicked the extra point to make the final score 13-7, then fought their way through ecstatic fans to their locker room. The Raiders were left angry, confused and bitterly disappointed.

Villapiano, who remains firm in his belief that the football struck only Fuqua and that Harris’ touchdown should not have counted, chalks up the officials’ ruling to home-field advantage.

“That’s just the way it is,” Villapiano said. “It was getting scary on the field. All it would have taken was for one person to throw a punch and things could have gotten really bad. Those Steelers fans were crazy. I think they were just as bad as the fans in Philadelphia.”

Former Oakland Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano (left) and with former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris.

Former Oakland Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano, left, doesn't agree with the "Immaculate Reception" ruling in 1972 but has come to peace with the catch by Franco Harris, right. (D. Ross Cameron / Associated Press)More

In another odd twist that day, Rooney’s grandfather, Art Sr., the Steelers’ founder and then-owner, didn’t get to see the play that gave his team its first playoff victory after 40 years of futility.

NFL Winners and Losers

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Bronny James called up

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LA Times

The 'Immaculate Reception' remains a defining moment for Pittsburgh 50 years later

Dave Bennett

Wed, Dec 21, 2022·13 min read

FILE

The Steelers' Franco Harris eludes the Raiders' Jimmy Warren as he runs for a touchdown after catching a deflected pass — the "Immaculate Reception" — during an AFC divisional playoff game in 1972. (Harry Cabluck / Associated Press)More

Moments before Franco Harris made the most improbable play in NFL history, maybe in pro sports history, his mom sensed something was wrong, even from nearly 300 miles away.

“At home in Jersey, my brothers and sisters and my dad are watching the game,” Harris — whose death at age 72 was announced by his son Wednesday — said in an interview with The Times last month. “My mom, being from Italy, didn’t know much about football, so she’s in the kitchen drinking coffee. She could feel that something wasn’t right, though, so she went and got her Italian album out and put it on.

“My brothers and sisters swear that when the Immaculate Reception happened, ‘Ave Maria’ was playing.”

The play the Steelers ran 50 years ago Friday, 66 Circle Option, turned out to be a “Hail Mary” indeed.

As Fuqua crashed to the Three Rivers Stadium artificial turf and some Raiders celebrated, believing the pass was incomplete, the ball ricocheted back toward midfield. Harris was being covered by second-year linebacker Phil Villapiano, a future four-time Pro Bowl selection and a mainstay of the Raiders' defense in the ’70s. Seeing the ball in the air, Villapiano instinctively headed toward it.

Diagram shows how ball deflected off Raider Jack Tatum (31) or Steeler

Harris also had run toward the ball, which he grabbed just before it hit the turf. Without breaking stride, he headed for the Steelers' sideline, the left side of the field.

“When Bradshaw threw the ball, my first thought was to go toward the ball, because you never know what’s going to happen,” Harris said. “So I started to go to the ball and the next thing I remember was stiff-arming Jimmy Warren along the sideline.

Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris poses in his famous

Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris poses in his famous "Immaculate Reception" catch position during a ceremony commemorating the play. (Keith Srakocic / Associated Press)More

Art Rooney II, now owner and president of the Steelers, was 20 at the time and worked as an assistant equipment manager for the team that season. The play had unfolded right in front of him.

Pittsburgh Steelers owner-president Art Rooney II.

Art Rooney II, now owner and president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was 20 years old when he witnessed the "Immaculate Reception" at Three Rivers Stadium. (Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press)More

Eventually someone called the press box and Steelers public relations director Joe Gordon answered.

“So I handed the phone to McNally and I heard him say, ‘What did you see?’ He listened for a bit and then said, ‘Well, call it then.’ The whole conversation lasted 10 to 15 seconds.”

NFL officials confer on the validity of the

“It was getting scary on the field. All it would have taken was for one person to throw a punch and things could have gotten really bad. Those Steelers fans were crazy.”

Phil Villapiano, former Raiders linebacker, on the field conditions after the "Immaculate Reception"

Villapiano, who remains firm in his belief that the football struck only Fuqua and that Harris’ touchdown should not have counted, chalks up the officials’ ruling to home-field advantage.

Former Oakland Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano (left) and with former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris.

Art Rooney Sr. made it a habit to greet the players in the locker room when they came off the field, win or lose, so he was on an elevator when Harris scored. When he stepped off the elevator, he heard the roar of the crowd and asked a security guard what happened, Gordon said. The man replied, “You won!”

After celebrating with his teammates in the locker room, Harris didn’t go out on the town to bask in the victory. The 22-year-old had plans to visit his family for Christmas.

“I actually went to the airport right from the stadium,” Harris said. “I went to grab a sandwich before my flight, and I walked in and the whole Raiders team was sitting there. It was a little awkward.

“I guess they were waiting for their charter, but I felt a chill go through the air. I was the last person they wanted to see. Only one of the players, Mike Siani, who I knew from a college all-star game, came up to say hello. Nobody else said anything to me.”

That evening, Michael Ord, a reveler at a Pittsburgh bar, stood up and offered a toast to what he called the “Feast of the Immaculate Reception.”

His girlfriend at the time, Sharon Levosky, liked the name so much that she called one of the local TV stations and asked to speak to colorful sportscaster Myron Cope, a Pittsburgh institution.

Bishop David Zubik, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Bishop David Zubik, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. (Keith Srakocic / Associated Press)

“As a lifelong Steelers fan, I have always found spiritual meaning in the term ‘Immaculate Reception.’ ”

Bishop David Zubik, on the nickname for the famous catch by Franco Harris in 1972

Cope, who later created the Steelers’ ubiquitous Terrible Towel, was still at Three Rivers Stadium, Gordon said, and Levosky’s call was patched through to him in the Steelers’ equipment room.

Cope loved the name Ord had come up with but wondered whether it might offend religious viewers, Gordon said. He needn’t have worried, apparently.

“As a lifelong Steelers fan, I have always found spiritual meaning in the term ‘Immaculate Reception,’ ” said Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, who was a seminarian visiting his parents for Christmas that day. “The play especially made people aware of a spiritual dimension that exceeded a football game.”

Cope did in fact use “Immaculate Reception” on his newscast, and the rest is history. Football fans have now seen the play countless times, and the NFL Network ranked it No. 1 on its list of the 100 greatest plays in league history. A statue depicting Harris catching the football greets travelers at Pittsburgh International Airport (along with figures of George Washington and pioneering journalist Nellie Bly).

And the play sparks debates to this day about who touched the football, Fuqua or Tatum.

Statues of the Steelers' Franco Harris and George Washington, the first U.S. president, at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Statues of the Steelers' Franco Harris making his famous 1972 "Immaculate Reception" and George Washington, the first president of the United States, at Pittsburgh International Airport. (Paul Spinelli / Associated Press)More

Fuqua, a flashy dresser who wore platform shoes with see-through heels that had tropical fish swimming in them, always has refused to say who touched the ball. Tatum, who died in 2010 and was infamous for his crushing hits on receivers, always maintained that the ball ricocheted off Fuqua and should have been ruled dead when Harris caught it.

“I talked with Jack Tatum about the play a number of times, and his passion about it never dimmed,” said Amy Trask, who was the Raiders’ chief executive from 1997 to 2013. “He was unequivocal in his view of what happened.”

Villapiano says it’s only logical that the football struck Fuqua, not Tatum.

“I saw ‘Tates’ drill Fuqua in the back, so how could the ball have bounced off Jack?” he said.

Although the Steelers lost the AFC championship game the week after the Immaculate Reception to the undefeated Miami Dolphins, 21-17, the victory over the Raiders marked a turning point.

Pittsburgh would go on to win four Super Bowls in six seasons and claim the unofficial title of the NFL team of the ’70s. That gave the city a much-needed lift, Art Rooney II said.

“That game and the success we had after that was something the city could really take pride in,” he said. “It was a tough time here in the ’70s with the steel industry dying, but the Steelers gave people something to hang on to during those tough times.”

The Raiders, for their part, continued to dominate the AFC West and eventually won Super Bowl titles in the 1976, 1980 and 1983 seasons. They faced the Steelers in the postseason five seasons in a row, from 1972 to 1976; in the final three seasons, the winner of their matchup went on to win the Super Bowl.

“For a concentrated period of time, I think that was the most intense rivalry that pro football and sports in general has ever seen,” said author Ed Gruver, who co-wrote a book about the teams’ rivalry, “Hell with the Lid Off.”

Steelers Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris stands on the spot of the

Former Steelers star running back Franco Harris stands next to the marked spot of the "Immaculate Reception." (Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press)

The 50th anniversary of the Immaculate Reception will be a big deal in Pittsburgh. Among the scheduled events is a ceremony Friday at the exact spot where Harris caught the ball in long-demolished Three Rivers Stadium (a marker there commemorates the play). On Christmas Eve, the Steelers will host the Raiders, who now play in Las Vegas, with Harris’ jersey No. 32 being retired at halftime.

Harris, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990 and rushed for more than 12,000 yards during his career, would chuckle sometimes when watching himself catch the football in replays from that day in 1972.

“I wasn’t running very fast,” he said, “but I guess it was the right speed at the right time. And in the right place.”

Although Villapiano’s team lost the game and he believes the officials made the wrong decision, he doesn’t tire of talking about the play.

“It’s one of the craziest things, and nobody knows the answers,” he said. “That’s why people are still so interested in it and why it keeps getting more and more immaculate.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The videos:

#pittsburgh steelers #steelers #football #videos #history #sports

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ulkaralakbarova · 2 months ago

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The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Gail Harris: Michelle Williams Jean Paul Getty: Christopher Plummer Fletcher Chase: Mark Wahlberg Cinquanta: Romain Duris Oswald Hinge: Timothy Hutton John Paul Getty III: Charlie Plummer John Paul Getty III (Age 7): Charlie Shotwell John Paul Getty II: Andrew Buchan Saverio Mammoliti: Marco Leonardi Giovanni Iacovoni: Giuseppe Bonifati Il Tamia ‘Chipmunk’: Nicolas Vaporidis Corvo: Andrea Piedimonte Bodini Piccolino: Guglielmo Favilla Maria: Adele Tirante Nancy: Stacy Martin Aileen Getty (Age 6): Maya Kelly Aileen Getty (Age 15): Anna Devlin Mark Getty (Age 4): Kit Cranston Mark Getty (Age 13): Stanley Treshansky Ariadne Getty (Age 2): Ginevra Migliore Ariadne Getty (Age 11): Josie Sayers Millicent: Olivia Grant Annie: Charlotte Beckett Attorney: Roy McCrerey Coroner: Giulio Base Kidnap Van Driver: Nicola Di Chio Prostitue #1: Alessandra Roca Prostitute #2: Francesca Inaudi Rome Hotel Butler: Francesco Bomenuto Arab Sheikh: Ghassan Massoud Bullimore: Clive Wood Conservator: Jonathan Aris BBC Reporter: Oliver Ryan Secretary Getty Oil: Cherise Silvestri Barn Man: Enzo Attanasio Barn Woman: Monica Nappo Villager #1: Gino Nardella Villager #2: Chantal Ughi Carabinieri Captain: Riccardo De Torrebruna Film Crew: Stand In: Lucy Scarfe Unit Production Manager: Francesca Cingolani First Assistant Director: Raymond Kirk First Assistant Director: Roy Bava Second Assistant Director: Edoardo Petti “A” Camera Operator: Daniele Massaccesi First Assistant “A” Camera: Alberto Torrecilla Second Assistant “A” Camera: Riccardo Pau “B” Camera Operator: Marco Sacerdoti First Assistant “B” Camera: Francisco Pintore Second Assistant “B” Camera: Irene Chiappa “C” Camera Operator: Andrea Arnone First Assistant “C” Camera: Emiliano Topai Second Assistant “C” Camera: Esther Venanzi Original Music Composer: Daniel Pemberton Script Supervisor: Annie Penn Gaffer: Francesco Zaccaria Key Grip: Massimiliano Dessena Best Boy Grip: Giorgio Pezzotti Producer: Ridley Scott Producer: Dan Friedkin Production Assistant: Ivan Janakat Producer: Chris Clark Producer: Quentin Curtis Producer: Mark Huffam Producer: Bradley Thomas Producer: Kevin J. Walsh Director of Photography: Dariusz Wolski Editor: Claire Simpson Production Design: Arthur Max Art Direction: Samy Keilani Art Direction: Andrew Munro Supervising Art Director: Cristina Onori Art Direction: Massimo Pauletto Art Direction: Gianpaolo Rifino Set Decoration: Letizia Santucci Costume Design: Janty Yates Makeup Artist: Sleiman Tadros Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Gilbert Lake Supervising Sound Editor: Oliver Tarney Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Mark Taylor Health and Safety: Daniel Rogers Set Decoration: Richard Roberts Casting: Carmen Cuba Co-Producer: Aidan Elliott Co-Producer: Marco Valerio Pugini Co-Producer: Teresa Kelly Book: John Pearson Writer: David Scarpa Stunt Double: Jdanov Andrei Stunt Coordinator: Franco Maria Salamon Foley Artist: Jack Stew Dialogue Editor: Rachael Tate ADR Mixer: Mark DeSimone Makeup Artist: Louise Young Makeup Artist: Laura Lilley Makeup Artist: Raffaella Iorio Makeup Artist: Jana Carboni Prosthetic Makeup Artist: Liz Barlow Casting: Lara Atalla Casting: Teresa Razzauti Casting: Kate Ringsell Movie Reviews:

#1970s #based on novel or book #based on true story #italy #kidnapping #ransom demand #rome #Top Rated Movies #wealth

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brookstonalmanac · 2 months ago

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Events 10.23 (before 1950)

4004 BC – James Ussher's proposed creation date of the world according to the Bible. 42 BC – Liberators' civil war: Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat an army under Brutus in the second part of the Battle of Philippi, with Brutus committing suicide and ending the civil war. 425 – Valentinian III is elevated as Roman emperor at the age of six. 502 – The Synodus Palmaris, called by Gothic king Theoderic, absolves Pope Symmachus of all charges, thus ending the schism of Antipope Laurentius. 1086 – Spanish Reconquista: At the Battle of Sagrajas, the Almoravids defeats the Castilians, but are unable to take advantage of their victory. 1157 – The Battle of Grathe Heath ends the Danish Civil War. 1295 – The first treaty forming the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France against England is signed in Paris. 1641 – Irish Catholic gentry from Ulster attempt to seize control of Dublin Castle, the seat of English rule in Ireland, so as to force concessions. 1642 – The Battle of Edgehill is the first major battle of the English Civil War. 1666 – The most intense tornado on record in English history, an F4 storm on the Fujita scale or T8 on the TORRO scale, strikes the county of Lincolnshire, with winds of more than 213 miles per hour (343 km/h). 1707 – The First Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain convenes. 1798 – The forces of Ali Pasha of Janina defeat the French and capture the town of Preveza in the Battle of Nicopolis. 1812 – General Claude François de Malet begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon, claiming that the Emperor died in the Russian campaign. 1850 – The first National Women's Rights Convention begins in Worcester, Massachusetts. 1856 – Second Opium War: Dissatisfied with imperial commissioner Ye Mingchen’s reparations for the alleged slighting of a British-owned vessel and at Consul Harry Parkes’s urging, British Rear-Admiral Michael Seymour launches an assault on the Barrier Forts outside Canton in the first military engagement of the Second Opium War. 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Westport is the last significant engagement west of the Mississippi River, ending in a Union victory. 1868 – Meiji Restoration: Having taken the shogunate’s seat of power at Edo and declared it his new capital as Tokyo, Mutsuhito proclaims the start of the new Meiji era. 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe. 1911 – The Italo-Turkish War sees the first use of an airplane in combat when an Italian pilot makes a reconnaissance flight. 1912 – First Balkan War: The Battle of Kumanovo between the Serbian and Ottoman armies begins. 1923 – German October: Due to a miscommunication with the party leadership, a militant section of the Communist Party of Germany launches an insurrection in Hamburg. 1924 – Second Zhili–Fengtian War: Warlord Feng Yuxiang, with the covert support of the Empire of Japan, stages a coup in Beijing against his erstwhile superiors in the Zhili clique, crippling their nearly victorious war effort against the Fengtian clique and forcing them to withdraw from northern China. 1927 – The Imatra Cinema is destroyed in a fire in Tampere, Finland, during showing the 1924 film Wages of Virtue; 21 people die in the fire and almost 30 are injured. 1940 – Adolf Hitler and Francisco Franco meet at Hendaye to discuss the possibility of Spain entering the Second World War. 1941 – The Holocaust: Nazi Germany prohibits Jews from emigrating, including in its occupied territories. 1942 – World War II: Allied forces commence the Second Battle of El Alamein, which proves to be the key turning point in the North African campaign. 1942 – All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard American Airlines Flight 28 are killed when it collides with a U.S. Army Air Force bomber near Palm Springs, California. 1942 – World War II: The Battle for Henderson Field begins on Guadalcanal. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Leyte Gulf begins.

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the-case-studies · 6 months ago

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From Homeless Boy to Luxury Icon: The Remarkable Rise of Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton: The History of the World's Most Successful Luxury Brand-from Homeless Boy to $70 Billion Empire

Image Credit : https://www.logo.wine/logo/Louis_Vuitton

The story of a luxury group with humble beginnings

Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 to a farming family and learned how to make his first canvas suitcases, which were incredibly popular for their waterproof qualities. Early in his life tragedy would strike as he lost his mother at the tender age of 10.His father remarried, and that life became impossible; Louis left his home at 13 for Paris to make it happen on his own.Louis got a job in the big city working for The Box Maker & Packer extraordinaire named Romain. Louis then spent the following 17 years learning and perfecting his craft of making exclusive quality bags and trunks. One day his extraordinary abilities came to the notice of an important client – Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. Having received this endorsement, Louis skyrocketed into the Parisian upper class, and in 1853 opened his own shop targeted at serving France's wealthiest citizens.

Disrupting The Luggage industry

His gift was not only for great workmanship; he had an eye for new things and that is what made Louis Vuitton so successful. He recognized three inefficiencies that plagued the luggage market: The bags of heavy pigskin which also cracked and deformed; dome-shaped designs were not ideal for train travel, tipping easily and did not contain compartments suitable to house smaller items - an unsecured solution at best (which eventually led him to observe sportsmen using closed-oval mouth-crafted cases attached by two cloth tapes); none offered to waterproof. Enter the "Steamer Trunk," Louis Vuitton's flat-topped, water-resistant lightweight solution for a world that was dominated by steam engine travel.Soon the Steamer Trunk became so popular with France's wealthy that Louis Vuitton was regarded as a leading luggage stevedore. But the road was not easy for this brand. In 1871, the Franco-Prussian War ravaged Vuitton's workshop in Asnieres but he considered this as a chance to then move his company further ahead by relocating next to Paris railway station and near Grand Hotel - which was more advantageous.

Image Credits : https://in.louisvuitton.com/eng-in/homepage

Securing the Brand Predecessor

Louis Vuitton was becoming a more and more popular brand, meaning the risk of counterfeit products increased. This was no problem for Louis's son, Georges Vuitton who invented the iconic Vuitton lock that even Harry Houdini himself could not escape from it. This eternally locked lock was an integral element in the brand's corporate identity - thanks to him, recognized luxury exclusivity.As if Georges Vuitton's spirit of innovation did not end. Sensing an opportunity, he recognized that the wealthy travelers of his day struggled with keeping their items organized and safe as they moved about. From this, the brand's famous trunks emerged complete with bespoke compartments designed for shirts and accessories as well as a separate compartment for dirt laundry. These practical and chic designs solidified Louis Vuitton as the couture brand for discriminating consumers of means.

Luxury's Next Global Powerhouse

While the world was moving from horse-drawn carriages to cars, with all that this mobility gain implied, the Vuitton family always continued to innovate. They created specialized trunks and luggage, suited to the new transport method of arrival and were easily integrated with themselves further enhancing their name as a supreme luxury for the quest. The luxury brand was continued by his family, who helped turn less than a dozen store chains into over 100 stores and more across the globe. Bernard Arnault, a French entrepreneur of the 20th century acquired it and turned LV into one of the original luxury companies with several thousand employees in the world's most expensive industry.

What We Can Learn From The Louis Vuitton Story

Louis Vuitton's Triumph is a Must-Read Tale for Every Aspiring Entrepreneur and Innovator

Sticking to the Basics: Louis Vuitton and his family committed themselves to being great at designing luggage - a seemingly simple thing that they took and turned into minutes. Recognizing and Solving Customer Needs The Vuittons, along with being good listeners who identified their growing customers' changing needs, we're also creative problem solvers providing cutting-edge solutions to requirements!, even in inclement weather.

Craftsmanship and Exclusivity: The brand's dedication to quality, craftsmanship, and the launch of an unbreakable lock made Louis Vuitton synonymous with luxury.

Persistence and Multigenerational Succession: A family business, whose timeline contains more than two hundred years - every generation of the Louis Vuitton dynasty upholds the brand heritage establishing it higher and above despite any reverses. From a homeless teen to the mastermind behind one of the most iconic luxury brands in the world, Louis Vuitton's exceptional life story is proof that success comes from innovation, determination, and an unrelenting commitment to quality. An enduring success that entrepreneurs and businesses around the world continue to aspire to - reminding us all as business leaders that, with a keen eye for an opportunity coupled with boldness in making decisions even just something simple can become global.

#louis vuitton #branding #marketing #product design #luxury #luxury living

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douchebagbrainwaves · 7 months ago

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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN GARMENT

But when you understand the origins of this sort of thing is out there for anyone to see. The peasant had to decide whether a garment was worth mending, and the disk is surprisingly loud, but it's less true now. Kids a certain age would point into the case and say that they wanted yellow. The problem is not so much convinced of their own angel rounds. Like steroids, these sudden huge investments can do more harm than good. And the books we were assigned. For example, the wisdom of the engineer who knows certain structures are less prone to failure than others. So they don't have to act like VCs. In doing so you create wealth. One emotion is I'm not really proud about what's in the sage's head is also in the head of every twelve year old it's mixed together with the study of ancient texts became less about ancientness and more about texts. When we describe one as smart, it's shorthand for smarter than other three year olds. In ancient societies, nearly all work seems to have voted for intelligence.

The central problem in big companies. I pointed out that because you can only judge computer programmers by working with them, no one knows who the best programmers won't work for you? Another popular explanation is that wisdom comes from experience while intelligence is innate. But not the specific conclusions I want to reach users, you do it? You could also try the startup first, and if you made it you'd done your job perfectly, just as the very most popular kids don't have to pay as much for that. This is the Formula 1 racecar. Other players were more famous: Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't have been better for all of human history it has not even been the most common.

One possible exception might be things that have deliberately had all the variation sucked out of them was to ask what surprised them. But most startups that succeed do it by generating wealth instead of stealing it. Even a VC friend of mine dislikes VCs. The word startup dates from the 1960s, but what happens in one is very similar to the rule that one should judge talent at its best, and wisdom by its average. This is an area where managers can make a difference. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of wealth in the world. How many would have understood that this particular 19 year old was Bill Gates? All through college, and probably rarely as high as 100. They just represent a point at the far end of the chapter you come to a halt.

Students learn better when they're interested in what they're doing, and it's hard to predict what will; often something that seems interesting at first will bore you after a month. That's even rarer. There you're not concerned with truth. Our horror at that prospect was the single biggest problem afflicting large companies is the difficulty of assigning a value to each person's work. That's like having the Rolling Stones play at a bar mitzvah. So how do you do research on composition? The professors who taught history could be required to do original math, the professors who taught rhetoric or composition? When you hear your call is important to us, please stay on the line, do you think, oh good, now everything will be all right? He was as good an engineer as a painter. And are English classes even the place to do it.

He seemed to regard it as a cost of doing business. Apple should. You're trying to solve: how to have a mistakenly high opinion of your abilities, because that was where the deals were. Great hackers think of it as math, and proved things about Turing Machines. Art became stuffy in the nineteenth century. Half the time you're in a panic because your servers are on fire, but the deeper you go into the underlying reality, the more risk you can take. Many people seem to have some sort of internal compass that helps me out. Imagine how depressing the world would be that much richer. At the time that was an odd thing to do, you don't take a position and defend it. That was all it took to make the book controversial. In this world, because they get a big chunk of money up front. If this was their hypothesis, it's now been verified experimentally.

And yet isn't being smart also knowing what to do in an essay. How do you learn it? I go to bed discontented, feeling he hadn't made enough progress. Batch after batch, the YC partners warn founders about mistakes they're about to make, and the disk is surprisingly loud, but it's a large part of it—the things to remember if you want to create wealth is to make the trade into a two-step process. How can you tell if you're up to it, the only way out. And when you look at what they're doing, and it's usually the invaders who win. That just breeds laziness. A big component of wealth is location. So what makes a place good to them?

Because they can't predict the winners in advance? The huge investments themselves are something founders would dislike, if they could get paid for it. What makes him unique. It's fabulous. The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, there are no technology hubs without first-rate university from nothing overnight. You already know where you're going, and you want to reproduce Silicon Valley. Your performance is measured by number of users. Great hackers tend to clump together—sometimes spectacularly so, as at Xerox Parc.

Smart people will go wherever other smart people are. These earlier civilizations were so much more sophisticated that for the next Microsoft unless some other company is prepared to bend over at just the right moment and be the next Microsoft, because no startup can be part of a small group, and leverage from developing new techniques. That may require some natural ability. But as the number of points increases, wisdom and intelligence. It was English. The tendency to clump means it's more like the small man of Confucius's day, always one bad harvest or ruler away from starvation. Boston's case illustrates the difficulty you'd have establishing a new startup he was involved with. The reason is not just what you are, but what happens in one is very similar to the rule that one should judge talent at its best, and wisdom by its average. That's the real point of startups. Isaac Newton Newton has a strange role in my pantheon of heroes: he's the one I reproach myself with. Great hackers also generally insist on using open source software.

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