#Late Night - February 10 1982

[collateral-joy]

Dougie

[thislovintime]

(Photo 1) Peter Tork onstage at Carnegie Hall with Peter LaFarge, 1960s (photo by Bob Campbell); (photo 2) by Henry Diltz.

More about that gig with LaFarge here.

"I did some work accompanying Steve Stills when he was with Ron Long and the Buffalo Fish. I accompanied this black trio called the [Apollas], on the stand-up string bass." - Peter Tork, Goldmine, 1982

* * *

“[I] worked in a nightclub called The Shadow. And I think it was late June [1964] that the Phoenix Singers came through, and Peter was in the band, he was the banjo player in — behind the group… And he and I hit it off, and that Monday night, we did an impromptu show together, we just played a couple of tunes, you know, and had a good time, and stayed friends. And then when I opened a club in 1965, there was no place to play in the winter in that area — Virginia Beach, Norfolk… So I opened a club on my own with two friends, we called it The Folk Ghetto, and I contacted Peter in New York City and said, ‘I wanna hire you to come down here for a week and be the headlining act.’ Which he did. […] He was, he was fantastic. He was so good. It was wonderful." - James Lee Stanley, Tales of the Road Warriors, 2019 (x)

* * *

“Many people don’t know that Peter has a really rich baritone — had a voice like, it was like a cello, really rich and resonant, you know, and fun to listen to.” - James Lee Stanley, The Monkees Pad Show no. 11

* * *

“[E]ventually he had an offer to join the Phoenix Singers, who were short of a guy to play banjo AND guitar. And if you still have any doubts about whether he really does play, and play well, then the thing to do is ask the management behind the Phoenix Singers. Even without the Monkees, there is little doubt that the amiable Peter would have made the grade in the music business.” - Record Mirror, February 25, 1967

* * *

“[Peter’s] really a genius, a prolific musician — he plays about seven instruments.” - Micky Dolenz, Record Mirror, February 11, 1967

* * *

“Peter Tork has to be one of the best guitarists around — he can cut anybody on guitar. He plays about 10 instruments — banjo, uke, the lot.” - Davy Jones, The Ottawa Journal, January 20, 1967

* * *

“Peter was a much more skillful player than I was by some orders of magnitude.” - Michael Nesmith, The Monkees Tale (1985)

* * *

“[In the early 1980s, in NYC] I remember we went down to the China Club, and I took Peter down there, and… and I felt that a lot of the musicians, you know, disrespected him. He didn’t play, but I introduced him, ‘This is my pal, Peter,’ and they were kind of, like, blowing him off a little bit, and I remember seeing, you know, that pained look in his face as these guys were being rude — or condescending; not so much rude, it’s just condescending, like, ‘Oh, you were the Monkee, pfff,’ you know. And… and I know it troubled him. [Once the resurgence and 20th anniversary tour came around] that’s when Peter started — when they started giving him, you know, some regard.” - James Lee Stanley, The Monkees Pad Show no. 11

* * *

Q: "Most people know you from The Monkees but you were a well-respected musician before that."

Peter Tork. "You'll have to ask everyone else about the kind of respect I generated. I am a trained musician, somewhat trained. I took piano for six years and French horn. I took music theory for about three years. I learned to play the bass and the five-string banjo while I was learning a few other instruments here and there. So, I have some skills and some abilities. I'm pleased with what I got [...]. I wish I had more. But back then I was a folkie. Whatever I was, it seemed to be just the thing for The Monkees." - Daytona News Journal, October 8, 2009

[horrorchops]

Band that has horror vibes:

Band: The Cramps

Year: 1976

Some history:

The Cramps were an American punk rock band, formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated much over their existence. Occasional bass guitarist Poison Ivy the only permanent members.

They were part of the early CBGB punk rock movement that had emerged in New York. The Cramps are noted as influencing a number of musical styles: not only were they one of the first garage punk bands, they are also widely recognized as one of the prime innovators of psychobilly. (Wiki, Contributors to Punk. “The Cramps.” Punk Wiki. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://punk.fandom.com/wiki/The_Cramps.)

1972 - Lux Interior (born Erick Lee Purkhiser) and Poison Ivy (born Kristy Marlana Wallace) met in Sacramento, California in. In light of their common artistic interests and shared devotion to record collecting, they decided to form The Cramps.

1975 - They moved to Akron, Ohio, and then to New York. soon entering into CBGB's early punk scene with other emerging acts like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, and Mink DeVille. The lineup.

1978 - They gave a landmark free concert for patients at the California State Mental Hospital in Napa, recorded on a Sony Portapak video camera by the San Francisco collective Target Video and later released as Live at Napa State Mental Hospital.

—————-

1980 - The Cramps relocated to Los Angeles in and hired guitarist Kid Congo Powers of The Gun Club. While recording their second LP, Psychedelic Jungle, the band and Miles Copeland began to dispute royalties and creative rights.

1982 - The band appears in the film Urgh! A Music War.

1983 - When they recorded Smell of Female live at New York's Peppermint Lounge; Kid Congo Powers subsequently departed. Mike Metoff of The Pagans (cousin of Nick Knox) was the final second guitarist – albeit only live – of the Cramps' pre-bass era.

1985 - The Cramps recorded a one-off track for the horror movie The Return of the Living Dead called "Surfin' Dead", on which Ivy played bass as well as guitar.

1986 - With the release A Date With Elvis, the Cramps permanently added a bass guitar to the mix, but had trouble finding a suitable player, so Ivy temporarily filled in as the band's bassist.

——————-

1991 - Knox left the band. The Cramps hit the Top 40 in the UK for the first and only time with "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns"; Ivy posed as such both on the cover of the single and in the promotional video for the song.

1994 - The Cramps made their national US television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing "Ultra Twist".

1995 - The Cramps appeared on the TV-series Beverly Hills, 90210 in the Halloween episode "Gypsies, Cramps and Fleas." They played two songs in show: "Mean Machine" and "Strange Love." Lux Interior started the song by saying "Hey boys and ghouls, are you ready to raise the dead?".

——————-

2001 - On January 10 Bryan Gregory died at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center of complications following a heart attack. He was 46.

2002 - The Cramps released their final album, Fiends of Dope Island, on their own label, Vengeance Records.

2006 - They played their final shows in Europe in the summer and their very last live show was 4 November at the Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona.

2009 - On February 4 Lux Interior died at the Glendale Memorial Hospital after suffering an aortic dissection which, contrary to initial reports about a pre-existing condition, was "sudden, shocking and unexpected".

All this information comes from

What are your thoughts on the cramps? Let my knew below ⬇️

See you on the other side friend

-Horrorchops 🖤

P.S. My other post with the purple moon gif explains what’s happening next week on Tuesday and Thursday.

[lboogie1906]

Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is a jazz and R&B singer. She has appeared on the Hot 100 singles chart twice. The first time was in 1979 as a guest vocalist on The Crusaders' top-40 hit "Street Life". She dueted with Rick Springfield on the song "Taxi Dancing", which hit #59 as the B-side of Springfield's hit "Bop Til You Drop". She has had five top-20 hits in the UK, including her 1980 number-two hit, "One Day I'll Fly Away", as well as six UK top-10 albums. She won Best British Female Solo Artist in recognition of her popularity in the UK at the 1982 Brit Awards. In the late 2000s, she received her first two Grammy Award nominations. She first performed at club gigs from Cincinnati to Saint-Tropez but made her name in the mid-1970s in New York, where she sang with jazzmen George Benson and Cannonball Adderley. She signed with Columbia Records and released her first single, "Knock On Wood" / "If You Say the Word" in 1972. Adderley invited her to sing on his album, Big Man: The Legend Of John Henry (1975). She recorded"Don't Get Caught in Love's Triangle". She is one of the vocalists on Fred Wesley & The Horny Horns' A Blow For Me, A Toot To You. She sang vocals on "Hoping Love Will Last", the opening song on side two of Please Don't Touch! She was named the 'Most Outstanding Performer' at the 1980 Tokyo Music Festival. She recorded the love theme ("People Alone") for the film soundtrack of The Competition. Her follow-up solo efforts included "You Might Need Somebody", which became soul standards. The album, Secret Combination stayed on the UK Albums Chart for sixty weeks, despite a return to the UK Top Ten with "Almaz". She released another hit, "One Hello", from the album Windsong. Naked And True brought her back to her roots: it included "Give Me the Night". She recorded a live session with Joe Sample. She has sung with Bootsy Collins, Johnny Bristol, Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, Rick Springfield, Katri Helena, Michael Kamen, Zucchero, David Sanborn, Steve Hackett, the Spanish band Presuntos Implicados, the Norwegian jazz-rock band Lava and Joe Sample amongst others. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Cozed-urZtV/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mayadoesfandomstuff]

Considering the psychic damage my previous post on the protags' ages are, I've decided to compile ALL persona users' birthdays and list them according to date from earliest or oldest to latest or youngest. Enjoy!

Teddie (P4) - unknown, shadow so could be as old as time, maybe as teddy bears existed in humanity's collective unconscious memory, could be a month before he met the team, could be a week, could be last Thursday idk

Zenkichi Hasegawa (P5S) - unknown, in his 40s, probably late 1960s to mid 1970s

Baofu (P2:EP) - June 13, 1967

Tatsuya Sudou (P2:EP) - 1971

Katsuya Suou (P2:EP) - December 30, 1973

Ulala Serizawa (P2:EP) - November 30, 1974

Maya Amano (P2:IS) - July 4, 1976

Yukino Mayuzumi (P1) - April 9, 1979

Maki Sonomura (P1) - June 4, 1979

Masao Inaba (P1) - July 11, 1979

Reiji Kido (P1) - August 18, 1979

Eriko Kirishima (P1) - September 21, 1979

Kei Nanjo (P1) - October 2, 1979

Naoya Toudou (P1) - December 24, 1979

Hidehiko Uesagi (P1) - January 1, 1980

Yuka Ayase (P1) - March 3, 1980

Tatsuya Suou (P2:IS) - July 27, 1981 (EP), August 21, 1981 (IS)

Jun Kurosu (P2:IS) - February 14, 1982

Lisa Silverman (P2:IS) - May 4, 1982

Eikichi Mishina (P2:IS) - November 15, 1982

Tohru Adachi (P4) - February 1, 1984

Takuto Maruki (P5R) - unknown, possibly in his late 20s to mid 30s, probably mid-1980s to mid-1990s

Strega: Chidori Yoshino, Jin Shirato, Takaya Sakaki (P3) - unknown, late 80s - early 90s

Mitsuru Kirijo (P3) - May 8, 1991

Shinjiro Aragaki (P3) - August 11, 1991

Akihiko Sanada (P3) - September 22, 1991

Minato Arisato/Makoto Yuki (P3); Minako Arisato/Hamuko Arisato/Kotone Shiomi (P3P) - 1992/1993

Yukari Takeba (P3) - October 19, 1992

Fuuka Yamagishi (P3) - December 22, 1992

Junpei Iori (P3) - January 16, 1993

Koromaru (P3) - unknown, likely mid 1990s to early 2000s

Souji Seta/Yu Narukami (P4) - 1994/1995

Sho Minazuki (P4A) - unknown, possibly the same as P4 Protagonist, 1994/1995

Yosuke Hanamura (P4) - June 22, 1994

Chie Satonaka (P4) - July 30, 1994

Yukiko Amagi (P4) - December 8, 1994

Naoto Shirogane (P4) - April 27, 1995

Rise Kujikawa (P4) - June 1, 1995

Kanji Tatsumi (P4) - January 19, 1996

Makoto Nijima (P5) - April 23, 1998

Goro Akechi (P5) - June 2, 1998

Ken Amada (P3) - June 24, 1998

Haru Okumura (P5) - December 5, 1998

Akira Kurusu/Ren Amamiya (P5) - 1999/2000

Labrys (P4A) - April 20, 1999 (activation date)

Ryuji Sakamoto (P5) - July 3, 1999

Ann Takamaki (P5) - November 12, 1999

Yusuke Kitagawa (P5) - January 28, 2000

Aigis (P3) - February 2000 (manufacturing date), September 10, 2000 (activation date), May 1999 (Aigis First Mission),

Futaba Sakura (P5) - February 19, 2001

Sumire Yoshizawa (P5R) - March 25, 2001

Morgana (P5) - unknown, between Persona 4 Dancing All Night and Persona 5, 2010s

To give you some more perspective:

The oldest confirmed Persona user (Boafu) is 33 years and 9 months older than the youngest (Sumi).

Tohru Adachi is just two years the Persona 2: Innocent Sin cast's junior.

Katsuya Suou is turning 50 next year (2023).

The only confirmed S.E.E.S. members that are not yet in their 30s (this 2022) is Junpei, Ken, and maybe Koromaru [if he's still around which I hope so].

Sojiro Sakura might be the same generation as the Persona 2: Eternal Punishment cast.

Ryotaro Dojima (1970) is the same generation as the P2:EP cast and is three years younger than Boafu, and three years older than Katsuya.

Reiji Kido's child is probably the same age as Ken Amada and the Phantom Thieves.

Please send in any additions or corrections! I'll edit this the list if necessary.

[essence-of-femininity]

Blessed Karolina Kózkówna 🇵🇱 - Virgin and Martyr of Purity.

Karolina Kózka was born on 2 August 1898 in a hamlet near the village of Zabawa, Lesser Poland, at that time occupied by Austria-Hungary. She was the fourth of eleven children born to peasant farmers, Jan Kózka and Maria Borzęcka. She was baptized on 7 August at the local parish church of Saint John the Baptist. Her childhood was spent on the family farm. From 1906 until 1912 she attended the local primary school and had further part-time schooling from 1912 to 1913. She would often gather neighbours and relatives and invite them to read the Bible together under a pear tree near her home. Kózka loved reciting the rosary using beads her mother had given her. She would fall asleep praying to Mary. Kózka would pray on her long walk to Mass. Her uncle Franciszek Borzęcki was an inspiration to her and she would help him in his role of librarian. She also helped out teaching the catechism to children of the parish. During Lent she would lead her family in singing about the Passion of the Lord and at Christmas would intone carols. Some of the villagers referred to her home as "the little church".

Kózka received her First Communion in 1907. She was confirmed on 18 May 1914. She is said to have had a particular devotion to the Mother of God evidenced by her custom to recite the rosary deep into the night. In 1914 with the outbreak of World War I Russian forces began occupying Polish towns and cities under Austrian rule and in mid-November entered Wał-Ruda. Tensions grew as stories swirled about soldiers looting and raping women which exacerbated fear in the area. At the start of the occupation a Russian soldier come to the Kózka farm but he left after he was offered a meal.

On 18 November 1914 at around 9.00 in the morning an armed Russian soldier came to the house asking questions about Austrian forces before ordering Kózka and his daughter to accompany him to the commanding officer. When the pair and the soldier reached the edge of the forest the soldier ordered the father to return home, which he did reluctantly, leaving his daughter with the Russian. Two Polish men, Franciszek Zaleśny and Franciszek Broda, were in the vicinity and witnessed from behind the bushes, the soldier's attack on the Kózka daughter. From their account, the soldier attempted to force himself upon her but she struggled and thwarted his attempted rape. Enraged, the soldier then stabbed her with his bayonet multiple times. She managed to escape and ran some 800 meters towards nearby swamps which saved her from further attacks. The soldier saw her fall and gave up the chase believing her to be dead. However it would have been too late to save her as her carotid artery had been slit and she consequently bled to death in the swamps, some time before 9.40. In the event, it was not until 4 December 1914 that her body was found and she was buried on 6 December with around 3000 people attending her funeral.

According to Rozalia Łazarz, a nurse present at her autopsy, Karolina is said to have died a virgin. Her remains were relocated on 18 March 1987 beneath the main altar of the Zabawa parish church, at the behest of the Bishop of Tarnów. The site where she died is marked with a cross. On 18 June 1916 a monument was erected in her honour by the Zabawa church.

The beatification process opened in Tarnów diocese with an informative process on 11 February 1965 which later closed in 1967 before all the documents were sent to Rome for further assessment. Her writings received theological approval on 10 September 1977 before the formal introduction to the cause was given on 4 March 1981 when she was raised to a Servant of God. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints validated this informative process on 20 September 1982 before receiving the Positio in 1983. Theologians approved this on 22 January 1985 as did the C.C.S. on 7 May 1985.

On 30 June 1986 her beatification received papal approval after Pope John Paul II confirmed that Kózka was killed "in defensum castitatis" - in defence of her virginal state - and beatified her in Tarnów while visiting Poland on 10 June 1987.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Guy Georges

Born Guy Rampillon on October 15, 1962, Georges grew up in the French social care system and was in and out of trouble throughout his youth.

 In his later years, Georges embarked on a killing spree between 1991 and 1997. He was convicted of murdering seven women. His victims were raped, tortured, and murdered in the neighborhood of Bastille in Paris, granting him the nickname "The Beast of Bastille." Georges also assaulted at least 13 other women, including attempting to strangle his adoptive sisters Roselyne as early as 1976 and Christiane in 1978 when he was just a teenager.

As a result of the attacks on his adoptive sisters, Georges was placed back into foster care. In his late teens in February 1979, Georges carried out his first assault. He attempted to strangle a woman named Pascale C. but she managed to escape. He was arrested by police but was released one week later.Crime and Investigation details Georges' violent tendencies did not stop there. They only got increasingly worse. In May 1980, in two separate assaults, he attacked Jocelyne S and Roselyne C, stabbing the latter in the face. Both girls survived the attack and Georges was arrested.

He served a one-year sentence in an Angers prison and following his release, committed petty crimes in and around Paris.In 1981, Georges committed his first rape. He attacked, raped and stabbed his neighbor Nathalie C. leaving her for dead but she survived the ordeal. In June 1982, he attacked again but the victim, Violette K., escaped. He was then sentenced to 18 months in prison.Upon his release in February 1984, he attacked Pascale N., raping and stabbing her but she survived and alerted police. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for the attack.Due to good behavior, Georges was allowed day release towards the end of his sentence. On the evening of January 24, Georges did not return and instead made his way to Paris. It was on that night he committed his first murder, killing 19-year-old student Pascale Escarfail.He eventually returned to prison one week later and was officially released on April 4, 1992. His murder spree continued for six more years, taking the lives of Catherine Rocher, 27, Elsa Benady, 22, Agnès Nijkamp, 32, Hélène Frinking, 27, Magali Sirotti, 19 and Estelle Magd, 25. He also continued to assault other women in the Bastille area.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment on April 5, 2001, without the possibility of parole for 22 years.

[americancoldcases]

The Long Island Serial Killer (Long Island Ripper) or LISK:

The case of The Long Island serial killer is as grim as it is horrifying. This unidentified serial killer was believed to have killed 10 to 16 people over a period of nearly 20 years. With his victims mostly prostitutes, he left their bodies in areas on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. He has also been recognized by the grim nickname THE LONG ISLAND RIPPER.

• • •

Timeline of Events:

**Due to a variety of scattered human remains found at various crime sites, a condensed and categorized list of identified, unidentified, and possible victims, as well as their last known location, will be mentioned. Identified bodies will be featured alongside bullet points (•). Unidentified who have succumb to the hands of the killer will be listed alongside an asterisk (*). Possible victims who are identified/unidentified but might be similar with the identical motif of the LISK will be paired alongside a dash (-) and question mark (?).

• December 2010:

Of the ten bodies or sets of remains found since late 2010, the four discovered in December 2010 have been identified as missing prostitutes who all advertised their services on Craigslist. It has been theorized by a former investigator on the case that the killer shopped for look-a-like victims through Craigslist ads. Each had been strangled and her body wrapped in a burlap sack before being dumped along Gilgo Beach. All are believed to have been killed elsewhere.

• 1. Maureen Brainard-Barnes (25) of Norwich, Connecticut was an escort who advertised her services online. She was last seen on July 9th, 2007, saying that she planned "to spend the day in New York City." She was never seen Shortly after her disappearance, a friend of Maureen's, Sara Karnes, received a call from a man on an unfamiliar number. The man claimed that he had just seen Maureen and that she was alive and staying at a “whorehouse in Queens”. He refused to identify himself and could not tell Karnes the location of the house. He told Karnes he would call back and give her the address, but never called again. Karnes said that the man had no discernible New York or Boston accent. Her body was found in December 2010.

• 2. Melissa Barthélemy (24) of Erie County, New York, went missing on July 10th, 2009. She had been living in the Bronx and working as an escort through Craigslist. On the night she went missing, she met with a client, deposited $900 in her bank account, and attempted to call an old boyfriend, but did not get through. Beginning one week later, and lasting for five weeks, her teenage sister, Amanda, received a series of "vulgar, mocking and insulting" calls from a man, who may have been the killer using Melissa's cell phone. The caller asked if Amanda "was a whore like her sister." The calls became increasingly disturbing, and eventually culminated in the caller telling Amanda that Melissa was dead, and that he was going to "watch her rot." Police traced some of the calls to Madison Square Garden, midtown Manhattan, and Massapequa, but were unable to determine who was making the calls. Melissa's mother noted that there were "a lot of calls to Manorville" from Melissa's phone around the time of her disappearance.

• 3. Megan Waterman (22) of South Portland, Maine, went missing on June 6th, 2010, after placing advertisements on Craigslist as an escort. The day before, she had told her 20-year-old boyfriend that she was going out and would call him later. At the time of her disappearance, she was staying at a motel in Hauppauge, New York, 15 miles northeast of Gilgo Beach. Her body was recovered in December 2010.

• 4. Amber Lynn Costello (27) of North Babylon, New York, a town ten miles north of Gilgo Beach, was a prostitute and heroin user who went missing on September 2nd, 2010. That night she reportedly went to meet a stranger who had called her several times and offered $1,500 for her services. Body was found in December 2010.

• March 2011:

The four additional sets of remains discovered on March 29th and April 4th were all within two miles and to the east of those found in December. They included two identified women an unidentified man, and a toddler. A skull and a partial set of remains were found on April 11th after the search expanded into Nassau County. They were found about one mile apart, approximately five miles west of those found in December.

• 5. Jessica Taylor (20) who resided in Manhattan, went missing in July 2003. On July 26th, 2003, her naked and dismembered torso, missing its head and hands, was discovered 45 miles east of Gilgo Beach in Manorville, New York; these remains were identified by DNA analysis later that year. Taylor's torso was found atop a pile of scrap wood at the end of a paved access road off of Halsey Manor Road, just north of where it crosses the Long Island Expressway. Plastic sheeting was found underneath the torso, and a tattoo on her body had been mutilated with a sharp instrument. On May 9th, 2011, it was reported that the remains of a skull, a pair of hands, and a forearm found on March 29 at Gilgo were matched to Taylor. She had worked in Washington, D.C., and Manhattan as a prostitute. Her body was found March 29th.

April 2011:

• 6. Valerie Mack (24) of Philadelphia, was previously dubbed "Jane Doe No. 6". A human head, right foot, and hands, found on April 4th, 2011, were determined to have belonged to an unidentified victim. The rest of her body was found on November 19th, 2000, in the same part of Manorville where most of Jessica Taylor's remains were later discovered. The victim's torso was found wrapped in garbage bags and dumped in the woods near the intersection of Halsey Manor Rd and Mill Rd, adjacent to a set of power lines and a nearby power line access road. Her right foot had been cut off high above the ankle, possibly to conceal an identifying mark or tattoo. The dismembered remains of Jessica Taylor and "Jane Doe No. 6" were both disposed of in a similar manner and in the same town, suggesting a link. In September 2011, police released a composite sketch of "Jane Doe No. 6", saying she was about 5' 2" and was between 18 and 35-years old. On May 22nd, 2020, Suffolk County Police announced that they had positively identified and on May 28th, 2020 it was announced that the remains had been identified as Mack, who had last been seen by family in Spring or Summer of 2000 in the area of Port Republic, New Jersey. Mack had also gone by the name Melissa Taylor, and had worked as an escort in Philadelphia.

* April 2011 (cont.) w/ Unidentified Victims:

* 7. "John Doe" (17)/(23) was also discovered on April 4th, 2011 at Gilgo Beach, very close to where the first four were discovered in December 2010, was the body of what appeared to be a young Asian male who died from blunt-force trauma. In September 2011, police released a composite sketch of the victim. They stated that he had likely been working as a prostitute and was wearing women's clothing at the time of his death. He was missing four teeth and had been dead for or between 5 and 10 years. He is believed to have lived as a woman, perhaps being killed when the killer found out he was not a woman, and to have had some kind of musculoskeletal disorder which would have affected his gait.

* 8. "Baby Doe" was the third body found on April 4th, 2011, about 250 feet away from the partial remains of "Jane Doe No. 6,". The remains were that of a female toddler between 16 and 24 months of age and had already decayed into a skeletal form. The body was wrapped in a blanket and showed no visible signs of trauma. DNA tests determined that the child's mother was "Jane Doe No. 3", whose body was found 10 miles east, near Jones Beach State Park, just days after this discovery. The toddler was reported to be African-American and was wearing gold earrings and a gold necklace.

* 9. "Peaches/Jane Doe No. 3" was discovered on June 28th, 1997. The dismembered torso of an unidentified young African-American female was found at Hempstead Lake State Park, in the town of Lakeview, New York. The torso was found in a green plastic Rubbermaid container, which was dumped next to a road along the west side of the lake. Investigators reported that the victim had a tattoo of a heart-shaped peach with a bite out of it and two drips falling from its core on her left breast. On April 11th, 2011, police in Nassau County discovered dismembered skeletal human remains inside a plastic bag near Jones Beach State Park, nicknamed "Jane Doe No. 3". DNA analysis identified this victim as the Mother of "Baby Doe"; she wearing gold jewelry similar to that of her daughter. In December 2016, Peaches and Jane Doe No. 3 were positively identified as being the same person.

-? Victims Unofficially Involved in LISK murders.

*The person(s) involved have not been officially linked with the other LISK murders, and are still being reviewed by police.

-? Tina Foglia (19) was last seen in the early morning hours of February 1st, 1982 at a rock music venue in West Islip. She was a known hitchhiker. Her dismembered body was discovered by Department of Transportation workers on February 3rd, 1982 along the shoulder of the Southern State Parkway. Her remains were placed in three separate plastic garbage bags, and were found a few miles north of the Robert Moses Causeway, which leads to Gilgo Beach and Oak Beach. A diamond ring that Foglia was known to wear was missing, and the DNA of an unknown male was found on the garbage bags. Police have not ruled out the possibility that Tina Foglia was an early victim of the Long Island Serial Killer.

-? A suitcase containing the dismembered torso of an unidentified Hispanic or light-skinned African-American female washed up on a beach at Harbor Island Park, in the town of Mamaroneck on March 3rd, 2007. The victim had a tattoo of two cherries on her left breast, similar in appearance to the tattoo found on Peaches. The former was determined to have been stabbed to death. Never identified, the victim is referred to as "Cherries" by investigators. One of her dismembered legs washed up at Cold Spring Harbor on March 21st, 2007, and the other at Oyster Bay in the village of Cove Neck the following day. "Cherries" was dismembered in a fashion similar to three other victims (Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and "Peaches") meaning she may be linked to the other official victims.

-? On May 17th, 2011, the New York Post reported that Long Island police were revisiting other similar unsolved murders of prostitutes. Named in the article was Tanya Rush (39) a mother of three from Brooklyn whose dismembered body was found in a small suitcase in June 2008 on the shoulder of the Southern State Parkwa zzzy in Bellmore, New York.

-? Shannan Maria Gilbert (24) was an escort who may have been a victim of the Long Island serial killer. She left for a client's residence in Oak Beach after midnight on May 1st, 2010. At 4:51a.m. May 2nd, 911 dispatchers received a panicked phone call from Gilbert who can be heard saying that there was someone "after her" and that "they" were trying to kill her. She was last seen a short time later banging on the front door of a nearby Oak Beach residence and screaming for help before running off into the night. After nineteen months of searching, police found Gilbert's remains in a marsh, half a mile from where she was last seen. In May 2012, the Suffolk County medical examiners ruled that Gilbert accidentally drowned after entering the marsh. They believe that she was in a drug induced panic, and have concluded that cause was "death by misadventure" or "inconclusive." Her family believes she was murdered. On November 15, 2012 a lawsuit was filed by her mother, Mari Gilbert, against the Suffolk County Police Department in the hopes of getting more answers about what happened to her daughter the night she went missing. Famous Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden agreed to conduct an independent autopsy of Gilbert's remains in hopes of determining a clear cause of death. Upon examination of Gilbert's remains, Baden found damage to her hyoid bone, suggesting that strangulation may have occurred. Baden also noted that her body was found face-up, which is not common for drowning victims. Despite this, her death is still officially listed by police as an accident.

-? On January 23, 2013, a woman walking her dog found human remains intentionally buried in a small piece of brush in a sandy area along the shore at the end of Sheep Lane in Lattingtown, near Oyster Bay. The remains are believed to be of a woman between the ages of 20 and 30, possibly Asian. She was wearing a 22-karat gold pig pendant, which may be a reference in some Asian cultures to "The Year of the Pig." This leads some to believe she died at the age of 29. There was trauma caused to her bones; investigators believe she was buried before Hurricane Sandy in late 2012. Her case may be connected to the other 10 bodies found 32 miles away in and around Gilgo Beach.

-? On March 16, 2013, Natasha Jugo (31) was last seen leaving her home near Alley Pond Park, Queens. Her car was found along Ocean Parkway and some of her clothes and belongings were found in the sand near Gilgo Beach the following day. Jugo was described as 5'7, 120lbs with brown eyes and blonde hair. She was last seen wearing a black robe, pink pajamas, gray hooded sweatshirt, black coat, and black boots. Police are unsure whether the case is connected to the LISK victims. Jugo's family said that she had "a history of problems in which she thought people were following her." On June 24, 2013, Jugo's body was washed up on Gilgo Beach.

[billscheft]

My new best friend, Blake Harris, did a clip search on me and uncovered 60 clips from 1982-1993, a few that I recognized and a few I actually clipped myself. One that I missed was this one, a piece I wrote for the New York Daily News about cigars and cigar smokers. It ran in November, 1991, a month after I was hired at Letterman, and was, more than anything, responsible for my being hired there.     Here’s why....    Originally, I had written it as a feature for Esquire, but they passed on it. A  woman named Harriet Lyons, a friend of Adrianne’s, was an editor at the Daily News. I had done a couple of pieces for her. She asked me whatever happened to the cigar story I was researching. I told I had finished it in July, turned it in, they pass, and I had gotten a kill fee, so it was mine. She told me to re-interview all the people I had interviewed to see if they were still smoking, shorten it up and pace it like a newspaper feature, 1500 words. The first re-interview call I made was to Dave, and his assistant, Laurie Diamond, told me he had quit.  But Jack Rollins (his manager and the show’s EP) was still going strong. Okay, fine. That was Wednesday, October 1. That Saturday, Adrianne and I were having brunch at the Friars. Robert Morton, the show-runner EP of “Late Night,” walks in. We know each other for all the years I’d been trying to get on as a comic. He walks up to us and says, “I hear you called the office yesterday....” I say yeah yeah, tell him about my piece. Now, mind you, I had submitted to the show as a writer 5 times over the previous nine years with zero luck. I go up to him before we leave and ask him if they’re looking for any writers. He says no, but he adds, “Just write some jokes. Dave’s always looking for jokes....” I had no gigs the next week, so I decided I would write 10 jokes a day and walk them over to 30 Rock. On Thursday,  October 9, Dave did one of my jokes in his then three-joke monologue. He did another the following night.  Morton told me to sit tight. You fucking sit tight! Adrianne and I did a week of shows in Vegas the next week, but Morton called me Friday to come up to the office the following Monday, October 20. I spent 20 minutes talking to Dave, mostly about cigars. The next day, I was hired. I started the following Monday, October 27, 1991.  A month later this piece came out....

POSTSCRIPT: I was supposed to be paid $250 for the piece, but the week after it ran, the Daily News filed for bankruptcy. Over six years later, February. 1998, the bankruptcy was settled, and I received a check for $14.25. It has remained on the wall of my office -- uncashed.

POSTSCRIPT #2: Laurie Diamond wasn’t lying. Dave had quit smoking cigars. A week after I started, they moved my office next to his and told me to keep my door open. The week after that, he started smoking again. As I used to tell people then, “Well, my work is done here....”

[papermoonloveslucy]

DICK MARTIN

January 30, 1922

Dick Martin was born in Battle Creek Michigan as Thomas Richard Martin. He was best known for his role as the co-host of the sketch comedy program “Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In” from 1968 to 1973. The series won him a 1969 Emmy Award. 

His screen debut came as a background performer in the MGM film Father’s Little Dividend starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor.  He wouldn’t make another film until 1958. 

“I think the most fun I ever had was nightclubs. I loved nightclubs.” ~ Dick Martin

Martin and Dan Rowan formed a comedy team in 1952 and played in nightclubs throughout the United States and overseas. 

His first TV appearance came in November 1956 appearing as with Dan Rowan on “The Walter Winchell Show”.   

In February 1961, Lucille Ball appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” promoting Wildcat by doing songs from the show in character.  Rowan and Martin were on the show that evening, so it is possible that it is here that Lucille Ball first met the pair and cast them on her show. 

In Fall 1962, Dick Martin made his TV acting debut as Harry Connor, Lucy Carmichael’s next-door neighbor and sometimes boyfriend on “The Lucy Show.”  He made ten appearances on the series before his character was written out. His schedule touring with Dan Rowan was difficult for Desilu and Ball did not want her character to have a serious relationship. 

In “Lucy Digs Up a Date” (TLS S1;E2) first aired on October 8, 1962, it is established that Harry is an airline pilot and that he and Lucy have been dating, although their relationship is not serious. The character is referred to in the first act, but only enters during the episode’s final moments. This is the first of his ten appearances on the series - all in season one. He is mentioned but not seen in the series premiere “Lucy Waits Up for Chris“ (TLS S1;E1), where we meet his dog, Tiger.

In “Lucy is a Referee” (TLS S1;E3) aired  on October 15, 1962, Harry coaches Lucy in hand signals when she volunteers to referee her son’s football game. 

When “Lucy Misplaces $2,000″ (TLS S1;E4) on October 22, 1962, Harry tempts Lucy and Viv off their diets by bringing them fresh-baked donuts! 

When “Lucy Becomes an Astronaut” (TLS S1;E6) aired on November 5, 1962, Harry is around to quell Lucy’s nerves about going into a NASA test capsule. 

Episode #11 was originally intended to be a show titled “Lucy and Viv Fight Over Harry,” but it was shut down during rehearsal. The main reason is that it would have firmly established Lucy and Harry as having deep feelings for one another. Dick Martin was not available every week and Lucille Ball did not want her character to have a steady boyfriend. It had already been decided to phase out Harry, so this storyline would have been at cross-purposes with Lucille Ball’s long-range plans for the show and her character. This was the only episode of the series to be shut down while already in production.

Instead, episode #11 became “Lucy Builds a Rumpus Room” (TLS S1;E11) and aired on December 10, 1962. Harry was the intermediary in a serious argument between Lucy and Viv. 

At “Chris’s New Year’s Eve Party” (TLS S1;E14) on December 31, 1962, Harry took a role in Lucy’s silent movie sketch, portraying the waiter to Lucy’s Charlie Chaplin. 

When “Lucy’s Sister Pays a Visit” (TLS S1;E15) on January 7, 1963, Harry was in the wedding party, but does not have any lines in this episode. This is the second episode in a row that the actor hasn’t spoken. Martin was often away on the road with his comedy partner Dan Rowan during filming, so not having to memorize lines suited him fine.  

When “Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower” (TLS S1;E18) on  January 28, 1963, we learn that Harry’s favorite breakfast is Eggs Benedict. 

HARRY: “If you’re going to ask me to elope again, it’s a bad night for it. My ladder’s broken.” 

In “No More Double Dates” (TLS S1;E21) aired on February 18, 1963, it becomes apparent that the magic has gone out of their relationships when Lucy and Harry and Viv and Eddie can’t agree on where to go to dinner or what film to see! 

“Lucy and Viv Learn Judo” (TLS S1;E22) on February 25, 1963, was the final appearance of Dick Martin as Harry Connors. Lucy practices what she has learned on Harry!  Although Martin would not return to the series, his comedy partner Dan Rowan made two appearances in future episodes. 

Dan and Rowan returned to the nightclub circuit until 1966, when they were asked to host the summer replacement series for “The Dean Martin Show.”  They were groomed for the new show when they appeared on a February 1966 “Dean Martin Show” with Lucille Ball as guest.  Martin and Ball were also both part of Martin’s 1968 Christmas show, doing quick cameos announcing the distribution of toys to needy organizations. 

Despite the end to their acting together, Lucille Ball and Dick Martin appeared on many TV game shows, awards shows, specials, and variety shows together over the next 25 years. D

On Dinah Shore’s “Like Hep” (1969) Lucy and Martin recreate a robot version of the famous bench characters made famous on “Laugh-In” by Arte Johnson and Ruth Buzzi.  Meanwhile both Johnson and Buzzi were also guest stars on “Here’s Lucy,” which was programmed against the second half hour of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”.  Lucy was now competing with her former ‘boyfriend’ for viewers! 

Later in the ‘hep’ show, Martin helped Lucy at the barre, in moments instantly reminiscent of “I Love Lucy.” 

Dick Martin was on the dais for “The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Lucille Ball” on February 7, 1975. 

Rowan and Martin played the Wright Brothers and Lucy voiced the Statue of Liberty in “Swing Out Sweet Land,” a November 1970 TV special celebrating American history.  

When Lucille Ball co-hosted “The Mike Douglas Show” in November 1978, Dick Martin was a guest on the final of her five days along with Bob Hope, Joe Namath, and Susan Anton.

In August 1980, Martin and Ball were panelists on “Password Plus.”  

The pair returned for “Password Plus: All-Celebrity Week” in March 1981. 

Martin and Ball were present at “All-Star Parties” for Carol Burnett (1982) and Clint Eastwood (1986). 

The second week in November 1988, Lucille Ball made her last game show appearance on “Super Password” before her passing in 1989. Dick Martin was also a panelist. 

Dick Martin got married to singer Peggy Connelly in 1957 and they had 2 sons before divorcing. In 1971 he married English actress and model Dolly Read. Although they divorced in 1975, they re-married in in 1978 and were together until his death.  

Martin died on May 24, 2008, age 86, of breathing complications. He had lost the use of a lung due to tuberculosis as a teenager and suffered respiratory problems late in life.

[collateral-joy]

[wild-aloof-rebel]

Hey, I often read that the timeline doesn't always makes sense in sc and now I'm curious! Do you have some examples??

oh absolutely. i’ve discussed it with various others in various posts across my blog, but let’s see if i can get most of the highlights in one post.

most of the confusion centers around the timeline of s4, including david’s birthday (and thus the start of his relationship with patrick), a couple throwaway comments about summer, and jocelyn’s pregnancy, so let’s start with that.

this discussion nearly always starts with david’s pin in “moira’s nudes” because he indicates that he uses his birthday as his pin. what he types into the atm is 1282, which would make his birthday either jan 2 1982 or feb 1 1982 depending on whether that’s month-day-year like in the u.s. or day-month-year like most of the rest of the world. HOWEVER, what he tells the teller is 7283, which would make his birthday either jul 2 1983 or feb 7 1983. she does tell him before that that he needs to pick a new pin, so you could assume that 7283 is the new pin and not his birthday, but after he says it out loud, johnny says “what about my birthday?” which implies that what david just said is indeed his own birthday. (plus, i trust a number written into the actual dialogue—and therefore officially part of the script—to be more accurate than whatever dan happened to punch into the machine while filming.) anyway, the point is that we’re already starting from a place of confusion, where we have four potential options for david’s birthdate. so which one is it?

we know from “grad night��� that david’s birthday is on the same day as alexis’s high school graduation. in canada, the school year ends in late june, so it would then make sense for “grad night” to take place in late june/very early july. three of the options for david’s birthday are in january and february, which leaves us with july 2 as the only birthday option that makes sense to be on the same night as alexis’s graduation. okay, cool. that means david’s birthday–and thus david and patrick’s first date–is on july 2. we’re getting somewhere.

in “pregnancy test” jocelyn finds out she’s pregnant. it’s clearly been long enough for her to have noticed and thought she was maybe going through menopause instead. david and patrick have presumably been dating for at least a week or two at this point, though possibly a bit longer. either way, this is most likely still in july (or possibly very early august), and jocelyn is likely about 2 months pregnant at this point.

in “asbestos fest” alexis says “is this the number? it’s the middle of summer.” middle might be a stretch, but feasibly yes, this can certainly still be summer.

in “open mic” jocelyn and roland find out the sex of the baby, which typically happens around 4 to 5 months. that puts us about 2 to 3 months after “pregnancy test” which would mean that the open mic night is taking place in probably late september or into october. so far so good.

“the barbecue” rolls around, and it’s david and patrick’s four month anniversary. that makes it november. weird time of year for a barbecue, and they’re clearly having unseasonably warm weather, but alright, climate change etc etc. we can make this work at a very long stretch.

stevie says david waited “a full week to forgive [patrick]” which means “the olive branch” is a week after rachel shows up. however, stevie also says “you’re wearing a leather sweater in the dead of summer,” which… what?? that can’t be anywhere close to true.

after that is jocelyn’s baby shower, which is typically around the 6 to 8 month mark of a pregnancy. if she was 4 to 5 months in open mic, that puts us somewhere between november and january for the shower.

“singles week” rolls around and jocelyn goes into labor “a few days early” according to johnny. therefore it’s been pretty much a full nine months now. if “pregnancy test” was in july, that puts jocelyn giving birth in about february. which would be fine except…

roland jr. is clearly no more than a few months old in “merry christmas johnny rose.” this definitely can’t be the following christmas or he’d be closer to 10 months old (there’s no way the baby in the carrier is that old). but it also can’t be the preceding christmas because there’s no way he was born then. 

since that doesn’t work, let’s say we shift everything back to david having a january birthday instead, which pushes everything up by six months. that means roland jr. is born in august, which makes the christmas stuff work out a bit better. it also makes stevie’s comment about the leather sweater in the dead of summer better because now it would be taking place in may, when it could theoretically be hot enough out to be considered summer. but then you’ve got the issue of alexis somehow graduating in january, which doesn’t work at all, and you’ve got asbestos fest taking place in february or so, which is by no means “the middle of summer” as alexis says.

the only way that both asbestos fest and david’s olive branch can both take place in summer is if one is at the start of the summer and the other is at the end. if we say then that “the olive branch” takes place in august, that puts david’s birthday and his first date with patrick in april. that gives us roland jr being born around november, which works with the christmas special sort of okay. this is probably the timeline that works best, but it only works if you completely ignore the whole pin situation because NONE of those indicate that david’s birthday could be in april.

everything about the timeline works like this. you have to pick and choose what aspects of it to ignore to make the rest work. david can be born in july if you ignore stevie’s comment about summer in “the olive branch” and roland jr. somehow being born before christmas. david can be be born in january if you ignore asbestos fest taking place in summer and the timing of alexis’s graduation. david can be born in april if you ignore alexis’s graduation and “moira’s nudes” which means ofc assuming that he doesn’t know his own damn birthdate.

i think we’ve collectively mostly decided from that to stick with july 2 even though it causes issues (as all options do) because a) it’s the pin that david actually says aloud, b) it really is the only one that works with “grad night," and c) since it’s the one he actually says aloud, that means it’s [presumably] what was written into the script

that same principle applies elsewhere too. like moira’s career.

she says in “ronnie’s party” that she had a 6 ½ season television career.

in “wine and roses” johnny mentions her being on seasons 3, 4, and 5. that puts her on the show somewhere between seasons 1 and 9. if she started in s1, she was on it through part of s7; if she started in s3, she was on it through part of s9. (all of that is presuming that her seasons were consecutive, of course.)

in “rock on!” we see a training video that was clearly made in the 80s where moira is looking for a tape from s21 of sunrise bay. if we say the training video was made in ‘89 at the latest with s21 having aired that same year, that puts s1 as taking place in 1968 and thus moira having acted on the show somewhere between 1968 and 1977.

in “a whisper of desire” moira says she was cast in cabaret in 1979 at the age of 17 (david says she was not actually 17, and therefore she was probably at least a few years older). either way, this seems to be her first acting job (or at least before she hits it big in any way) as she says she was working at a gas station at the time. but if her big break came in 1979, she definitely couldn’t have been on sunrise bay prior to that. to compound on that, even if she was a few years older than 17 at that point, that would still make her a teenager during at least part of 1968 - 1977 and from what she’s said about the plots on sunrise bay, it seems unlikely that she was a teenager when she was filming it (she played her own father, for instance). that means she must have been on sunrise bay sometime after 1979, but then there’s no way that s21 would have happened sometime in 1989 or earlier OR moira was not on s3, s4, and s5. 

just to throw an extra wrench into all of it, in “rip moira rose” they also indicate that she was projected to be nominated for 12 daytime emmys, which doesn’t really work with only having been on the show for 6 ½ seasons. (some of those could be for guest star work on other shows perhaps, but that’s a whole lot of guest roles to be nominated for, especially since nothing else she’s ever said about her career indicates that she did that at all)

just like with all the stuff with david’s birthday and roland jr., you can make some of that work together, but you’re gonna have to pick and choose what to ignore in order to get there. that’s the kind of stuff we mean when we say the timeline is a mess. in the broadest of strokes, if you squint, it all kinda comes together. but when you start looking at the details of it, you can’t get all of it to fit neatly into place

[gracie-bird]

For Princess Grace: a rendezvous with memory.

Written by Jennifer Chu. (Taiwan Today. June 01, 1982).

"May she sail in peace, safely and prosperity, and may God bless her and all who sail in her," said Princess Grace of Monaco as she christened the rebuilt S.S. Constitution, one of the world's best known oceangoing passenger liners.

Accompanied by Prince Rainier III, the former American actress broke the traditional bottle of champagne over the bow of the refurbished ship to symbolize a new life for the 31-year-old liner, officially reborn at the Kaohsiung Shipyard, Taiwan, Republic of China, April 20, 1982.

For Princess Grace, the long trip to the Republic of China was a rendezvous with memory. She and Prince Rainier were, in turn, dinner hosts and dinner guests of ROC Premier Sun Yun-suan. And they took time out to visit many special places, such as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and The National Palace Museum. But her supreme moment came as she rechristened the newly rebuilt luxury liner. This ship is "close to my heart," she said, recalling the voyage, 26 years ago, which took her from sparkling stardom in Hollywood to a storybook royal marriage.

One of the largest and most modern passenger ships to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the S.S., Constitution, first christened and launched in 1951 in the U.S., was once camouflaged for war duty during World War II. The disguised passenger liner carried whole divisions (about 10,000 soldiers) each trip as a military transport for Allied Forces during the war.

The movie “An Affair to Remember," starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant, was shot aboard the ship, and her elegance and grandeur were displayed magnificently in the film. But after 20 years of service, the S.S. Constitution began losing money and was sold to the Atlantic Far East Lines, part of the C. Y. Tung group of Hong Kong.

While the ship lay idle in waters off Hong Kong, the late C.Y. Tung – who passed away several days before the christening ceremony - never forgot his ambition to return the liner to her former glory.

For complete remodeling and redecoration, the 30,000-ton vessel was towed to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in February last year. It was put into the hands of the China Shipbuilding Corp. (CSBC), which has an international reputation for technique, quality products and efficient service. The S.S. Constitution was so badly worn that workmen in the shipyard had presumed she would be scrapped.

Instead, she was reconstructed from bows to stern, inside out.

Over one-third of the ship's hull was replaced, "Totally, an estimated 200 tons of steel plate was used," said Chu Huey-chiun, chief engineer of CSBC. Four boilers and two dynamos now operate smoothly after replacement of 40,000 pipe lengths and fittings. The ship will again attain a vaunted cruising speed of 26 knots, a standard for high-class passenger liners.

In 30 years, living standards and entertainment styles have changed so greatly as to necessitate rearrangement of the ship's interior to cater to modern desires. Thus, after three months' work, a disco club, instead of a ballroom for the waltz, took shape in the area of the second main floor, near the stern, Next, workmen began restoring a night club and building a swimming pool. “It took us another three months to convert an old hold into a beautiful pool," said Mr. Chu.

After 14 months of work and a cost in excess of US$20 million, the S.S. Constitution has not only been returned to the luxury she knew on her maiden voyage, but has also been transformed into a technologically up-to-date abode. Within her nine stories of accommodations are 423 rooms for up to 1,085 passengers, seven automatic elevators, two swimming pools, one children's recreation center, a night club, a 600-seat movie house, a 700-seat restaurant, and a hospital fit for surgical operations.

As an old Chinese saying has it, “A man looks elegant only after being dressed up; a Buddha appears all-powerful only after being gilded." The S.S. Constitution could not become so magnificent without elaborate redecoration.

A few years ago, people's tastes in interior decoration were relatively conservative, Now, three decades since the ship's original launching, people are again fond of design luxury. After consulting experts from the U.S, and Japan, CSBC decided to redecorate the S.S. Constitution in a classical romantic style.

“We had prior experience working on the S.S. Independence, the sister ship of the S.S. Constitution, so we had little trouble with basic reconstruction. But we really had a difficult time with the redecorating work," commented a CSBC executive. High quality and good prices led first to local materials. But to meet ship fireproofing standards of the U.S Coast Guard, foreign products were finally used for decoration.

Decorative items were imported from Italy, America, and other countries. Even lamp shades were imported. The cost of decoration approached US$10 million. For instance, the inlaid French windows in the main lobby cost US$10,000 apiece, and long-fiber rugs, on which a lighted cigarette will ex­tinguish automatically, cost at least US$5,000 a-roll. Color TVs, stereos, and sea-to-land direct dial telephones are provided in each guest room.

In the middle of May, the S.S. Constitution was delivered by the Kao­hsiung Shipyard to her new owner, American Global Line Inc. Flying an American flag, the ship will offer 7-day cruises off the Hawaiian Islands.

Carrying the memories of Princess Grace and other famous personages, the S.S. Constitution will now serve a new generation of travelers into the future, satisfying the vision of the late C.Y. Tung and repaying the effort and dedica­tion of the men who worked to rebuild her. 

*Original article here.

[blackkudos]

Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor, and filmmaker. A guitar virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist known for his eclectic genre-crossing work, flamboyant and androgynous persona, energetic live shows and wide-ranging singing voice, in particular his far reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams, he is regarded as one of the greatest, versatile and most successful musicians in the history of popular music. His innovative music integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, rock, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. Prince pioneered the late 1970s Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre drawing from synth-pop and new wave.

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Prince developed an interest in music as a young child and wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", at the age of seven. He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records at the age of 19, and released his debut album For You in 1978. Following up with his next four albums—Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982)—Prince gained critical success, prominently showcasing his explicit lyrics as well as his blending of funk, dance, and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as The Revolution and released his sixth album Purple Rain, which was also the soundtrack to his hugely successful film acting debut of the same name. It quickly became his most commercially successful record, spending 24 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200. The film itself was critically and commercially successful and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, the last film to receive the award.

Following the disbandment of The Revolution, Prince released the critically acclaimed double album Sign o' the Times (1987). He released three more solo albums—Lovesexy (1988), the Batman soundtrack (1989), and the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack (1990)—before debuting his New Power Generation backing band in 1991. In the midst of a contractual dispute with Warner Bros. in 1993, Prince changed his stage name to the unpronounceable symbol , known to fans as the "Love Symbol", and began releasing new albums at a faster rate in order to quickly meet his contract quota and release himself from further obligations to the record label. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before he signed with Arista Records in 1998. He began referring to himself as "Prince" again in 2000 and subsequently released 16 albums, including Musicology (2004), his most successful album of that decade. His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service in 2015.

In April 2016, at the age of 57, Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park home and recording studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. He sold over 100 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He was also honored with special awards including the Grammy President's Merit Award, American Music Awards for Achievement and of Merit, and the Billboard Icon Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2016, he was posthumously honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Minnesota. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Early life

Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of jazz singer Mattie Della (née Shaw) and pianist and songwriter John Lewis Nelson. All four of his grandparents hailed from Louisiana. Prince was given his father's stage name, Prince Rogers, which his father used while performing with his mother in a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In 1991, Prince's father told A Current Affair that he named his son Prince because he wanted Prince "to do everything I wanted to do". Prince was not fond of his name and wanted people to instead call him Skipper, a name which stuck throughout his childhood. Prince has said he was "born epileptic" and had seizures when he was young. He stated, "My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so.'"

Prince's younger sister, Tyka, was born on May 18, 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, which was encouraged by their father. Prince wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", on his father's piano when he was seven. Prince's parents divorced when he was 10. His mother remarried to Hayward Baker, with whom she had a son named Omarr; Prince had a fraught relationship with his half brother Baker to the extent that it caused him to repeatedly switch homes, sometimes living with his father and sometimes with his mother and stepfather. Baker took Prince to see James Brown in concert, and Prince credited Baker with improving the family's finances. After a brief period of living with his father, who bought him his first guitar, Prince moved into the basement of the Anderson family, his neighbors, after his father kicked him out. He befriended the Andersons' son, Andre, who later collaborated with Prince and became known as André Cymone.

Prince attended Minneapolis' Bryant Junior High and then Central High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He was a student at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Urban Arts Program of Minneapolis Public Schools. He played on Central's junior varsity basketball team, and continued to play basketball recreationally as an adult. Prince met songwriter and producer Jimmy Jam in 1973 and impressed Jimmy with his musical talent, early mastery of a wide range of instruments and work ethic.

Career

1975–1984: Beginnings and breakthrough – For You

In 1975, Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin Shauntel, formed the band 94 East with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry, hiring André Cymone and Prince to record tracks. Willie wrote the songs, and Prince contributed guitar tracks, and Prince and Willie co-wrote the 94 East song, "Just Another Sucker". The band recorded tracks which later became the album Minneapolis Genius – The Historic 1977 Recordings. In 1976, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon, in Moon's Minneapolis studio. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Owen Husney, a Minneapolis businessman, who signed Prince, age 19, to a management contract, and helped him create a demo at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis (with producer/engineer David Z). The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney's ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies including Warner Bros. Records, A&M Records, and Columbia Records.

With the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. The record company agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and retain his publishing rights. Husney and Prince then left Minneapolis and moved to Sausalito, California, where Prince's first album, For You, was recorded at Record Plant Studios. The album was mixed in Los Angeles and released on April 7, 1978. According to the For You album notes, Prince wrote, produced, arranged, composed, and played all 27 instruments on the recording, except for the song "Soft and Wet", whose lyrics were co-written by Moon. The cost of recording the album was twice Prince's initial advance. Prince used the Prince's Music Co. to publish his songs. "Soft and Wet" reached No. 12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Just as Long as We're Together" reached No. 91 on the Hot Soul Singles chart.

In 1979, Prince created a band with André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums. Their first show was at the Capri Theater on January 5, 1979. Warner Bros. executives attended the show but decided that Prince and the band needed more time to develop his music. In October 1979, Prince released the album Prince, which was No. 4 on the Billboard Top R&B/Black Albums charts and No. 22 on the Billboard 200, and went platinum. It contained two R&B hits: "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover", which sold over a million copies, and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 for two weeks on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince performed both these songs on January 26, 1980, on American Bandstand. On this album, Prince used Ecnirp Music – BMI.

In 1980, Prince released the album Dirty Mind, which contained sexually explicit material, including the title song, "Head", and the song "Sister", and was described by Stephen Thomas Erlewine as a "stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock." Recorded in Prince's own studio, this album was certified gold, and the single "Uptown" reached No. 5 on the Billboard Dance chart and No. 5 on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James' 1980 Fire It Up tour.

In February 1981, Prince made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing "Partyup". In October 1981, Prince released the album, Controversy. He played several dates in support of it, as the first of three opening acts for the Rolling Stones, on their US tour. In Los Angeles, Prince was forced off the stage after just three songs by audience members throwing trash at him. He began 1982 with a small tour of college towns where he was the headlining act. The songs on Controversy were published by Controversy Music – ASCAP, a practice he continued until the Emancipation album in 1996. By 2002, MTV News noted that "[n]ow all of his titles, liner notes, and Web postings are written in his own shorthand spelling, as seen on 1999's Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, which featured 'Hot Wit U.'"

In 1981, Prince formed a side project band called the Time. The band released four albums between 1981 and 1990, with Prince writing and performing most of the instrumentation and backing vocals (sometimes credited under the pseudonyms "Jamie Starr" or "The Starr Company"), with lead vocals by Morris Day. In late 1982, Prince released a double album, 1999, which sold over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became Prince's first top 10 hit in countries outside the US. Prince's "Little Red Corvette" was one of the first two videos by black artists (along with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean") played in heavy rotation on MTV, which had been perceived as against "black music" until CBS President Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all CBS videos. Prince and Jackson had a competitive rivalry, not just on musical success, but also athletically too. The song "Delirious" also placed in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "International Lover" earned Prince his first Grammy Award nomination at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards.

1984–1987: The Revolution – Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day and Parade

During this period Prince referred to his band as the Revolution. The band's name was also printed, in reverse, on the cover of 1999 inside the letter "I" of the word "Prince". The band consisted of Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and Dez Dickerson on guitar. Jill Jones, a backing singer, was also part of the lineup for the 1999 album and tour. Following the 1999 Tour, Dickerson left the group for religious reasons. In the book Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince (2003), author Alex Hahn says that Dickerson was reluctant to sign a three-year contract and wanted to pursue other musical ventures. Dickerson was replaced by Coleman's friend Wendy Melvoin. At first the band was used sparsely in the studio, but this gradually changed during 1983.

According to his former manager Bob Cavallo, in the early 1980s Prince required his management to obtain a deal for him to star in a major motion picture, despite the fact that his exposure at that point was limited to several pop and R&B hits, music videos and occasional TV performances. This resulted in the hit film Purple Rain (1984), which starred Prince and was loosely autobiographical, and the eponymous studio album, which was also the soundtrack to the film. The Purple Rain album sold more than 13 million copies in the US and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film won Prince an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and grossed over $68 million in the US ($167 million in 2019 dollars). Songs from the film were hits on pop charts around the world; "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" reached No. 1, and the title track reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the No. 1 album, single, and film in the US; it was the first time a singer had achieved this feat. The Purple Rain album is ranked 72nd in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; it is also included on the list of Time magazine's All-Time 100 Albums. The album also produced two of Prince's first three Grammy Awards earned at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards—Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.

In 1984, pop artist Andy Warhol created the painting Orange Prince (1984). Andy Warhol was fascinated by Prince, and ultimately created a total of twelve unique paintings of him in different colorways, all of which were kept in Warhol's personal collection. Four of these paintings are now in the collection of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. In November 1984, Vanity Fair published Warhol's portrait to accompany the article Purple Fame by Tristan Fox, and claimed that Warhol's silkscreen image of Prince with its pop colors captured the recording artist "at the height of his powers". The Vanity Fair article was one of the first global media pieces written as a critical appreciation of the musician, which coincided with the start of the 98-date Purple Rain Tour.

After Tipper Gore heard her 11-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince's song "Darling Nikki" (which gained wide notoriety for its sexual lyrics and a reference to masturbation), she founded the Parents Music Resource Center. The center advocated the mandatory use of a warning label ("Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics") on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors. The recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request.

In 1985, Prince announced that he would discontinue live performances and music videos after the release of his next album. His subsequent recording, Around the World in a Day (1985), held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for three weeks. From that album, the single "Raspberry Beret" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Pop Life" reached No. 7.

In 1986, his album Parade reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The first single, "Kiss", with the video choreographed by Louis Falco, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (The song was originally written for a side project called Mazarati.) In the same year, the song "Manic Monday", written by Prince and recorded by the Bangles, reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart. The album Parade served as the soundtrack for Prince's second film, Under the Cherry Moon (1986). Prince directed and starred in the movie, which also featured Kristin Scott Thomas. Although the Parade album went platinum and sold two million copies, the film Under the Cherry Moon received a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (tied with Howard the Duck), and Prince received Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director, Worst Actor, and Worst Original Song (for the song "Love or Money").

In 1986, Prince began a series of live performances called the Hit n Run – Parade Tour. After the tour Prince disbanded the Revolution and fired Wendy & Lisa. Brown Mark quit the band; keyboardist Doctor Fink remained. Prince recruited new band members Miko Weaver on guitar, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, and Eric Leeds on saxophone.

1987–1991: Solo again – Sign o' the Times, Lovesexy, Batman and Grafitti Bridge

Prior to the disbanding of the Revolution, Prince was working on two separate projects, the Revolution album Dream Factory and a solo effort, Camille. Unlike the three previous band albums, Dream Factory included input from the band members and featured songs with lead vocals by Wendy & Lisa. The Camille project saw Prince create a new androgynous persona primarily singing in a sped-up, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of the Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled Crystal Ball. Warner Bros. forced Prince to trim the triple album to a double album, and Sign o' the Times was released on March 31, 1987.

The album peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The first single, "Sign o' the Times", charted at No. 3 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "If I Was Your Girlfriend", charted at No. 67 on the Hot 100 but went to No. 12 on R&B chart. The third single, a duet with Sheena Easton, "U Got the Look", charted at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 11 on the R&B chart, and the final single, "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man", finished at No. 10 on Hot 100 and No. 14 on the R&B chart.

It was named the top album of the year by the Pazz & Jop critics' poll and sold 3.2 million copies. In Europe, it performed well, and Prince promoted the album overseas with a lengthy tour. Putting together a new backing band from the remnants of the Revolution, Prince added bassist Levi Seacer Jr., keyboardist Boni Boyer, and dancer/choreographer Cat Glover to go with new drummer Sheila E and holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford, and Greg Brooks) for the Sign o' the Times Tour.

The Sign o' the Times tour was a success overseas, and Warner Bros. and Prince's managers wanted to bring it to the US to promote sales of the album; Prince balked at a full US tour, as he was ready to produce a new album. As a compromise, the last two nights of the tour were filmed for release in movie theaters. The film quality was deemed subpar, and reshoots were performed at Prince's Paisley Park studios. The film Sign o' the Times was released on November 20, 1987. The film got better reviews than Under the Cherry Moon, but its box-office receipts were minimal, and it quickly left theaters.

The next album intended for release was The Black Album. More instrumental and funk- and R&B-themed than recent releases, The Black Album also saw Prince experiment with hip hop on the songs "Bob George" and "Dead on It". Prince was set to release the album with a monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but after 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled. It was later released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994.

Prince went back in the studio for eight weeks and recorded Lovesexy. Released on May 10, 1988, Lovesexy serves as a spiritual opposite to the dark The Black Album. Every song is a solo effort by Prince, except "Eye No", which was recorded with his backing band at the time. Lovesexy reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single, "Alphabet St.", peaked at No. 8 on the Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B chart; it sold 750,000 copies.

Prince again took his post-Revolution backing band (minus the Bodyguards) on a three-leg, 84-show Lovesexy World Tour; although the shows were well-received by huge crowds, they failed to make a net profit due to the expensive sets and props.

In 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna's studio album Like a Prayer, co-writing and singing the duet "Love Song" and playing electric guitar (uncredited) on the songs "Like a Prayer", "Keep It Together", and "Act of Contrition". He also began work on several musical projects, including Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic and early drafts of his Graffiti Bridge film, but both were put on hold when he was asked by Batman (1989) director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989. Batman peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 4.3 million copies. The single "Batdance" topped the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.

The single "The Arms of Orion", with Sheena Easton, charted at No. 36, and "Partyman" (also featuring the vocals of Prince's then-girlfriend, nicknamed Anna Fantastic) charted at No. 18 on the Hot 100 and at No. 5 on the R&B chart, while the love ballad "Scandalous!" went to No. 5 on the R&B chart. Prince had to sign away all publishing rights to the songs on the album to Warner Bros. as part of the deal to do the soundtrack.

In 1990, Prince went back on tour with a revamped band for his back-to-basics Nude Tour. With the departures of Boni Boyer, Sheila E., the horns, and Cat, Prince brought in keyboardist Rosie Gaines, drummer Michael Bland, and dancing trio the Game Boyz (Tony M., Kirky J., and Damon Dickson). The European and Japanese tour was a financial success with a short, greatest hits setlist. As the year progressed, Prince finished production on his fourth film, Graffiti Bridge (1990), and the 1990 album of the same name. Initially, Warner Bros. was reluctant to fund the film, but with Prince's assurances it would be a sequel to Purple Rain as well as the involvement of the original members of the Time, the studio greenlit the project. Released on August 20, 1990, the album reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and R&B albums chart. The single "Thieves in the Temple" reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B chart; "Round and Round" placed at No. 12 on the US charts and No. 2 on the R&B charts. The song featured the teenage Tevin Campbell (who also had a role in the film) on lead vocals. The film, released on November 20, 1990, was a box-office flop, grossing $4.2 million. After the release of the film and album, the last remaining members of the Revolution, Miko Weaver, and Doctor Fink, left Prince's band.

1991–1996: The New Power Generation and name change – from Diamonds and Pearls to Chaos and Disorder

1991, that started with a performance in Rock in Rio II, marked the debut of Prince's new band, the New Power Generation. With guitarist Miko Weaver and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink gone, Prince added bass player Sonny T., Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, and a brass section known as the Hornheads to go along with Levi Seacer (taking over on guitar), Rosie Gaines, Michael Bland, and the Game Boyz. With significant input from his band members, Diamonds and Pearls was released on October 1, 1991. Reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album chart, Diamonds and Pearls saw four hit singles released in the United States. "Gett Off" peaked at No. 21 on the Hot 100 and No. 6 on the R&B charts, followed by "Cream", which gave Prince his fifth US No. 1 single. The title track "Diamonds and Pearls" became the album's third single, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 100 and the top spot on the R&B charts. "Money Don't Matter 2 Night" peaked at No. 23 and No. 14 on the Hot 100 and R&B charts respectively.

In 1992, Prince and the New Power Generation released his twelfth album, bearing only an unpronounceable symbol on the cover (later copyrighted as "Love Symbol #2") as its title. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. The symbol was explained as being a combination of the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀). The label wanted "7" to be the first single, but Prince fought to place "My Name Is Prince" in that slot, as he "felt that the song's more hip-hoppery would appeal to the same audience" that had purchased the previous album. Prince got his way, but "My Name Is Prince" reached No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 23 on the R&B chart. The follow-up single "Sexy MF" charted at No. 66 on the Hot 100 and No. 76 on the R&B chart. The label's preferred lead single choice "7" reached No. 7. The album, which would later be referred to as Love Symbol, went on to sell 2.8 million copies worldwide.

After two failed attempts in 1990 and 1991, Warner Bros. released a greatest hits compilation with the three-disc The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993. The first two discs were also sold separately as The Hits 1 and The Hits 2. The collection features the majority of Prince's hit singles (with the exception of "Batdance" and other songs that appeared on the Batman soundtrack), and several previously hard-to-find recordings, including B-sides spanning the majority of Prince's career, as well as some previously unreleased tracks such as the Revolution-recorded "Power Fantastic" and a live recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" with Rosie Gaines. Two new songs, "Pink Cashmere" and "Peach", were chosen as promotional singles to accompany the compilation album.

In 1993, in rebellion against Warner Bros., which refused to release Prince's enormous backlog of music at a steady pace, Prince officially adopted the aforementioned "Love Symbol" as his stage name. In order to use the symbol in print media, Warner Bros. had to organize a mass mailing of floppy disks with a custom font. At this time, Prince was referred to as the "Artist Formerly Known as Prince" or the "Artist".

In 1994, Prince began to release albums in quick succession as a means of releasing himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. He also began appearing with the word "slave" written on his face. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of Love Symbol, claiming they had marketed it insufficiently. It was out of these developments that the aborted The Black Album was officially released, seven years after its initial recording. The "new" release was already in wide circulation as a bootleg. Warner Bros. then succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled Come.

Bruno Bergonzi co-wrote with Michele Vicino the song "Takin’ Me to Paradise", published on 1983. The session vocalist was Raynard. J. The song appeared on a number of compilations, which was internationally distributed. An Italian court ruled on 2003 that Prince's 1994 hit, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, was a plagiarism from the song by the two Italian writers. Bergonzi and Vicino won on appeal in 2007. The third and final sentence, by the Court of Cassation of Rome is dated May 2015. Italian collecting society SIAE recognizes Bergonzi and Vicino as the authors of The Most Most Beautiful Girl in the World music.

Prince pushed to have his next album The Gold Experience released simultaneously with Love Symbol-era material. Warner Bros. allowed the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in many other countries, but it did not prove to be a model for subsequent releases. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing The Gold Experience, fearing poor sales and citing "market saturation" as a defense. When released in September 1995, The Gold Experience reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 initially. The album is now out of print.

Chaos and Disorder, released in 1996, was Prince's final album of new material for Warner Bros., as well as one of his least commercially successful releases.

1996–2000: Free at last – Emancipation, Crystal Ball and Rave

Free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., Prince attempted a major comeback later that year with the release of Emancipation, a 36-song, 3-CD set (each disc was exactly 60 minutes long). The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs on Emancipation, Prince did not use Controversy Music – ASCAP, which he had used for all his records since 1981, but rather used Emancipated Music Inc. – ASCAP.

Certified Platinum by the RIAA, Emancipation is the first record featuring covers by Prince of songs of other artists: Joan Osborne's top ten hit song of 1995 "One of Us"; "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed); "I Can't Make You Love Me" (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid); and "La-La (Means I Love You)" (written by Thom Bell and William Hart).

Prince released Crystal Ball, a five-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was disorderly, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was shipped; these pre-orders were delivered months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The retail edition has only four discs, as it is missing the Kamasutra disc. There are also two different packaging editions for retail; one is a four-disc sized jewel case with a white cover and the Love Symbol in a colored circle while the other contains all four discs in a round translucent snap jewel case. The discs are the same, as is the CD jacket. The Newpower Soul album was released three months later. His collaborations on Chaka Khan's Come 2 My House and Larry Graham's GCS2000, both released on the NPG Records label around the same time as Newpower Soul, were promoted by live appearances on Vibe with Sinbad and the NBC Today show's Summer Concert Series.

In 1999, Prince once again signed with a major label, Arista Records, to release a new record, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale, a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career.

The pay-per-view concert, Rave Un2 the Year 2000, was broadcast on December 31, 1999, and consisted of footage from the December 17 and 18 concerts of his 1999 tour. The concert featured appearances by guest musicians including Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton, Jimmy Russell, and The Time. It was released to home video the following year.

2000–2007: Turnaround – Musicology and 3121

On May 16, 2000, Prince stopped using the Love Symbol moniker as his name, after his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell expired. In a press conference, he stated that after being freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name "Prince", he would revert to using his real name. Prince continued to use the symbol as a logo and on album artwork and to play a Love Symbol-shaped guitar. For several years following the release of Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Prince primarily released new music through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com which later became the NPGMusicClub.com. Albums from this period are Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic (2001), The Rainbow Children (2001), One Nite Alone... (2002), Xpectation (2003), C-Note (2004), The Chocolate Invasion (2004) and The Slaughterhouse (2004).

In 2001, Warner Bros. released a second compilation album The Very Best of Prince containing most of his commercially successful singles from the eighties.

In 2002, Prince released his first live album, One Nite Alone... Live!, which features performances from the One Nite Alone...Tour. The 3-CD box set also includes a disc of "aftershow" music entitled It Ain't Over!. During this time, Prince sought to engage more effectively with his fan base via the NPG Music Club, pre-concert sound checks, and at yearly "celebrations" at Paisley Park, his music studios. Fans were invited into the studio for tours, interviews, discussions and music-listening sessions. Some of these fan discussions were filmed for an unreleased documentary, directed by Kevin Smith.

On February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards with Beyoncé. In a performance that opened the show, they performed a medley of "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star", and Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love". The following month, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The award was presented to him by Alicia Keys along with Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast. As well as performing a trio of his own hits during the ceremony, Prince also participated in a tribute to fellow inductee George Harrison in a rendering of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", playing a two-minute guitar solo that ended the song. He also performed the song "Red House" as "Purple House" on the album Power of Soul: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix.

In April 2004, Prince released Musicology through a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose as high as the top five on some international charts (including the US, UK, Germany, and Australia). The US chart success was assisted by the CDs being included as part of the concert ticket purchase, thereby qualifying each CD (as chart rules then stood) to count toward US chart placement. Three months later, Spin named him the greatest frontman of all time.That same year, Rolling Stone magazine named Prince as the highest-earning musician in the world, with an annual income of $56.5 million, largely due to his Musicology Tour, which Pollstar named as the top concert draw among musicians in the US. He played 96 concerts; the average ticket price for a show was US$61 (equivalent to $83 in 2019). Musicology went on to receive two Grammy wins, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Call My Name" and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the title track. Musicology was also nominated for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Album, and "Cinnamon Girl" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Rolling Stone ranked Prince No. 27 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

In April 2005, Prince played guitar (along with En Vogue singing backing vocals) on Stevie Wonder's single "So What the Fuss", Wonder's first since 1999.

In late 2005, Prince signed with Universal Music to release his album, 3121, on March 21, 2006. The first single was "Te Amo Corazón", the video for which was directed by actress Salma Hayek and filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, featuring Argentine actress and singer Mía Maestro. The video for the second single, "Black Sweat", was nominated at the MTV VMAs for Best Cinematography. The immediate success of 3121 gave Prince his first No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 with the album.

To promote the new album, Prince was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on February 4, 2006, 17 years after his last SNL appearance on the 15th anniversary special, and nearly 25 years since his first appearance on a regular episode in 1981.

At the 2006 Webby Awards on June 12, Prince received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his "visionary use of the Internet to distribute music and connect with audiences", exemplified by his decision to release his album Crystal Ball (1998) exclusively online.

In July 2006, weeks after winning a Webby Award, Prince shut down his NPG Music Club website, after more than five years of operation. On the day of the music club's shutdown, a lawsuit was filed against Prince by the British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group, also NPG). Despite these events occurring on the same day, Prince's attorney stated that the site did not close due to the trademark dispute.

Prince appeared at multiple award ceremonies in 2006: on February 15, he performed at the 2006 Brit Awards, along with Wendy & Lisa and Sheila E., and on June 27, Prince appeared at the 2006 BET Awards, where he was awarded Best Male R&B Artist. Prince performed a medley of Chaka Khan songs for Khan's BET Lifetime Achievement Award.

In November 2006, Prince was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame; he appeared to collect his award but did not perform. Also in November 2006, Prince opened a nightclub called 3121, in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. He performed weekly on Friday and Saturday nights until April 2007, when his contract with the Rio ended. On August 22, 2006, Prince released Ultimate Prince. The double-disc set contains one CD of previous hits, and another of extended versions and mixes of material that had largely only previously been available on vinyl record B-sides. That same year, Prince wrote and performed a song for the hit animated film Happy Feet (2006). The song, "The Song of the Heart", appears on the film's soundtrack, which also features a cover of Prince's earlier hit "Kiss", sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In January 2007, "The Song of the Heart" won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

2007–2010: Super Bowl XLI – Planet Earth and Lotusflower

On February 2, 2007, Prince played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference, and the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show in Miami, Florida, on February 4, 2007, on a large stage shaped like his symbol. The event was carried to 140 million television viewers, his biggest ever audience. In 2015, Billboard.com ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever.

Prince played 21 concerts in London during mid-2007. The Earth Tour included 21 nights at the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena, with Maceo Parker in his band. Tickets for the O2 Arena were capped by Prince at £31.21 ($48.66). The residency at the O2 Arena was increased to 15 nights after all 140,000 tickets for the original seven sold out in 20 minutes. It was then further extended to 21 nights.

Prince performed with Sheila E. at the 2007 ALMA Awards. On June 28, 2007, the Mail on Sunday stated that it had made a deal to give Prince's new album, Planet Earth, away for free with the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. This move sparked controversy among music distributors and also led the UK arm of Prince's distributor, Sony BMG, to withdraw from distributing the album in UK stores. The UK's largest high street music retailer, HMV, stocked the paper on release day due to the giveaway. On July 7, 2007, Prince returned to Minneapolis to perform three shows. He performed concerts at the Macy's Auditorium (to promote his new perfume "3121") on Nicollet Mall, the Target Center arena, and First Avenue. It was the first time he had played at First Avenue (the club appeared in the film Purple Rain) since 1987.

From 2008, Prince was managed by UK-based Kiran Sharma. On April 25, 2008, Prince performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where he debuted a new song, "Turn Me Loose". Days after, he headlined the 2008 Coachella Festival. Prince was paid more than $5 million for his performance at Coachella, according to Reuters.Prince canceled a concert, planned at Dublin's Croke Park on June 16, 2008, at 10 days' notice. In October 2009 promoters MCD Productions went to court to sue him for €1.6 million to refund 55,126 tickets. Prince settled the case out of court in February 2010 for $2.95 million. During the trial, it was said that Prince had been offered $22 million for seven concerts as part of a proposed 2008 European tour. In October 2008, Prince released a live album entitled Indigo Nights, a collection of songs performed live at aftershows in the IndigO2.

On December 18, 2008, Prince premiered four songs from his new album on LA's Indie rock radio station Indie 103.1. The radio station's programmers Max Tolkoff and Mark Sovel had been invited to Prince's home to hear the new rock-oriented music. Prince gave them a CD with four songs to premiere on their radio station. The music debuted the next day on Jonesy's Jukebox, hosted by former Sex Pistol Steve Jones.

On January 3, 2009, the new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming and selling some of the recently aired material and concert tickets. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: "Disco Jellyfish", and "Another Boy". "Chocolate Box", "Colonized Mind", and "All This Love" were later released on the website. Prince released a triple album set containing Lotusflower, MPLSoUND, and an album credited to Bria Valente, called Elixer, on March 24, 2009, followed by a physical release on March 29.

On July 18, 2009, Prince performed two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, backed by the New Power Generation including Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto and John Blackwell. On October 11, 2009, he gave two surprise concerts at the Grand Palais. On October 12, he gave another surprise performance at La Cigale. On October 24, Prince played a concert at Paisley Park.

2010–2012: 20Ten

In January 2010, Prince wrote a new song, "Purple and Gold", inspired by his visit to a Minnesota Vikings football game against the Dallas Cowboys. The following month, Prince let Minneapolis-area public radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song "Cause and Effect" as a gesture in support of independent radio.

In 2010, Prince was listed in Time's annual ranking of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".

Prince released a new single on Minneapolis radio station 89.3 The Current called "Hot Summer" on June 7, his 52nd birthday. Also in June, Prince appeared on the cover of the July 2010 issue of Ebony, and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 BET Awards.

Prince released his album 20Ten in July 2010 as a free covermount with publications in the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France. He refused album access to digital download services and closed LotusFlow3r.com.

On July 4, 2010, Prince began his 20Ten Tour, a concert tour in two legs with shows in Europe. The second leg began on October 15 and ended with a concert following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 14. The second half of the tour had a new band, John Blackwell, Ida Kristine Nielsen, and Sheila E. Prince let Europe 1 debut the snippet of his new song "Rich Friends" from the new album 20Ten Deluxe on October 8, 2010. Prince started the Welcome 2 Tour on December 15, 2010.

Prince was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame on December 7, 2010.

On February 12, 2011, Prince presented Barbra Streisand with an award and donated $1.5 million to charities. On the same day, it was reported that he had not authorized the television show Glee to cover his hit "Kiss", in an episode that had already been filmed.

Prince headlined the Hop Farm Festival on July 3, 2011, marking his first UK show since 2007 and his first ever UK festival appearance.

Despite having previously rejected the Internet for music distribution, on November 24, 2011, Prince released a reworked version of the previously unreleased song "Extraloveable" through both iTunes and Spotify. Purple Music, a Switzerland-based record label, released a CD single "Dance 4 Me" on December 12, 2011, as part of a club remixes package including the Bria Valente CD single "2 Nite" released on February 23, 2012. The CD features club remixes by Jamie Lewis and David Alexander, produced by Prince.

2013–2016: 3rdEyeGirl – Return to Warner Bros. and final years

In January 2013, Prince released a lyric video for a new song called "Screwdriver". In April 2013, Prince announced a West Coast tour titled Live Out Loud Tour with 3rdeyegirl as his backing band. The final two dates of the first leg of the tour were in Minneapolis where former Revolution drummer Bobby Z. sat in as guest drummer on both shows. In May, Prince announced a deal with Kobalt Music to market and distribute his music.

On August 14, 2013, Prince released a new solo single for download through the 3rdeyegirl.com website. The single "Breakfast Can Wait" had cover art featuring comedian Dave Chappelle's impersonation of him, from a 2004, second season Chappelle's Show comedy sketch on Comedy Central.

In February 2014, Prince performed concerts with 3rdeyegirl in London titled the Hit and Run Tour. Beginning with intimate shows, the first was held at the London home of singer Lianne La Havas, followed by two performances of what Prince described as a "sound check" at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, and another at Shepherd's Bush Empire. On April 18, 2014, Prince released a new single entitled "The Breakdown". He re-signed with his former label, Warner Bros. Records after an 18-year split. Warner announced that Prince would release a remastered deluxe edition of his 1984 album Purple Rain in 2014 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the album. In return, Warner gave Prince ownership of the master recordings of his Warner recordings.

In February 2014 Prince began what was billed as his 'Hit N Run Part One' tour. This involved Prince's Twitter followers keeping an avid eye on second-by-second information as to the whereabouts of his shows. Many of these shows would only be announced on the day of the concert, and many of these concerts involved two performances: a matinee and an evening show. These shows began at Camden's Electric Ballroom, billed as 'Soundchecks', and spread throughout the UK capital to KoKo Club, in Camden, Shepherd's Bush Empire and various other small venues. After his London dates, he moved on to other European cities.

In May 2014 Prince began his 'Hit N Run Part Two' shows, which followed a more normal style of purchasing tickets online and being held in music arenas. In Spring 2014, he launched NPG Publishing, a music company to administer his own music and that of other artists without the restrictions of mainstream record companies.

In May 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray and the subsequent riots, Prince released a song entitled "Baltimore" in tribute to Gray and in support of the protesters in Baltimore. He also held a tribute concert for Gray at his Paisley Park estate called "Dance Rally 4 Peace" in which he encouraged fans to wear the color gray in honor of Freddie Gray. On May 10, he performed a special concert at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore called "Rally 4 Peace," that featured a special appearance by Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, and one set performed by Prince alone at a keyboard.

Prince's penultimate album, Hit n Run Phase One, was first made available on September 7, 2015, on the music streaming service Tidal before being released on CD and for download on September 14. His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was meant as a continuation of this one, and was released on Tidal for streaming and download on December 12, 2015.

In February 2016, Prince embarked on the Piano & A Microphone Tour, a tour that saw his show stripped back to only Prince and a custom piano on stage. He performed a series of warm-up shows at Paisley Park in late January 2016 and the tour commenced in Melbourne, Australia, on February 16, 2016, to critical acclaim. The Australian and New Zealand legs of the tour were played in small capacity venues including the Sydney Opera House. Hit n Run Phase Two CDs were distributed to every attendee after each performance. The tour continued to the United States but was cut abruptly short by illness in April 2016.

Illness and death

Prince saw Michael T. Schulenberg, a Twin Cities specialist in family medicine, in Excelsior on April 7, 2016, and again on April 20. On April 7, he postponed two performances at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta from his Piano & A Microphone Tour; the venue released a statement saying he had influenza. He rescheduled and performed his final show on April 14, even though he still was not feeling well. While flying back to Minneapolis early the next morning, he became unresponsive, and his private jet made an emergency landing at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois, where he was hospitalized and received Narcan, a medication used to block the effects of opioids, especially following an overdose. Once he became conscious, he left against medical advice. Representatives said he suffered from dehydration and had influenza for several weeks. Prince was seen bicycling the next day in his hometown of Chanhassen. He shopped that evening at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis for Record Store Day and made a brief appearance at an impromptu dance party at his Paisley Park recording studio complex, stating that he was feeling fine. On April 19, he attended a performance by singer Lizz Wright at the Dakota Jazz Club.

On April 20, 2016, Prince's representatives called Howard Kornfeld, a California specialist in addiction medicine and pain management, seeking medical help for Prince. Kornfeld scheduled to meet with Prince on April 22, and he contacted a local physician who cleared his schedule for a physical examination on April 21. On April 21, at 9:43 am, the Carver County Sheriff's Office received a 9-1-1 call requesting that an ambulance be sent to Prince's home at Paisley Park. The caller initially told the dispatcher that an unidentified person at the home was unconscious, then moments later said he was dead, and finally identified the person as Prince. The caller was Kornfeld's son, who had flown in with buprenorphine that morning to devise a treatment plan for opioid addiction. Emergency responders found Prince unresponsive in an elevator and performed CPR, but a paramedic said he had been dead for at least six hours, and they were unable to revive him. They pronounced him dead at 10:07 am, 19 minutes after their arrival. There were no signs of suicide or foul play. A press release from the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office in Anoka County on June 2 stated that Prince had died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, at the age of 57.

It is not known whether Prince obtained the fentanyl by a prescription or through an illicit channel. The question of how and from what source Prince obtained the drug that led to his death has been the subject of investigations by several law enforcement agencies. A sealed search warrant was issued for his estate, and another, unsealed, search warrant was issued for the local Walgreens pharmacy. On April 19, 2018, the Carver County Attorney announced that the multi-agency investigation related to the circumstances of Prince's death had ended with no criminal charges filed.

Following an autopsy, his remains were cremated. On April 26, 2016, Prince's sister and only full sibling Tyka Nelson filed court documents in Carver County, to open a probate case, stating that no will had been found. Prince's five half-siblings also have a claim to his estate, which totals millions of dollars and includes real estate, stocks, and cars. As of three weeks after his death, 700 people claimed to be half-siblings or descendants. Bremer Trust was given temporary control of his estate, had his vault drilled open, and was authorized to obtain a blood sample for DNA profiling from the coroner who had performed the autopsy.

Prince's ashes were placed into a custom, 3D printed urn shaped like the Paisley Park estate. The urn was placed on display in the atrium of the Paisley Park complex in October 2016.

Remembrances

Numerous musicians and cultural figures reacted to Prince's death. President Barack Obama mourned him, and the United States Senate passed a resolution praising his achievements "as a musician, composer, innovator, and cultural icon". Cities across the US held tributes and vigils, and lit buildings, bridges, and other venues in purple. In the first five hours after the media reported his death, "Prince" was the top trending term on Twitter, and Facebook had 61 million Prince-related interactions. MTV interrupted its programming to air a marathon of Prince music videos and Purple Rain. AMC Theatres and Carmike Cinemas screened Purple Rain in select theaters over the following week. Saturday Night Live aired an episode in his honor titled "Goodnight, Sweet Prince", featuring his performances from the show.

Nielsen Music reported an initial sales spike of 42,000 percent. Prince's catalog sold 4.41 million albums and songs from April 21 to 28, with five albums simultaneously in the top ten of the Billboard 200, a first in the chart's history. At the 59th Grammy Awards, Morris Day with the Time and Bruno Mars performed a tribute to him.

In June 2016 Vanity Fair/Condé Nast, released a special edition commemorative magazine, The Genius of Prince. The magazine was a celebration of Prince's life and achievements, with new photography and archive articles, including the original Vanity Fair article from Nov 1984, written in the wake of Prince's breakout success, with other content from Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Wired, and Pitchfork. The cover of The Genius of Prince featured a portrait by Andy Warhol, Orange Prince (1984). Casts of the musicals The Color Purple and Hamilton paid tribute to Prince during their curtain calls with "Purple Rain" and "Let's Go Crazy" respectively.

Posthumous projects

2016

On August 21, 2016, Prince was posthumously inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame.

The first album released following Prince's death was a greatest hits album, 4Ever, which was released on November 22, 2016. The album contains one previously unreleased song: "Moonbeam Levels", recorded in 1982 during the 1999 sessions.

2017

On April 19, 2017, an EP featuring six unreleased Prince recordings, titled Deliverance, was announced, with an expected release date for later that week. The next day, Prince's estate was granted a temporary restraining order against George Ian Boxill – an engineer who co-produced the tracks and was in possession of the master tapes – and halted the release of the EP.

On February 9, 2017, Prince's estate signed a distribution deal with Universal Music Group, which includes the post-1995 recordings on his NPG Records label and unreleased tracks from his vault. On June 27, Comerica (acting on behalf of the estate) requested that Carver County District Judge Kevin Eide cancel the estate's deal with Universal, as UMG's contract would interfere with a contract with Warner Music Group that Prince signed in 2014. After Universal's attorneys were granted access to the Warner contract, the attorneys also offered to cancel the deal. On July 13, the court voided Universal's deal with Prince's estate, though Universal will continue to administer Prince's songwriting credits and create merchandise.

On June 23, 2017, Purple Rain was re-released as the Deluxe and Deluxe Expanded editions. It is the first Prince album to be remastered and reissued. The Deluxe edition consists of two discs, the first being a remaster of the original album made in 2015 overseen by Prince himself and a bonus disc of previously unreleased songs, called From the Vault & Previously Unreleased. The Deluxe Expanded edition consists of two more discs, a disc with all the single edits, maxi-single edits and B-sides from the Purple Rain era, and a DVD with a concert from the Purple Rain Tour filmed in Syracuse, New York on March 30, 1985, previously released on home video in 1985. The album debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on both the Billboard R&B Albums and Vinyl Albums charts.

2018

On April 19, 2018, the previously unreleased original recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" from 1984 was released as a single by Warner Bros. Records in conjunction with Prince's estate. In addition, the Prince version was given its own music video, released in conjunction with the single; the video consists of edited rehearsal footage for the Purple Rain tour, shot in the summer of 1984. Troy Carter, adviser for Prince's estate, later announced in an interview with Variety that a full-length album is planned for release on September 28, 2018.

In May 2018, it was announced that a second album of new material is set for release in 2019 on Tidal. This album is rumored to be Prince's planned follow-up to Hit n Run Phase Two, as part of his original deal with the streaming service. It has also been announced for a worldwide physical CD release a month after.

In June 2018, the Prince estate signed a distribution deal with Sony Music Entertainment, which includes the rights to all of Prince's studio albums, plus unreleased music, remixes, live recordings, music videos and B-sides from before 1995. The deal will immediately include Prince's albums from 1995 to 2010. Beginning in 2021, Prince's Warner Bros. albums from 1978–1996 will become distributed by Sony/Legacy Recordings in the United States, with Warner Music Group still controlling the international rights.

On July 11, 2018, Heritage Auctions announced the auction of Prince's personal possessions to be conducted in Dallas, Texas, on July 21, 2018. Total of 27 items was announced to be put in the auction, including Prince's bible, stage worn clothing, and some personal documents.

On August 17, 2018, NPG Records released all 23 post-Warner Bros. albums by Prince digitally on streaming platforms like Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music, together with a new compilation album named Anthology: 1995–2010, containing 37 tracks.

On September 21, 2018, the album Piano and a Microphone 1983 was released on CD, vinyl, and digital formats. It is the first album released by the Prince estate with material from his archive, the Vault.

2019

The Prince Estate announced, in December 2018, that the Sony/Legacy reissues would begin in February 2019. The first three releases were Musicology, 3121 and Planet Earth on limited edition purple vinyl and standard CD formats.

In February 2019, the Prince Estate announced reissues of the albums Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic and Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic on purple vinyl as well as Ultimate Rave, a 2CD/1DVD set which includes Prince In Concert: Rave Un2 the Year 2000.

On Record Store Day, April 13, 2019, the cassette The Versace Experience - Prelude 2 Gold, that was originally issued in 1995 and given as a gift to attendees to the Versace collection at that year's Paris Fashion Week, was reissued in a limited edition.

On June 7, 2019, Warner released a new Prince album Originals exclusively through TIDAL. The album contains Prince's original versions of 15 songs he offered to other artists in the past. A wide release on CD and vinyl followed on June 20, 2019.

On September 13, 2019 The Versace Experience - Prelude 2 Gold was reissued on purple vinyl and CD as well as on digital formats. together with reissues of Chaos and Disorder and Emancipation.

On October 18, 2019, a single with his acoustic demo of I Feel for You was released digitally, alongside a limited edition 7" purple vinyl in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Prince album release.

On November 27, 2019, the 1999 album was reissued in a Remastered, Deluxe and Super Deluxe edition, the latter including 35 previously unreleased songs and two live concerts.

Artistry and legacy

Music and image

The Los Angeles Times called Prince "our first post-everything pop star, defying easy categories of race, genre and commercial appeal." Jon Pareles of The New York Times described him as "a master architect of funk, rock, R&B and pop", and highlighted his ability to defy labels. Los Angeles Times writer Randall Roberts called Prince "among the most versatile and restlessly experimental pop artists of our time," writing that his "early work connected disco and synthetic funk [while his] fruitful mid-period merged rock, soul, R&B and synth-pop." Simon Reynolds called him a "pop polymath, flitting between funkadelia, acid rock, deep soul, schmaltz—often within the same song". AllMusic wrote that, "With each album he released, Prince showed remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres [...] no other contemporary artist blended so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole." Rolling Stone ranked Prince at No. 27 on its list of 100 Greatest Artists, "the most influential artists of the rock & roll era". According to Acclaimed Music, he is the 10th most celebrated artist in popular music history.

As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant style and showmanship. He came to be regarded as a sex symbol for his androgynous, amorphous sexuality, play with signifiers of gender, and defiance of racial stereotypes. His "audacious, idiosyncratic" fashion sense made use of "ubiquitous purple, alluring makeup and frilled garments." His androgynous look has been compared to that of Little Richard and David Bowie. In 2016, Reynolds described it as "Prince's '80s evasion of conventional gender definitions speaks to us now in this trans-aware moment. But it also harks backwards in time to the origins of rock 'n' roll in racial mixture and sexual blurring".

Prince also wore high-heeled shoes and boots both on- and off-stage. Prince had needed double hip replacement surgery since 2005 and the condition was reportedly caused by repeated onstage dancing in high-heeled boots. Prince had been using canes as part of his outfit from the early 1990s onwards; towards the end of his life he regularly walked with a cane in public engagements, which led to speculation that it resulted from his not having undergone the surgery.

Prince was known for the strong female presence in his bands and his support for women in the music industry throughout his career. Slate said he worked with an "astounding range of female stars" and "promised a world where men and women looked and acted like each other."

In August 2017, Pantone Inc. introduced a new shade of purple in their color system in honor of Prince. The shade is called Love Symbol #2 and is defined as Pantone color number 19-3528, web palette #4F3D63 or RGB 79,61,99.

Influences and musicianship

Prince's music synthesized a wide variety of influences, and drew inspiration from a range of musicians, including James Brown, George Clinton, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Mick Jagger, Rick James, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Curtis Mayfield, Elvis Presley, Todd Rundgren, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, Jackie Wilson, and Stevie Wonder. Prince has been compared with jazz great Miles Davis in regard to the artistic changes throughout his career. Davis said he regarded Prince as an otherworldly blend of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Little Richard, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Chaplin. Prince and Miles Davis performed together for a Charity Event at Paisley Park. This performance was viewed as the pinnacle of their on-again, off-again partnership.

Journalist Nik Cohn described him as "rock's greatest ever natural talent". His singing abilities encompassed a wide range from falsetto to baritone and rapid, seemingly effortless shifts of register. Prince was also renowned as a multi-instrumentalist. He is considered a guitar virtuoso and a master of drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer. On his first five albums, he played nearly all the instruments, including 27 instruments on his debut album, among them various types of bass, keyboards and synthesizers. Prince was also quick to embrace technology in his music, making pioneering use of drum machines like the Linn LM-1 on his early '80s albums and employing a wide range of studio effects. The LA Times also noted his "harnessing [of] new-generation synthesizer sounds in service of the groove," laying the foundations for post-'70s funk music. Prince was also known for his prolific and virtuosic tendencies, which resulted in him recording large amounts of unreleased material.

Prince also wrote songs for other artists, and some songs of his were covered by musicians, such as the hit songs "Manic Monday” (performed by The Bangles), "I Feel For You", originally on Prince's self-titled second album from 1979, covered by Chaka Khan, and "Nothing Compares 2 U", written for Prince's side project the Family, and covered very successfully by Sinead O'Connor. Prince co-wrote "Love... Thy Will Be Done" with singer Martika, for her second album Martika's Kitchen, and also gifted Celine Dion a song for her second album, Celine Dion, titled "With This Tear"; a song Prince had written specifically for her. Prince also wrote "U" for Paula Abdul, appearing on her 1991 release Spellbound.

Equipment

As a guitar virtuoso, Prince was also known to have a very stylish and flamboyant custom guitar collection, which consisted of 121 guitars. One notable series is his Cloud Guitars, which were commissioned and released in colored versions of white, yellow, and purple. The white version is prominently shown in the Purple Rain film and the "Raspberry Beret" video. Other notable guitars are The Love Symbol guitars, which were designed in the separate colors of gold and purple. The guitar that was used for the majority of Prince's music career was the H.S. Anderson Madcat guitar – a Telecaster copy created by Hohner. Several versions of the guitar were used throughout his career – due to one being donated for charitable reasons, while one or more were stolen. Two other noteworthy guitars are the G1 Purple Special, and the black-and-gold Gus G3 Prince bass, which would become the last two guitars to ever be made for the artist.

Impact

Many artists have also drawn inspiration from Prince, including Alicia Keys, Usher, Janelle Monáe, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz, Andre 3000, Frank Ocean, and Ween.

Legal issues

Pseudonyms

In 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of The Gold Experience, a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of his musical output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. He explained that he had changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol to emancipate himself from his contract with Warner Bros., and that he had done it out of frustration because he felt his own name now belonged to the company.

Prince sometimes used pseudonyms to separate himself from the music he had written, produced, or recorded, and at one point stated that his ownership and achievement were strengthened by the act of giving away ideas. Pseudonyms he adopted, at various times, include: Jamie Starr and The Starr Company (for the songs he wrote for the Time and many other artists from 1981 to 1984), Joey Coco (for many unreleased Prince songs in the late 1980s, as well as songs written for Sheena Easton and Kenny Rogers), Alexander Nevermind (for writing the song "Sugar Walls" (1984) by Sheena Easton), and Christopher (used for his songwriting credit of "Manic Monday" (1986) for the Bangles).

Copyright issues

On September 14, 2007, Prince announced that he was going to sue YouTube and eBay, because they hosted his copyrighted material, and he hired the international Internet policing company Web Sheriff. In October, Stephanie Lenz filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Publishing Group claiming that they were abusing copyright law after the music publisher had YouTube take down Lenz's home movie in which the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" played faintly in the background. On November 5, several Prince fan sites formed "Prince Fans United" to fight back against legal requests which, they claim, Prince made to prevent all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to his likeness. Prince's lawyers claimed that this constituted copyright infringement; the Prince Fans United said that the legal actions were "attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince". Prince's promoter AEG stated that the only offending items on the three fansites were live shots from Prince's 21 nights in London at the O2 Arena earlier in the year.

On November 8, Prince Fans United received a song named "PFUnk", providing a kind of "unofficial answer" to their movement. The song originally debuted on the PFU main site, was retitled "F.U.N.K.", but this is not one of the selected songs available on the iTunes Store. On November 14, the satirical website b3ta.com pulled their "image challenge of the week" devoted to Prince after legal threats from the star under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

At the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival ("Coachella Festival"), Prince performed a cover of Radiohead's "Creep", but immediately afterward he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead's request to leave it on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, as Radiohead said: "It's our song, let people hear it." In 2009, Prince put the video of the Coachella performance on his official website.

In 2010, he declared "the internet is completely over", elaborating five years later that "the internet was over for anyone who wants to get paid, tell me a musician who's got rich off digital sales".

In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation granted to Prince the inaugural "Raspberry Beret Lifetime Aggrievement Award" for what they said was abuse of the DMCA takedown process.

In January 2014, Prince filed a lawsuit titled Prince v. Chodera against 22 online users for direct copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation, contributory copyright infringement, and bootlegging. Several of the users were fans who had shared links to bootlegged versions of Prince concerts through social media websites like Facebook. In the same month, he dismissed the entire action without prejudice.

Prince was one of a small handful of musicians to deny "Weird Al" Yankovic permission to parody his music. By Yankovic's account, he'd done so "about a half-dozen times" and has been the sole artist not to give any explanation for his rejection beyond a flat "no".

Personal life

Prince was romantically linked with many celebrities over the years, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, and Sherilyn Fenn. In 1990, he saw a 16-year-old dancer Mayte García standing outside of his tour bus, and he said to Rosie Gaines, "There's my future wife." After graduating from high school, García began working as one of his backup singers and dancers. They were married on February 14, 1996; he was 37 and she was 22. They had a son named Amiir Nelson, who was born on October 16, 1996, and died a week later on October 23 after suffering from Pfeiffer syndrome. The distress of losing a child and a subsequent miscarriage took a toll on the marriage, and the couple divorced in 2000. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony. Manuela is from Toronto and the couple lived part time there. They separated in 2005 and divorced in May 2006.

Prince was an animal rights activist who followed a vegan diet for part of his life, but later described himself as vegetarian. The liner notes for his album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (1999) featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production. He became a Jehovah's Witness in 2001, following a two-year debate with bassist Larry Graham who became his mentor and a close friend at this time. Prince said that he did not consider it a conversion, but a "realization", comparing it to "Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix". Prince attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocked on people's doors to discuss his faith.

Prince had needed double hip replacement surgery since 2005. A false rumor was spread by the tabloids that he would not undergo the operation because of his refusal to have blood transfusions. The Star Tribune reported that Graham "denied claims that Prince couldn't have hip surgery because his faith prohibited blood transfusions" and put the false rumor to rest as hip surgery does not require blood transfusions. According to Morris Day, Prince in fact had the hip surgery in 2008.

Prince did not speak publicly about his charitable endeavors; the extent of his activism, philanthropy, and charity was publicized after his death. In 2001, Prince donated $12,000 anonymously to the Louisville Free Public Library system to keep the historic Western Branch Library, the first full service library for African Americans in the country, from closure. Also in 2001, he anonymously paid off the medical bills of drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who was undergoing cancer treatment. In 2015, he conceived and launched YesWeCode, paying for many hackathons outright and performing musical acts at some of them. He also helped fund Green for All.

In late March 2016, Prince told an audience he was writing a memoir titled The Beautiful Ones, although its publication seemed unlikely with his death only a few weeks later. His co-writer, Dan Piepenbring, continued work on the memoir and The Beautiful Ones was published in October 2019.

Achievements

Prince sold over 100 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2016, he was posthumously honored with a Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of Minnesota. He won seven Grammy Awards, seven Brit Awards, six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the film Purple Rain), and a Golden Globe Award. Two of his albums, Purple Rain (1984) and Sign o' the Times (1987), received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year nominations. 1999 (1982), Purple Rain and Sign o' the Times have all been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. At the 28th Grammy Awards, Prince was awarded the President's Merit Award. Prince was also honored with the American Music Award for Achievement and American Music Award of Merit at the American Music Awards of 1990 and American Music Awards of 1995 respectively. At the 2013 Billboard Music Awards, he was honored with the Billboard Icon Award. In 2019, the 1984 film Purple Rain was added by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Discography

In his life, Prince released 39 studio albums:

Posthumous releases:

Piano and a Microphone 1983 (2018)

Originals (2019)

He also released two albums credited to Madhouse, three albums credited to the New Power Generation and one credited to the NPG Orchestra:

Madhouse:

8 (1987)

16 (1987)

The New Power Generation:

Goldnigga (1993)

Exodus (1995)

Newpower Soul (1998)

NPG Orchestra:

Kamasutra (1997)

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. She was known for her lighthearted, bawdy double entendres and breezy sexual independence, and often used a husky contralto voice. She was active in vaudeville and on stage in New York City before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry.

West was one of the most controversial movie stars of her day; she encountered many problems, especially censorship. She once quipped, "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it." She bucked the system by making comedy out of conventional mores, and the Depression-era audience admired her for it. When her film career ended, she wrote books and plays, and continued to perform in Las Vegas and the United Kingdom, on radio and television, and recorded rock 'n roll albums. In 1999, the American Film Institute posthumously voted West the 15th greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema.

Mary Jane West was born on August 17, 1893, in Brooklyn (either Greenpoint or Bushwick, before New York City was consolidated in 1898). She was delivered at home by an aunt who was a midwife. She was the eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Mathilde "Tillie" (later Matilda) Delker (originally Doelger; later Americanized to "Delker" or "Dilker"). Tillie and her five siblings emigrated with their parents, Jakob (1835–1902) and Christiana (1838–1901; née Brüning) Doelger from Bavaria in 1886. West's parents married on January 18, 1889, in Brooklyn, to the pleasure of the groom's parents and the displeasure of the bride's parents and raised their children as Protestants, although John West was of mixed Catholic–Protestant descent.

West's father was a prizefighter known as "Battlin' Jack West" who later worked as a "special policeman" and later had his own private investigations agency. Her mother was a former corset and fashion model. Her paternal grandmother, Mary Jane (née Copley), for whom she was named, was of Irish Catholic descent and West's paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English–Scots descent and a ship's rigger.

Her eldest sibling, Katie, died in infancy. Her other siblings were Mildred Katherine West, later known as Beverly (December 8, 1898 – March 12, 1982), and John Edwin West II (sometimes inaccurately called "John Edwin West, Jr."; February 11, 1900 – October 12, 1964). During her childhood, West's family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, as well as the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Woodhaven, at Neir's Social Hall (which opened in 1829 and is still extant), West supposedly first performed professionally.

West was five when she first entertained a crowd at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests. She began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of 14. West first performed under the stage name "Baby Mae", and tried various personas, including a male impersonator.

She used the alias "Jane Mast" early in her career. Her trademark walk was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, Ned Wayburn. The show folded after eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled out and discovered by The New York Times. The Times reviewer wrote that a "girl named Mae West, hitherto unknown, pleased by her grotesquerie and snappy way of singing and dancing". West next appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson. In 1912, she appeared in the opening performance of A Winsome Widow as a "baby vamp" named La Petite Daffy.

She was encouraged as a performer by her mother, who, according to West, always thought that anything Mae did was fantastic. Other family members were less encouraging, including an aunt and her paternal grandmother. They are all reported as having disapproved of her career and her choices. In 1918, after exiting several high-profile revues, West finally got her break in the Shubert Brothers revue Sometime, opposite Ed Wynn. Her character Mayme danced the shimmy and her photograph appeared on an edition of the sheet music for the popular number "Ev'rybody Shimmies Now".

Eventually, she began writing her own risqué plays using the pen name Jane Mast. Her first starring role on Broadway was in a 1926 play she entitled Sex, which she wrote, produced, and directed. Although conservative critics panned the show, ticket sales were strong. The production did not go over well with city officials, who had received complaints from some religious groups, and the theater was raided, with West arrested along with the cast. She was taken to the Jefferson Market Court House, (now Jefferson Market Library), where she was prosecuted on morals charges, and on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days for "corrupting the morals of youth". Though West could have paid a fine and been let off, she chose the jail sentence for the publicity it would garner. While incarcerated on Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt Island), she dined with the warden and his wife; she told reporters that she had worn her silk panties while serving time, in lieu of the "burlap" the other girls had to wear. West got great mileage from this jail stint. She served eight days with two days off for "good behavior". Media attention surrounding the incident enhanced her career, by crowning her the darling "bad girl" who "had climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong".

Her next play, The Drag, dealt with homosexuality, and was what West called one of her "comedy-dramas of life". After a series of try-outs in Connecticut and New Jersey, West announced she would open the play in New York. However, The Drag never opened on Broadway due to efforts by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice to ban any attempt by West to stage it. West explained, "The city fathers begged me not to bring the show to New York because they were not equipped to handle the commotion it would cause." West was an early supporter of the women's liberation movement, but said she was not a "burn your bra" type feminist. Since the 1920s, she was also an early supporter of gay rights, and publicly declared against police brutality that gay men experienced. She adopted a then "modern" psychological explanation that gay men were women's souls in men's bodies, and hitting a gay man was akin to hitting a woman. In her 1959 autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, West strongly objected to hypocrisy while, for surprising and unexplained reasons, also disparaging homosexuality: "In many ways homosexuality is a danger to the entire social system of Western civilization. Certainly a nation should be made aware of its presence — without moral mottoes — and its effects on children recruited to it in their innocence. I had no objection to it as a cult of jaded inverts... involved only with themselves. It was its secret, anti-social aspects I wanted to bring into the sun. As a private pressure group it could, and has, infected whole nations." This perspective, never elaborated upon by Mae West in other books or interviews seems inconsistent with the Mae West persona. In her 1975 book Sex, Health, and ESP, Mae West writes on page 43, "I believe that the world owes male and female homosexuals more understanding than we've given them. Live and let live is my philosophy on the subject, and I believe everybody has the right to do his or her own thing or somebody else's -- as long as they do it all in private!"

West continued to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man and The Constant Sinner. Her productions aroused controversy, which ensured that she stayed in the news, which also often resulted in packed houses at her performances. Her 1928 play, Diamond Lil, about a racy, easygoing, and ultimately very smart lady of the 1890s, became a Broadway hit and cemented West's image in the public's eye. This show had an enduring popularity and West successfully revived it many times throughout the course of her career. With Diamond Lil being a hit show, Hollywood naturally came courting.

In 1932, West was offered a contract by Paramount Pictures despite being close to 40. This was an unusually late age to begin a film career, especially for women, but she was not playing an ingénue. She nonetheless managed to keep her age ambiguous for some time. She made her film debut in Night After Night (1932) starring George Raft, who suggested West for the role. At first she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her scenes.[45] In West's first scene, a hat-check girl exclaims, "Goodness, what beautiful diamonds", and West replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie." Reflecting on the overall result of her rewritten scenes, Raft is said to have remarked, "She stole everything but the cameras."

She brought her Diamond Lil character, now renamed "Lady Lou", to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933). The film was one of Cary Grant's first major roles, which boosted his career. West claimed she spotted Grant at the studio and insisted that he be cast as the male lead. She claimed to have told a Paramount director, "If he can talk, I'll take him!". The film was a box office hit and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The success of the film saved Paramount from bankruptcy, grossing over $2 million, the equivalent of $140 million today. Paramount recognizes that debt of gratitude today, with a building on the lot named after West.

Her next release, I'm No Angel (1933), teamed her with Grant again. I'm No Angel was also a box office hit and was the most successful of her entire film career. In the months that followed the release of this film, reference to West could be found almost anywhere, from the song lyrics of Cole Porter, to a Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural of San Francisco's newly built Coit Tower, to She Done Him Right, a Betty Boop cartoon, to "My Dress Hangs There", a painting by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Kahlo's husband, Diego Rivera, paid his own tribute: "West is the most wonderful machine for living I have ever known – unfortunately on the screen only." To F. Scott Fitzgerald, West was especially unique: "The only Hollywood actress with both an ironic edge and a comic spark." As Variety put it, "Mae West's films have made her the biggest conversation-provoker, free-space grabber, and all-around box office bet in the country. She's as hot an issue as Hitler."

By 1933, West was one of the largest box office draws in the United States and, by 1935, West was also the highest paid woman and the second-highest paid person in the United States (after William Randolph Hearst). Hearst invited West to San Simeon, California. "I could'a married him", West explained, "but I got no time for parties. I don't like those big crowds." On July 1, 1934, the censorship of the film Production Code began to be seriously and meticulously enforced, and West's scripts were heavily edited. She would intentionally place extremely risqué lines in her scripts, knowing they would be cut by the censors. She hoped they would then not object as much to her other less suggestive lines. Her next film was Belle of the Nineties (1934). The original title, It Ain't No Sin, was changed due to the censors' objections. Despite Paramount's early objections regarding costs, West insisted the studio to hire Duke Ellington and his orchestra to accompany her in the film's musical numbers. Their collaboration was a success; the classic "My Old Flame" (recorded by Duke Ellington) was introduced in this film. Her next film, Goin' to Town (1935), received mixed reviews, as censorship continued to take its toll in eroding West's best lines.

Her following effort, Klondike Annie (1936) dealt, as best it could given the heavy censorship, with religion and hypocrisy. Some critics called the film her magnum opus, but not everyone felt the same way. Press baron and film mogul William Randolph Hearst, ostensibly offended by an off-handed remark West made about his mistress, Marion Davies, sent a private memo to all his editors stating, "That Mae West picture Klondike Annie is a filthy picture... We should have editorials roasting that picture, Mae West, and Paramount... DO NOT ACCEPT ANY ADVERTISING OF THIS PICTURE." At one point, Hearst asked aloud, "Isn't it time Congress did something about the Mae West menace?" Paramount executives felt they had to tone down the West characterization or face further recrimination. This may be surprising by today's standards, as West's films contained no nudity, no profanity, and very little violence. Though raised in an era when women held second-place roles in society, West portrayed confident women who were not afraid to use their sexual wiles to get what they wanted. "I was the first liberated woman, you know. No guy was going to get the best of me. That's what I wrote all my scripts about."

Around the same time, West played opposite Randolph Scott in Go West, Young Man (1936). In this film, she adapted Lawrence Riley's Broadway hit Personal Appearance into a screenplay. Directed by Henry Hathaway, Go West, Young Man is considered one of West's weaker films of the era, due to the censor's cuts.

West next starred in Every Day's a Holiday (1937) for Paramount before their association came to an end. Again, due to censor cuts, the film performed below its goal. Censorship had made West's sexually suggestive brand of humor impossible for the studios to distribute. West, along with other stellar performers, was put on a list of actors called "Box Office Poison" by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners Association. Others on the list were Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, Dolores del Río, Katharine Hepburn and Kay Francis. The attack was published as a paid advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter, and was taken seriously by the fearful studio executives. The association argued that these stars' high salaries and extreme public popularity did not affect their ticket sales, thus hurt the exhibitors. This did not stop producer David O. Selznick, who next offered West the role of the sage madam, Belle Watling, the only woman ever to truly understand Rhett Butler, in Gone with the Wind, after Tallulah Bankhead turned him down. West also turned down the part, claiming that as it was, it was too small for an established star, and that she would need to rewrite her lines to suit her own persona. The role eventually went to Ona Munson.

In 1939, Universal Studios approached West to star in a film opposite W. C. Fields. The studio was eager to duplicate the success of Destry Rides Again starring Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart, with a comic vehicle starring West and Fields. Having left Paramount 18 months earlier and looking for a new film, West accepted the role of Flower Belle Lee in the film My Little Chickadee (1940). Despite the stars' intense mutual dislike, Fields's very real drinking problems and fights over the screenplay, My Little Chickadee was a box office hit, outgrossing Fields's previous film, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939) and the later The Bank Dick (1940). Despite this, religious leaders condemned West as a negative role model, taking offense at lines such as "Between two evils, I like to pick the one I haven't tried before" and "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

West's next film was Columbia's The Heat's On (1943). She initially did not want to do the film, but after actor, director and friend Gregory Ratoff (producer Max Fabian in All About Eve) pleaded with her and claimed he would go bankrupt if she could not help, West relented as a personal favor. Censors by now, though, had curtailed the sexual burlesque of the West characterization. The studio had orders to raise the neck lines and clean up the double entendres. This was the only film for which West was virtually not allowed to write her own dialogue and, as a result, the film suffered.

Perhaps the most critical challenge facing West in her career was censorship of her dialogue. As on Broadway a decade before, by the mid-1930s, her risqué and ribald dialogue could no longer be allowed to pass. The Heat's On opened to poor reviews and weak performance at the box office. West was so distraught after the experience and by her years of struggling with the strict Hays censorship office, that she would not attempt another film role for the next quarter-century. Instead, West pursued a successful and record-breaking career in top nightclubs, Las Vegas, nationally in theater and on Broadway, where she was allowed, even welcomed, to be herself.

After appearing in The Heat's On in 1943, West returned to a very active career on stage and in swank clubs. Among her popular new stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Broadway, in which she penned a spoof on the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of tall, muscular young actors. The play was produced by theater and film impresario Mike Todd (Around The World in 80 Days) and ran for 191 performances and then went on tour.

When Mae West revived her 1928 play Diamond Lil, bringing it back to Broadway in 1949, The New York Times labeled her an "American Institution – as beloved and indestructible as Donald Duck. Like Chinatown, and Grant's Tomb, Mae West should be seen at least once." In the 1950s, West starred in her own Las Vegas stage show at the newly opened Sahara Hotel, singing while surrounded by bodybuilders. The show stood Las Vegas on its head. "Men come to see me, but I also give the women something to see: wall to wall men!" West explained. Jayne Mansfield met and later married one of West's muscle men, a former Mr. Universe, Mickey Hargitay.

When casting about for the role of Norma Desmond for the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder offered West the role. Still smarting from the censorship debacle of The Heat's On, and the constraints placed on her characterization, she declined. The theme of the Wilder film, she noted, was pure pathos, while her brand of comedy was always "about uplifting the audience". Mae West had a unique comic character that was timeless, in the same way Charlie Chaplin did. After Mary Pickford also declined the role, Gloria Swanson was cast.

In subsequent years, West was offered the role of Vera Simpson, opposite Marlon Brando, in the 1957 film adaptation of Pal Joey, which she turned down, with the role going to Rita Hayworth. In 1964, West was offered a leading role in Roustabout, starring Elvis Presley. She turned the role down, and Barbara Stanwyck was cast in her place. West was also approached for roles in Frederico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits and Satyricon, but rejected both offers.

In 1958, West appeared at the live televised Academy Awards and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Rock Hudson, which brought a standing ovation. In 1959, she released an autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It, which became a best seller and was reprinted with a new chapter in 1970. West guest-starred on television, including The Dean Martin Show in 1959 and The Red Skelton Show in 1960, to promote her autobiography, and a lengthy interview on Person to Person with Charles Collingwood, which was censored by CBS in 1959, and never aired. CBS executives felt members of the television audience were not ready to see a nude marble statue of West, which rested on her piano. In 1964, she made a guest appearance on the sitcom Mister Ed. Much later, in 1976, she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and sang two songs on his "Back Lot U.S.A." special on CBS.

West's recording career started in the early 1930s with releases of her film songs on shellac 78 rpm records. Most of her film songs were released as 78s, as well as sheet music. In 1955, she recorded her first album, The Fabulous Mae West. In 1965, she recorded two songs, "Am I Too Young" and "He's Good For Me", for a 45 rpm record released by Plaza Records. She recorded several tongue-in-cheek songs, including "Santa, Come Up to See Me", on the album Wild Christmas, which was released in 1966 and reissued as Mae in December in 1980. Demonstrating her willingness to keep in touch with the contemporary scene, in 1966 she recorded Way Out West, the first of her two rock-and-roll albums. The second, released in 1972 on MGM Records and titled Great Balls of Fire, covered songs by The Doors, among others, and had songs written for West by English songwriter-producer Ian Whitcomb.

After a 27-year absence from motion pictures, West appeared as Leticia Van Allen in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) with Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck in a small part. The movie was intended to be deliberately campy sex change comedy, but had serious production problems, resulting in a botched film that was both a box-office and critical failure. Author Vidal, at great odds with inexperienced and self-styled "art film" director Michael Sarne, later called the film "an awful joke". Though Mae West was given star billing to attract ticket buyers, her scenes were truncated by the inexperienced film editor, and her songs were filmed as though they were merely side acts. Mae West's counterculture appeal (she was dubbed "the queen of camp"), included the young and hip, and by 1971, the student body of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) voted Mae West "Woman of the Century" in honor of her relevance as a pioneering advocate of sexual frankness and courageous crusader against censorship.

In 1975, West released her book Sex, Health, and ESP (William Allen & Sons, publisher), and Pleasure Man (Dell publishers) based on her 1928 play of the same name. Her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It, was also updated and republished in the 1970s.

Mae West was a shrewd investor, produced her own stage acts, and invested her money in large tracts of land in Van Nuys, a thriving suburb of Los Angeles. With her considerable fortune, she could afford to do as she liked. In 1976, she appeared on Back Lot U.S.A. on CBS, where she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and sang "Frankie and Johnny" along with "After You've Gone." That same year, she began work on her final film, Sextette (1978). Adapted from a 1959 script written by West, the film's daily revisions and production disagreements hampered production from the beginning. Due to the near-endless last-minute script changes and tiring production schedule, West agreed to have her lines signaled to her through a speaker concealed in her hair piece. Despite the daily problems, West was, according to Sextette director Ken Hughes, determined to see the film through. At 84, her now-failing eyesight made navigating around the set difficult, but she made it through the filming, a tribute to her self-confidence, remarkable endurance, and stature as a self-created star 67 years after her Broadway debut in 1911 at the age of 18. Time magazine wrote an article on the indomitable star entitled "At 84, Mae West Is Still Mae West".

Upon its release, Sextette was not a critical or commercial success, but has a diverse cast. The cast included some of West's first co-stars such as George Raft (Night After Night, 1932), silver screen stars such as Walter Pidgeon and Tony Curtis, and more contemporary pop stars such as The Beatles' Ringo Starr and Alice Cooper, and television favorites such as Dom DeLuise and gossip queen Rona Barrett. It also included cameos of some of her musclemen from her 1950s Las Vegas show, such as the still remarkably fit Reg Lewis. Sextette also reunited Mae West with Edith Head, her costume designer from 1933 in She Done Him Wrong.

West was married on April 11, 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Frank Szatkus (1892–1966), whose stage name was Frank Wallace, a fellow vaudevillian whom she met in 1909. She was 17. She kept the marriage a secret, but a filing clerk discovered the marriage certificate in 1935 and alerted the press. The clerk also uncovered an affidavit in which she had declared herself married, made during the Sex trial in 1927.

In August 1913, she met Guido Deiro (1886–1950), an Italian-born vaudeville headliner and star of the piano-accordion. Her affair, and possible 1914 marriage to him, as alleged by Diero's son Guido Roberto Deiro in his 2019 book Mae West and The Count, went "very deep, hittin' on all the emotions". West later said, "Marriage is a great institution. I'm not ready for an institution yet."

In 1916, when she was a vaudeville actress, West had a relationship with James Timony (1884–1954), an attorney nine years her senior. Timony was also her manager. By the time that she was an established movie actress in the mid-1930s, they were no longer a couple. West and Timony remained extremely close, living in the same building, working together, and providing support for each other until Timony's death in 1954.

West remained close to her family throughout her life and was devastated by her mother's death in 1930. In 1930, she moved to Hollywood and into the penthouse at The Ravenswood apartment building where she lived until her death in 1980. Her sister, brother, and father followed her to Hollywood where she provided them with nearby homes, jobs, and sometimes financial support. Among her boyfriends was boxing champion William Jones, nicknamed Gorilla Jones (1906–1982). The management at her Ravenswood apartment building barred the African American boxer from entering the premises; West solved the problem by buying the building and lifting the ban.

She became romantically involved at age 61 with Chester Rybinski (1923–1999), one of the muscle men in her Las Vegas stage show – a wrestler, former Mr. California, and former merchant sailor. He was 30 years younger than she, and later changed his name to Paul Novak. He moved in with her, and their romance continued until her death in 1980 at age 87. Novak once commented, "I believe I was put on this Earth to take care of Mae West." West was a Presbyterian.

In August 1980, West tripped while getting out of bed. After the fall she was unable to speak and was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where tests revealed that she had suffered a stroke. She died on November 22, 1980, at the age of 87.

A private service was held at the church in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills, on November 25, 1980; (the church is a replica of Boston's Old North Church.) Bishop Andre Penachio, a friend, officiated at the entombment in the family mausoleum at Cypress Hills Abbey, Brooklyn, purchased in 1930 when her mother died. Her father and brother were also entombed there before her, and her younger sister, Beverly, was laid to rest in the last of the five crypts less than 18 months after West's death.

For her contribution to the film industry, Mae West has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood. For her contributions as a stage actor in the theater world, she has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Mae West among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

[bigyack-com]

The Best Movies on Netflix in India [February 2020]

In its efforts to win Oscars and please its 167 million members, Netflix has been pouring billions into movies recently, including projects from or featuring the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Martin Scorsese, and Michael Bay. One of those — The Irishman — racked up 10 nominations for the streaming service at the 2020 Oscars, though it failed to come away with a single prize. Netflix has also expanded its film efforts in India in the past year, announcing projects from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar. For now though, the strength of its catalogue is still the acquisitions. With over 3,500 movies, Netflix offers more choices than any other platform in India. To pick the best movies on Netflix, we relied on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDb ratings to create a shortlist. The last of them was preferred for Indian films given the shortfalls of reviews aggregators in that department. Additionally, we used our own editorial judgement to add or remove a few. This list will be updated once every few months if there are any worthy additions or if some movies are removed from the service, so bookmark this page and keep checking in. Here are the best films currently available on Netflix in India, sorted alphabetically. 12 Monkeys (1995) Inspired by the 1962 French short La Jetée, a prisoner (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time to learn more about the virus that wiped out nearly all of humanity. Terry Gilliam directs. 12 Years A Slave (2013) Duped into slavery on the account of a job, Steve McQueen's adaptation of a free New York black man's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) 19th-century memoir is an incredible true story, and an important watch. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) In Stanley Kubrick's highly-influential sci-fi film, humanity charts a course for Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL 9000, to understand the discovery of a black monolith affecting human evolution. It's less plot, and more a visual and aural experience.

3 Idiots (2009) In this satire of the Indian education system's social pressures, two friends recount their college days and how their third long-lost musketeer (Aamir Khan) inspired them to think creatively and independently in a heavily-conformist world. Co-written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands accused in the #MeToo movement. 50/50 (2011) Inspired by a true story, a 27-year-old radio journalist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is diagnosed with spinal cancer and learns the value of friendship and love as he battles the rare disease. Aamir (2008) Adapted from the 2006 Filipino film Cavite, a young Muslim NRI doctor (Rajeev Khandelwal) returning from the UK to India is forced to comply with terrorists' demands to carry out a bombing in Mumbai after they threaten his family. American History X (1998) In a film that's more relevant today than when it was made, a neo-Nazi white supremacist (Edward Norton), who served three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same path. American Hustle (2013) In the late 1970s, two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) are forced to work for an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) and set up a sting operation that plans to bring down several corrupt politicians and members of the Mafia. Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner star alongside. Andaz Apna Apna (1994) Two slackers (Aamir Khan and Salman Khan) who belong to middle-class families vie for the affections of an heiress, and inadvertently become her protectors from a local gangster in Rajkumar Santoshi's cult comedy favourite. Andhadhun (2018) Inspired by the French short film L'Accordeur, this black comedy thriller is the story of a piano player (Ayushman Khurrana) who pretends to be visually-impaired and is caught in a web of twists and lies after he walks into a murder scene. Tabu, Radhika Apte star alongside. Apollo 13 (1995) Ron Howard dramatises the aborted Apollo 13 mission that put the astronauts in jeopardy after an on-board explosion ate up all the oxygen and forced NASA to abort and get the men home safely. Argo (2012) Ben Affleck directs and stars in this film about a CIA agent posing as a Hollywood producer scouting for location in Iran, in order to rescue six Americans during the US hostage crisis of 1979. Article 15 (2019) Ayushmann Khurrana plays a cop in this exploration of casteism, religious discrimination, and the current socio-political situation in India, which tracks a missing persons' case involving three teenage girls of a small village. A hard-hitting, well-made movie, though ironically, it was criticised for being casteist itself, and providing an outsider's perspective. The Avengers (2012) Earth's mightiest heroes — including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk — come together in this groundbreaking Marvel team-up from writer-director Joss Whedon to stop Thor's adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alien army from subjugating mankind.

The Aviator (2004) With Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes and Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, Martin Scorsese dives into the life of the aviation pioneer and film producer, who grapples with severe OCD while his fame grows. Awakenings (1990) Robin Williams and Robert De Niro lead the cast of this drama based on a 1973 memoir of the same name, about a doctor (Williams) who discovers the beneficial effects of a drug on catatonic patients, thereby gifting them a new lease on life. Barfi! (2012) Set in the 1970s amidst the hills of Darjeeling, writer-director Anurag Basu tells the tale of three people (Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, and Ileana D'Cruz) as they learn to love while battling the notions held by society. Beasts of No Nation (2015) With civil war raging across a fictional African nation, this Netflix Original focuses on a young boy who's trained as a child soldier by a fierce warlord (Idris Elba), and the effects it has on him. Before Sunrise (1995) In the first chapter of Richard Linklater's long-drawn-out trilogy, two idealistic twentysomethings, an American man (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy), spend the night together walking around in the Austrian capital of Vienna. The Big Lebowski (1998) A guy known as The Dude (Jeff Bridges) seeks payback for his ruined carpet after he's mistaken for a millionaire with the same name in this crime comedy from the Coen brothers. Less about the plot and more about a way of living. The Big Short (2015) Starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, a look at Wall Street's penchant for self-profit in a vicious loop that caused the 2007–08 global financial meltdown. Birdman (2014) Alejandro G. Iñárritu won three Oscars including Best Picture for this tale of a washed-up superhero actor (Michael Keaton) who struggles to revive his career with a Broadway play. Known for appearing as if it was shot in a single take, it also starred Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, and Emma Stone. Blade Runner (1982) One of the most influential cyberpunk films ever made is about a burnt-out cop (Harrison Ford) who reluctantly agrees to hunt down a group of fugitive “replicants”, synthetic humans with a limited life-span who aren't allowed to live on Earth. Blue Valentine (2010) Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams lead this drama that shifts between time periods to depict a couple's courtship and how their marriage fell apart. Das Boot (1981) One of the most authentic war movies ever made chronicles the life of a German submarine crew during World War II, as they go through long stretches of boredom and periods of intense conflict, while trying to maintain morale in a capsule 10 feet by 150 feet hundreds of metres under the surface. The Bourne trilogy (2002-07) Technically not a trilogy, but the first three chapters — Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum — starring Matt Damon in the lead as the titular CIA assassin suffering from amnesia were so good that they changed the longest-running spy franchise of all-time: James Bond.

The Breadwinner (2017) This animated film follows a 11-year-old girl living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, who disguises herself as a boy to provide for her family after the father is taken away without reason. Uses wonderfully-drawn vignettes to stress on the importance of storytelling. Bulbul Can Sing (2019) Three teenagers battle patriarchy and the moral police as they explore their sexual identities in Rima Das's National Award-winning drama — and pay for it dearly. Das writes, directs, shoots, edits, and handles costumes. C/o Kancharapalem (2018) Set in the eponymous Andhra Pradesh town, this Telugu film spans four love stories across religion, caste, and age — from a schoolboy to a middle-aged unmarried man. A debut for writer-director Venkatesh Maha, featuing a cast mostly made up of non-professional actors. Capernaum (2018) In the award-winning, highest-grossing Arabic film of all time, a 12-year-old from the slums of Beirut recounts his life leading up to a five-year sentence he's handed for stabbing someone, and in turn, his decision to sue his parents for child neglect. Captain Phillips (2013) The true story of a Somali pirate hijacking of a US cargo ship and its captain (Tom Hanks) being taken hostage, which spawns a rescue effort from the US Navy. The Bourne Ultimatum's Paul Greengrass directs. Cast Away (2000) After his plane crash-lands in the Pacific, a FedEx employee (Tom Hanks) wakes up on a deserted island and must use everything at his disposal and transform himself physically to survive living alone. Castle in the Sky (1986) In the first film officially under the Studio Ghibli banner, a young boy and a girl protect a magic crystal from pirates and military agents, while on the search for a legendary floating castle. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Chupke Chupke (1975) Hrishikesh Mukherjee's remake of the Bengali film Chhadmabeshi, in which a newly-wedded husband (Dharmendra) decides to play pranks on his wife's (Sharmila Tagore) supposedly smart brother-in-law. Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan also star. A Clockwork Orange (1971) Set in a near-future dystopian Britain, writer-director Stanley Kubrick adapts Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name, commenting on juvenile delinquency through the eyes of a small gang leader who enjoys "a bit of the old ultra-violence". Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Steven Spielberg's slow-paced sci-fi pic — which spent several years in development, being rewritten over and over — is about an everyday blue-collar guy (Richard Dreyfuss) whose humdrum life turns upside down after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).

Cold War (2018) Jumping either side of the Iron Curtain through the late 1940s to the 1960s, Oscar-winner Paweł Pawlikowski depicts the story of two star-crossed lovers, as they deal with Stalinism, rejection, jealousy, change, time — and their own temperaments. Company (2002) Inspired the real-life relationship between Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan, director Ram Gopal Varma offers a look at how a henchman (Vivek Oberoi) climbs up the mobster ladder and befriends the boss (Ajay Devgn), before they fall out. Dallas Buyers Club (2013) Refusing to accept a death sentence from his doctor after being diagnosed with AIDS in the 1980s, the true story of an electrician and hustler (Matthew McConaughey) who smuggles banned medications from abroad. Dangal (2016) The extraordinary true story of amateur wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) who trains his two daughters to become India's first world-class female wrestlers, who went on to win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. The Dark Knight (2008) In the second part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, regarded as the greatest comic book movie ever, Batman (Christian Bale) faces a villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger), he doesn't understand, and must go through hell to save Gotham and its people. Dev.D (2009) Anurag Kashyap offers a modern-day reimagining of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's Bengali romance classic Devdas, in which a man (Abhay Deol), having broken up with his childhood sweetheart, finds refuge in alcohol and drugs, before falling for a prostitute (Kalki Koechlin). Dheepan (2015) Winner of Cannes' top prize, three Sri Lankan refugees — including a Tamil Tiger soldier — pretend to be a family to gain asylum in France, where they soon realise that life isn't very different in the rough neighbourhoods. Dil Chahta Hai (2001) Farhan Akhtar's directorial debut about three inseparable childhood friends whose wildly different approach to relationships creates a strain on their friendship remains a cult favourite. Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Preity Zinta star. Django Unchained (2012) Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) helps a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) rescue his wife from a charming but cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Drive (2011) A stuntman moonlighting as a getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) grows fond of his neighbour and her young son, and then takes part in a botched heist to protect them from the debt-ridden husband.

Dunkirk (2017) Christopher Nolan's first historical war movie chronicles the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the French beaches of Dunkirk in World War II, using his love for non-linear storytelling by depicting three fronts — land, sea, and air — in time-shifted ways. The Edge of Seventeen (2016) In this coming-of-age comedy, the life of an awkward young woman (Hailee Steinfeld) gets more complex after her older brother starts dating her best friend, though she finds solace in an unexpected friendship and a teacher-slash-mentor (Woody Harrelson). End of Watch (2012) Before he made a terrible sci-fi remake of his own film, writer-director David Ayer took a near-documentarian lens to the day-to-day police work of two partners (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña) in South Los Angeles, involving their friendship and dealings with criminal elements. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) An estranged couple (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) begin a new relationship unaware they dated previously, having erased each other from their memories, in what stands as writer Charlie Kaufman's defining work. The Exorcist (1973) One of the greatest horror films of all time, that has left a lasting influence on the genre and beyond, is about the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother's attempts to save her with the help of two priests who perform exorcisms. The Florida Project (2017) Set in the shadow of Disney World, a precocious six-year-old girl (Brooklynn Prince) makes the most of her summer with her ragtag playmates, while her rebellious mother tries to make ends meet with the spectre of homelessness always hanging over them. Willem Dafoe stars alongside. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) In John Hughes' now-classic teen picture, a high schooler fakes being sick to spend the day with his girlfriend and his best friend, while his principal is determined to spy on him. Fruitvale Station (2013) Black Panther writer-director Ryan Coogler's first feature offered a look at the real-life events of a young California man's (Michael B. Jordan) death in a police shooting in 2008. Winner of two awards at Sundance Film Festival. Full Metal Jacket (1987) Stanley Kubrick follows a US marine nicknamed Joker from his days as a new recruit under the command of a ruthless sergeant, to his posting as a war correspondent in South Vietnam, while observing the effects of the war on his fellow soldiers.

Ghostbusters (1984) A bunch of eccentric paranormal enthusiasts start a ghost-catching business in New York, and then stumble upon a plot to wreak havoc by summoning ghosts. Gave birth to one of the most iconic song lyrics in history. Gol Maal (1979) A chartered accountant (Amol Palekar), with a knack for singing and acting, falls deep down the rabbit hole after lying to his boss that he has a twin, in this Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedy. Gone Girl (2014) Based on Gillian Flynn's best-selling novel and directed by David Fincher, a confounded husband (Ben Affleck) becomes the primary suspect in the sudden mystery disappearance of his wife (Rosamund Pike). GoodFellas (1990) Considered as one of the best gangster films of all time, it brought Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro together for the sixth time. Based on Nicholas Pilegg's 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy, it tells the rise and fall story of mob associate Henry Hill, his friends and family between 1955 and 1980. Gravity (2013) Two US astronauts, a first-timer (Sandra Bullock) and another on his final mission (George Clooney), are stranded in space after their shuttle is destroyed, and then must battle debris and challenging conditions to return home. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) A bunch of intergalactic misfits, which includes a talking racoon and tree, come together to form a ragtag team in this Marvel adventure that needs no prior knowledge. Guru (2007) Mani Ratnam wrote and directed this rags-to-riches story of a ruthless and ambitious businessman (Abhishek Bachchan) who doesn't let anything stand in his way as he turns into India's biggest tycoon. Loosely inspired by the life of Dhirubhai Ambani. Haider (2014) Vishal Bhardwaj's Shakespearean trilogy concluded with this modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, that is also based on Basharat Peer's 1990s-Kashmir memoir Curfewed Night. Follows a young man (Shahid Kapoor) who returns home to investigate his father's disappearance and finds himself embroiled in the ongoing violent insurgency. Her (2013) A lonely man (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an intelligent computer operating system (Scarlett Johansson), who enriches his life and learns from him, in Spike Jonze's masterpiece. Hot Fuzz (2007) A top London cop (Simon Pegg, also co-writer) is transferred to a sleepy English village for being the lone overachiever in a squad of slackers. A blend of relationship comedy and a genre cop movie. Edgar Wright directs. Hugo (2011) In 1930s Paris, a boy who lives alone in the walls of a train station tries to figure out the mystery involving his late father and his most treasured possession, an automaton, that needs a key to function. Martin Scorsese directs.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) In the best of four movies, Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen is forced to participate in a special edition of the Hunger Games, a competition where individuals fight to the death, featuring the winners of all previous competitions. I, Daniel Blake (2016) After a heart attack that leaves him unable to work, a widowed carpenter is forced to fight an obtuse British welfare system, while developing a strong bond with a single mother who has two children. Winner of the Palme d'Or. I Lost My Body (2019) In this animated Cannes winner, a severed hand escapes from a lab and scrambles through Paris to get back to his body, while recounting its past life that involved moving to France after an accident and falling in love. In This Corner of the World (2016) Set in Hiroshima during World War II, an 18-year-old woman agrees to marry a man she barely knows in this animated Japanese film, and then must learn to cope with life's daily struggles and find a way to push through as the war rages on around her. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Directed by Steven Spielberg off a story by George Lucas, an eponymous archaeologist (Harrison Ford) travels the world and battles a group of Nazis while looking for a mysterious artefact, in what is now often considered as one of the greatest films of all-time. Infernal Affairs (2002) Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning The Departed is a remake of this original Hong Kongian film, in which a police officer is working undercover in a Triad, while a Triad member is secretly working for the police. Both have the same objective: find the mole. Into the Wild (2007) Based on Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book, Sean Penn goes behind the camera to direct the story of a top student and athlete who gives up all possessions and savings to charity, and hitchhikes across America to live in the Alaskan wilderness. Iqbal (2005) In writer-director Nagesh Kukunoor's National Award-winning film, a hearing- and speech-impaired farm boy (Shreyas Talpade) pursues his passion for becoming a cricketer for the national squad, with the help of a washed-up ex-coach (Naseeruddin Shah). The Irishman (2019) Based on Charles Brandt's 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses”, Martin Scorsese offers an indulgent, overlong look at the life of a truck driver (Robert De Niro) who becomes a hitman working for the Bufalino crime family and labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).

John Wick (2014) In the first part of what is now a series, a former hitman (Keanu Reeves) exits retirement to find and kill those that stole his car and killed his dog. Less story, more action, with the filmmakers drawing on anime, Hong Kong action cinema, Spaghetti Westerns, and French crime dramas. Jurassic Park (1993) It might be over 25 years old at this point but watching the very first Jurassic film from Steven Spielberg — based on Michael Crichton's novel, which he co-adapted — is a great way to remind yourself why the new series, Jurassic World, has no idea why it's doing. Kahaani (2012) A pregnant woman (Vidya Balan) travels from London to Kolkata to search for her missing husband in writer-director Sujoy Ghosh's National Award-winning mystery thriller, battling sexism and a cover-up along the way. Khosla Ka Ghosla! (2006) After a powerful property dealer (Boman Irani) holds a middle-class, middle-aged man's (Anupam Kher) newly-purchased property to ransom, his son and his son's friends devise a plot to dupe the swindling squatter and pay him back with his own money. Dibakar Banerjee's directorial debut. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) A coming-of-age story of the young titular witch, who opens an air delivery business, helps a bakery's pregnant owner in exchange for accommodation, and befriends a geeky boy during her year of self-discovery. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Lady Bird (2017) Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is a coming-of-age story of a high school senior (Saoirse Ronan) and her turbulent relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf), all while she figures out who she wants to be through friendships and short relationships. Lagaan (2001) Set in Victorian India, a village farmer (Aamir Khan) stakes everyone's future on a game of cricket with the well-equipped British, in exchange for a tax reprieve for three years. The Little Prince (2015) Antoine de Saint-Exupery's 1943 novella is given the animation treatment, in which an elderly pilot (Jeff Bridges) recounts his encounters with a young boy who claimed to be an extra-terrestrial prince to his neighbour, a young girl. Rachel McAdams, James Franco, and Marion Cotillard also voice. A Little Princess (1995) Alfonso Cuarón directs this tale of a young girl who is forced to become a servant by the headmistress at her New York boarding school, after her wealthy aristocratic father is presumed dead in World War I. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) Peter Jackson brought J.R.R. Tolkien's expansive Middle-Earth to life in these three three-hour epics, which charts the journey of a meek hobbit (Elijah Wood) and his various companions, as they try to stop the Dark Lord Sauron by destroying the source of his power, the One Ring.

Loveless (2017) A Cannes winner about the social ills of life in modern Russia, told through the eyes of two separated parents who are drawn back together after their 12-year-old child goes missing. From award-winning director Andrey Zvyagintsev. The Lunchbox (2013) An unlikely mistake by Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox carrier system results in an unusual friendship between a young housewife (Nimrat Kaur) and an older widower (Irrfan Khan) about to retire from his job. Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) In legendary Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's feature debut, a dashing master thief enlists the help of a long-time nemesis in the police and a fellow thief to rescue a princess from an evil count, and put an end to his counterfeit money operation. Marriage Story (2019) Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play an entertainment industry couple going through a divorce, which pulls them — and their young son — from New York to Los Angeles, the two different hometowns of the protagonists. Mary Poppins (1964) Based on P.L. Travers' book series of the same name, a disciplined father hires a loving woman (Julie Andrews) — who he doesn't know is capable of magic — to be the nanny for his two mischievous children. Won five Oscars, including best actress for the debutant Andrews. Masaan (2015) Neeraj Ghaywan ventures into the heartland of India to explore the life of four people in his directorial debut, all of whom must battle issues of caste, culture and norms. Winner of a National Award and the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. Million Dollar Baby (2004) An overlooked, veteran boxing trainer (Clint Eastwood, who also directs) reluctantly agrees to train a former waitress (Hilary Swank) to help achieve her dreams, which leads to a close father-daughter bond that will forever change their lives. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) With the organisation he works for disbanded and his country after him, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) races against time to prove the existence of the schemers pulling the strings in this fifth chapter. Introduced Rebecca Ferguson to the franchise. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) The legendary British comedy troupe mix their talents with the tale of King Arthur and his knights, as they look for the Holy Grail and encounter a series of horrors. A contender for the best comedy of all-time.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Satire so cutting that it was banned for years in the UK and elsewhere, Life of Brian saw Monty Python turning their eyes on more long-form storytelling. The Life of Brian is the story of a young Jewish man born on the same day and next door to Jesus Christ, who gets mistaken for the messiah. Mudbound (2017) A Netflix Original, this World War II drama is set in rural Mississippi, and follows two veterans – one white and one black – who return home, and must deal with problems of racism in addition to PTSD. Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003) After his parents find out he has been pretending to be a doctor, a good-natured Mumbai underworld don (Sanjay Dutt) tries to redeem himself by enrolling in a medical college, where his compassion brushes up against the authoritarian dean (Boman Irani). Co-written and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands accused in the #MeToo movement. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Set in post-war rural Japan, a heart-warming tale of a professor's two young daughters who have adventures with friendly forest sprits. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Mystic River (2003) Three childhood friends reunite after a brutal murder, in which the victim is one's (Sean Penn) daughter, another (Kevin Bacon) is the case detective, and the third (Tim Robbins) is suspected by both. Clint Eastwood directs. Nightcrawler (2014) Jake Gyllenhaal plays a freelance video journalist with no ethics or morals who will do anything to get the best footage of violent crimes that local news stations love. A feature directorial debut for screenwriter Dan Gilroy. Ocean's Eleven (2001) In this first of Steven Soderbergh's trilogy, which features an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his eleven associates plan to rob three Las Vegas casinos at the same time. Okja (2017) Part environment parable and part skewer of corporatisation, this underappreciated Netflix Original by Bong Joon-ho tells its story of a young Korean girl and her best friend – a giant pet pig – while effortlessly crossing genres. On Body and Soul (2017) A shy, introverted man and a woman who work at a Hungarian slaughterhouse discover they share the same dreams after an incident, and then try to make them come true.

Only Yesterday (1991) A Studio Ghibli production about a 27-year-old career-driven Tokyo woman who reminisces about her childhood on her way to the countryside to see her sister's family. Isao Takahata writes and directs. Paan Singh Tomar (2012) A true story of the eponymous soldier and athlete (Irrfan Khan) who won gold at the National Games, and later turned into a dacoit to resolve a land dispute. Won top honours for film and actor (Khan) at National Awards. Pan's Labyrinth (2006) In Guillermo del Toro's fantastical version of Spain five years after the civil war, Ofelia – a young stepdaughter of a cruel army officer – is told she is the reincarnated version of an underworld princess but must complete three tasks to prove herself. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) Emma Watson stars in this coming-of-age comedy based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Chbosky, who also wrote and directed the film. Watson plays one of two seniors who guide a nervous freshman. Phantom Thread (2017) Set in the glamourous couture world of 1950s post-war London, the life of a renowned dressmaker (Daniel Day-Lewis), who is used to women coming and going through his tailored life, unravels after he falls in love with a young, strong-willed waitress. Pink (2016) A lawyer (Amitabh Bachchan) comes out of retirement to help three women (Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, and Andrea Tariang) clear their names in a crime involving a politician's nephew (Angad Bedi). Won a National Award. PK (2014) A satirical comedy-drama that probes religious dogmas and superstitions, through the lens of an alien (Aamir Khan) who is stranded on Earth after he loses his personal communicator and befriends a TV journalist (Anushka Sharma) as he attempts to retrieve it. Porco Rosso (1992) Transformed into an anthropomorphic pig by an unusual curse, an Italian World War I ace fighter veteran now works as a freelance bounty hunter in 1930s Adriatic Sea in the Mediterranean. Hayao Miyazaki writes and directs. Queen (2013) A 24-year-old shy woman (Kangana Ranaut) sets off on her honeymoon alone to Europe after her fiancé calls off the wedding a day prior. There, freed from the traditional trappings and with the help of new friends, she gains a newfound perspective on life. Director Vikas Bahl stands accused in the #MeToo movement.

Rang De Basanti (2006) Aamir Khan leads the ensemble cast of this award-winning film that focuses on four young New Delhi men who turn into revolutionary heroes themselves while playacting as five Indian freedom fighters from the 1920s for a docudrama. Ratatouille (2007) An anthropomorphic rat (Patton Oswalt) who longs to be a chef tries to achieve his dream by making an alliance with a young garbage boy at a Parisian restaurant. From Pixar. Rebecca (1940) Alfred Hitchcock's first American film is based on Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel of the same name, about a naïve, young woman who marries an aristocratic widower and then struggles under the intimidating reputation of his first wife, who died under mysterious circumstances. The Remains of the Day (1993) Made by the duo of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, this based-on-a-book film is about a dedicated and loyal butler (Anthony Hopkins), who gave much of his life — and missed out on a lot — serving a British lord who turns out to be a Nazi sympathiser. Reservoir Dogs (1992) After a simply jewellery heist goes wrong in Quentin Tarantino's feature-length debut, six criminals – Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Madsen are a few of the actors – who don't know each other's identity start to suspect each other of being a police informant. The Revenant (2015) Leonardo DiCaprio and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu won Oscars for their work on this semi-biographical Western film set in the 1820s, which tells the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass and his quest for survival and justice amidst severe winters. Roma (2018) Alfonso Cuarón revisits his childhood in the eponymous Mexico City neighbourhood, during the political turmoil of the 1970s, through the eyes of a middle-class family's live-in maid, who takes care of the house and four children, while balancing the complications of her own personal life. Sairat (2016) In a tiny village in the Indian state of Maharashtra, a fisherman's son and a local politician's daughter fall in love, which sends ripples across the society because their families belong to different castes. Currently the highest-grossing Marathi-language film of all time. Scarface (1983) Al Pacino delivers one of his best performances as a Cuban refugee who arrives in 1980s Miami with nothing, rises the ranks to become a powerful drug kingpin, and then falls due to his ego, his paranoia, and a growing list of enemies. Se7en (1995) In this dark, gripping thriller from David Fincher, two detectives – one new (Brad Pitt) and one about to retire (Morgan Freeman) – hunt a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives. Secret Superstar (2017) Though frequently melodramatic, this coming-of-age story – produced by Aamir Khan and wife Kiran Rao – of a Muslim girl from Vadodara who dreams of being a singer dealt with important social issues and broke several box office records during its theatrical run.

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Jane Austen's famous work is brought to life by director Ang Lee, about three sisters who are forced to seek financial security through marriage after the death of their wealthy father leaves them poor by the rules of inheritance. The Shining (1980) Stephen King's popular novel gets the film treatment from Stanley Kubrick, about a father who loses his sanity in an isolated hotel the family is staying at for the winter, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and the future. Shoplifters (2018) Winner of the top prize at Cannes, the story of a group of poverty-stricken outsiders scraping together an under-the-radar living in Tokyo, whose life is upended after they take in a new, young member. Hirokazu Kore-eda writes, directs, and edits. Shrek (2001) A half-parody of fairy tales, Shrek is about an eponymous ogre who agrees to help an evil lord get a queen in exchange for the deed to his swamp, filled with enough jokes for the adults and a simple plot children. A Silent Voice: The Movie (2016) Based on the manga of the same name, a coming-of-age story of a school bully who tries to make amends with a hearing-impaired girl he tormented back in the day, after the tables are turned on him. Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Two people (Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper) with pain and suffering in their past begin a road to recovery while training together for a dance competition, in what becomes an unlikely love story. The Sixth Sense (1999) In writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's best film to date, a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) tries to help a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who can see and talk to the dead. Snowpiercer (2013) Chris Evans stars in this sci-fi from Bong Joon-ho, which takes place in a future ravaged by an experiment, where the survivors live on a train that continuously circles the globe and has led to a punishing new class system. The Social Network (2010) The tale of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg gets a slight fictional spin, as it explores how the young engineer was sued by twin brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and sold lies to his co-founder and squeezed him out.

Soni (2019) A short-tempered young policewoman and her cool-headed female boss must contend with ingrained misogyny in their daily lives and even at work, where it impacts their coordinated attempts to tackle the rise of crimes against women in Delhi. Spartacus (1960) After failing to land the title role in Ben-Hur, Kirk Douglas optioned a book with a similar theme, about a slave who led a revolt — known retrospectively as the Third Servile War — against the mighty Roman Empire. Won four Oscars and was named as one of the best historical epics. The Stranger (1946) A war crimes investigator hunts a high-ranking Nazi fugitive (Orson Welles, also director) hiding in the US state of Connecticut, who is also duping his naïve new wife. Super Deluxe (2019) An inter-linked anthology of four stories, involving an unfaithful wife, a transgender woman, a bunch of teenagers, which deal in sex, stigma, and spirituality. Runs at nearly three hours. Swades (2004) Shah Rukh Khan stars a successful NASA scientist in this based on a true story drama, who returns home to India to take his nanny to the US, rediscovers his roots and connects with the local village community in the process. Taare Zameen Par (2007) Sent to boarding school against his will, a dyslexic eight-year-old is helped by an unconventional art teacher (Aamir Khan) to overcome his disability and discover his true potential. Talvar (2015) Meghna Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj combine forces to tell the story of the 2008 Noida double murder case, in which a teenage girl and the family's hired servant were killed, and the inept police bungled the investigation. Uses the Rashomon effect for a three-pronged take. Tangerine (2015) Shot entirely on iPhones, a transgender female sex worker vows revenge on her boyfriend-pimp who cheated on her while she was in jail. Tangled (2010) Locked up by her overly protective mother, a young long-haired girl finally gets her wish to escape into the world outside thanks to a good-hearted thief, and discovers her true self.

Thithi (2016) In this award-winning Kannada-language film, set in a remote village in the state of Karnataka, three generations of men reflect on the death of their locally-famous, bad-tempered 101-year-old patriarch. Made with a cast of non-professional actors. The Town (2010) While a group of lifelong Boston friends plan a major final heist at Fenway Park, one of them (Ben Affleck) falls in love with the hostage from an earlier robbery, complicating matters. Train to Busan (2016) Stuck on a blood-drenched bullet train ride across Korea, a father and his daughter must fight their way through a countrywide zombie outbreak to make it to the only city that's safe. Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) Five thirty-something friends struggle to find a place in Mumbai where they can play football in peace in this light-hearted rom-com tale, which explores gender divides and social mores along the way. The Two Popes (2019) Inspired by real life, the tale of friendship that formed between Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), the future Pope Francis, after the latter approached the former regarding his concerns with the direction of the Catholic Church. Udaan (2010) Vikramaditya Motwane made his directorial debut with this coming-of-age story of a teenager who is expelled from boarding school and returns home to the industrial town of Jamshedpur, where he must work at his oppressive father's factory. Udta Punjab (2016) With the eponymous Indian state's drug crisis as the backdrop, this black comedy crime film depicts the interwoven lives of a junior policeman (Diljit Dosanjh), an activist doctor (Kareena Kapoor), a migrant worker (Alia Bhatt), and a rock star (Shahid Kapoor). Uncut Gems (2019) A charismatic, New York-based Jewish jeweller and a gambling addict (Adam Sandler) ends up in over his head in this taut thriller, struggling to keep a lid on his family, desires, business, and enemies. The Untouchables (1987) With mobster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) making use of the rampant corruption during the Prohibition period in the US, federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) hand picks a team to expose his business and bring him to justice. Brian De Palma directs. Up in the Air (2009) A corporate downsizing expert (George Clooney) who loves living out of a suitcase finds his lifestyle threatened due to a potential love interest (Vera Farmiga) and an ambitious new hire (Anna Kendrick).

Vertigo (1958) Topping Citizen Kane in the latest Sight & Sound poll of greatest films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller about a detective afraid of heights who falls for an old friend's wife while investigating her strange activities continued his tradition of turning audiences into voyeurs. Village Rockstars (2017) A young Assamese girl of a widow pines to own a guitar and start her own rock band, but societal norms routinely get in the way. Rima Das writes, directs, shoots, edits, and handles costumes. Visaranai (2015) Winner of three National Awards and based on M. Chandrakumar's novel Lock Up, the story of four Tamil laborers who are framed and tortured by politically-motivated cops in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. Vetrimaaran writes and directs. A Wednesday! (2008) Neeraj Pandey's film is set between 2 pm and 6 pm on a Wednesday, naturally, when a common man (Naseeruddin Shah) threatens to detonate five bombs in Mumbai unless four terrorists accused in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings case are released. Wonder Woman (2017) After a pilot crashes and informs them about an ongoing World War, an Amazonian princess (Gal Gadot) leaves her secluded life to enter the world of men and stop what she believes to be the return of Amazons' nemesis. Wreck-It Ralph (2012) This Disney animated film tells the story of a video game villain who sets out to fulfil his dream of becoming a hero but ends up bringing havoc to the entire arcade where he lives. Zero Dark Thirty (2012) The decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden is the focus of this thriller from Kathryn Bigelow, dramatised as and when needed to keep a CIA intelligence analyst (Jessica Chastain) at the centre of the story. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, and Abhay Deol star as three childhood friends who set off on a bachelor trip across Spain, which becomes an opportunity to heal past wounds, combat their worst fears, and fall in love with life. Zodiac (2007) David Fincher signed on Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. to depict a cartoonist's (Gyllenhaal) obsession with figuring out the identity of the Zodiac Killer in the 1960s–70s. Zombieland (2009) A student looking for his parents (Jesse Eisenberg), a man looking for a favourite snack, and two con artist sisters join forces and take an extended road trip across a zombie-filled America, while they all search for a zombie-free sanctuary. Read the full article