Résultats Éditeur "Charles River Editors" dans Divertissement et célébrités

Mae West will always be remembered as one of Hollywood's biggest icons, and the American Film Institute named her the 15th greatest actress of the 20th century in its Top 100 list, but she also transcended the entertainment industry and became a critical part of Americana itself. Over the course of 7 decades, Mae redefined the boundaries of sexuality in ways that made more conservative Americans of the early 20th century uncomfortable, and for good measure she did so boldly and in people's faces.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

When it comes to Hollywood and the entertainment industry, perhaps nobody catapulted to fame as quickly or as strangely as Orson Welles, but it would also be safe to say that few produced such critically acclaimed work either. Though he had worked on stage productions from an early age and seamlessly transitioned into radio, few were familiar with his work until a legendary 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, during which some people who heard Welles narrating the work truly believed that an alien invasion was underway.

It is common for a culture to create intricate mythologies around its combat arts champions, but those fighters who have produced enough accomplishments to merit such adulation are limited to a few in each generation. In the second half of the 20th century, boxer Muhammad Ali commanded such reverence, and in the martial arts, two stars have primarily reestablished the combat genre for the international movie-going population. In terms of raw popularity, Chuck Norris represents the West.

If Billie Holiday wanted to become a jazz singer, she chose the best of all eras in which to attempt it. A wave of great jazz and jazz/pop crossover artists swept over the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s, generating a golden age for the genre. Emerging from such a powerful group of talented vocalists was not easy. The woman who has come to represent a model of great, instinctive jazz singing came from nowhere, had nothing, and virtually had no one. She was raw and untrained, but went forward with limited and quirky vocal gifts.

At the renowned Coachella music festival in 2012, crowds looked on with awe and stunned silence as the world's most famous rapper took the stage to deliver a fiery performance of two of his well-known hits alongside friend and former collaborator Snoop Dogg. The legendary Tupac Shakur had just overshadowed every other performer at the festival, despite the fact he'd been dead for over 15 years.

One of the more well-known Mel Brooks quips is his statement, in reference to his birth, that "we were so poor, my mother couldn't afford to have me; the lady next door gave birth to me." While obviously fabricated, the story is worthy of note, as it illustrates Brooks' self-deprecatory Jewish humor and his way of transforming a childhood of deep adversity into fodder for comedy.

Since the early 20th century, film has been embraced as arguably the preeminent international art form. Not only is Hollywood cinema immensely popular around the world, but other nationalities (Bollywood being the greatest current example) have their own thriving industries. Major actors and actresses are not only icons in their parent countries but reach tremendous international fame.

Hollywood's biggest star at the box office in 1938 was French actress Claudette Colbert, who had already won an Oscar for Best Actress in It Happened One Night (1934) and used her Broadway experience from the previous decade to become perhaps the industry's most famous screwball comedienne. The fact that Colbert had gotten that far was impressive, given that Hollywood loved to cast foreign actresses in stereotypical roles....

In the 1950s, popular music in the United States, Britain, and Europe jumped cultural tracks and went off in all directions, each form enjoying its own fan base, and its own way of overlapping with fellow genres.

When Americans are asked who the best actress in the world is today, many of them will name Meryl Streep first, and with good reason. Though her career on screen has not yet spanned 40 years, she has been nominated for 18 Oscars and 28 Golden Globes, which are both records for highest number of nominations. Her Oscar nomination count dwarfs even Katharine Hepburn, who has the second most with 12.

Among America's comedians, few - if any - have had the kind of influence on pop culture and society like Johnny Carson, the iconic host of The Tonight Show from 1962-1992. In addition to winning too many awards to count, Carson is proof that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as admitted by subsequent comedy show hosts like Jay Leno and David Letterman, who not only vied to replace Carson but also used his format for their own shows (and still continue to do so).

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

Over the course of his long film career, Paul Newman was one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood during his peak. Having come to prominence as a handsome but rebellious young man in the mold of James Dean, Newman was able to maintain an aura that viewers found both cool and irresistible even into his 60s, typically an age when leading men find themselves on the outs. Newman was even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Road to Perdition (2002) when he was in his late 70s.

Born in Mississippi, a young kid named Elvis Presley came to Memphis as a teenager and changed music forever. Fusing country and rhythm and blues with rock, Elvis brought traditional African-American sounds to the forefront of music in the 1950s, but he did so as a handsome white man before the height of the Civil Rights Movement. On top of that, his famous stage fright led to the hip gyrations that would make him the envy of young girls and the scorn of their parents.

A reaction to the likes of the previous decade's yuppies and acts like M.C. Hammer, grunge became a sound and culture for angst-ridden teens and the disaffected youth who were proud to be plain. Combining punk, metal, and hard rock, the grunge sound emanated out of Seattle from groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, giving the young decade its trademark sound.

At the end of the 20th century, the American Film Institute compiled a list of the 25 greatest actors and actresses in Hollywood over the past 100 years, but only a select few worked all the way back in the silent era of films, before "talkies" revolutionized the industry at the end of the 1920s. Among them was Mary Pickford, who was ranked 24th, but was arguably the most influential actress when it came to creating the career template for all actresses who followed, from name changes to salary.

Only a select few actors become international stars in their time, but none had as unique a career as Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was the first true film star, and he managed to do so even when films were still silent. He has been honored with too many awards to count, and the fact that his name remains instantly recognizable nearly a century after his first film is a testament to his influence.

By the time Willie Hughes Nelson was born in 1933, several of the genres he would later cover and dominate had already passed through an entire generation of pioneering artists. The tradition of authentic country music was handed down by such groups as the Carter family, and the boundaries of style and sound were well set by the time Nelson picked up his first guitar.

When the American Film Institute ranked its top 50 screen legends of the 20th century, many of the people named had careers spanning several decades, but one of them managed the feat despite living less than three decades. Ranked as the 22nd greatest actress of the 20th century, Jean Harlow was on the screen for less than 10 years, but in that time the "blonde bombshell" became the most popular actress of the 1930s. The platinum blonde was a leading lady for just five years before her premature death of renal failure at just 26 years old.