Leonard Nimoy

The late, great actor, film Director, Poet, Singer and Photographer Leonard Nimoy was Born March 26, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children’s and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College in 1953 but failed to complete his studies, and in the 1970s studied photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nimoy’s film and television acting career began in 1951. He played the title role in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni, and went on to appear in more than 50 B movies, television series such as Perry Mason and Dragnet he also portrayed the semi-alien, Narab, one of three Martian invaders in the 1952 movie series Zombies of the Stratosphere.

Between 1953, and 1955 he served as a sergeant in the United States Army alongside fellow actor Ken Berry and architect Frank Gehry. He played an Army sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller Them! and a professor in the 1958 science fiction movie The Brain Eaters, and had a role in The Balcony (1963), With Vic Morrow. He produced a 1966 version of Deathwatch, an English version of Genet’s play Haute Surveillance, and appeared as “Sonarman” in two episodes of The Silent Service. He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series from 1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode “A Quality of Mercy”. In 1959, Nimoy was cast as Luke Reid in the “Night of Decision” episode of the western series Colt .45. Nimoy also appeared in TheWagon Train, portraying Bernabe Zamora in “The Estaban Zamora Story” (1959), “Cherokee Ned” in “The Maggie Hamilton Story” (1960), Joaquin Delgado in “The Tiburcio Mendez Story” (1961), and Emeterio Vasquez in “The Baylor Crowfoot Story” (1962).

Nimoy also appeared in Bonanza (1960), The Rebel (1960), Two Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The Eleventh Hour (1962), Perry Mason (1963; playing murderer Pete Chennery in “The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe”, episode 13 of season 6), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone, The Outer Limits (1964), The Virginian (1963–1965; first working with Star Trek co-star DeForest Kelley in “Man of Violence”, episode 14 of season 2, in 1963), Get Smart (1966) and Mission: Impossible (1969–1971). He appeared again in the 1995 Outer Limits series. He appeared in Gunsmoke in 1962 as Arnie and in 1966 as John Walking Fox.

In 1965, he made his first appearance in the Star Trek pilot, The Cage alongside Star Trek co-star William Shatner with whom he had previously worked on an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Project Strigas Affair” (1964). Portraying characters from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. From 1966 to 1969 Nimoy appeared in Star Trek portraying the half-Vulcan, half-human character Spock which propelled Nimoy to stardom spawning eight feature films and numerous spin offs. The original series is also repeated. The character has garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters.

Following Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and make-up expert “The Great Paris”. He played the role during seasons four and five (1969–71). Nimoy had strongly been considered as part of the initial cast for the show but remained in the Spock role of Star Trek. He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). He also had roles in two episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1972 and 1973) and Columbo (1973) where he played a murderous doctor who was one of the few criminals with whom Columbo became angry.

Nimoy appeared in various made for television films such as Assault on the Wayne (1970), Baffled! (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are Deadly (1974), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980), and Marco Polo (1982). He received an Emmy Award nomination for best supporting actor for the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982), for playing the role of Morris Meyerson, Golda Meir’s husband opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda in her final role. He portrayed Spock in Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role. The first six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek cast including Nimoy, who also directed two of the films.

In the late 1970s, he appeared in the television series In Search of…, investigating paranormal or unexplained events or subjects and appeared as a psychiatrist Dr.David Kibner in Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. he also voiced the character of Galvatron in the animated Transformers Movie in 1986 and was featured as the voice-over narrator for the CBS paranormal series Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories in 1991. He made his directorial debut in 1973, directing the “Death On A Barge” segment for an episode of Night Gallery and also directed the third and fourth Star Trek Installments (Search for Spock and Voyage Home) and Three Men and a Baby and His final directorial credit was in 1995 for the episode “Killshot”, the pilot from the TV series Deadly Games. In 1991, Nimoy produced and acted in a movie with Robert B. Radnitz for TNT about a pro bono publico lawsuit brought by public interest attorney William John Cox on behalf of Mel Mermelstein, an Auschwitz survivor, against a group of organizations engaged in Holocaust denial.

In 1994 he narrated the IMAX documentary film, Destiny in Space, showcasing film-footage of space from nine Space Shuttle missions over four years time. And also performed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. In 1998, he had a leading role as Mustapha Mond in the made-for-television production of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and also created Alien Voices alongside John de Lancie, an audio-production venture that specializes in audio dramatizations, which include The Time Machine, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lost World, The Invisible Man and The First Men in the Moon. He also appeared in several television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel and also narrated Episodes of the the Ancient Mysteries series “The Sacred Water of Lourdes” and “Secrets of the Romanovs”. n 1997, Nimoy played the prophet Samuel, alongside Nathaniel Parker, in The Bible Collection movie David and has also appeared in several popular television series—including Futurama and The Simpsons—as both himself and Spock.In 2000 He appeared in Our 20th Century, which covers world news, sports, entertainment, technology, and fashion using original archive news clips from 1930 to 1975 from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In 2001, Nimoy voiced the role of the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire alongside Michael J. Fox.

Nimoy also won acclaim for a series of stage roles. He appeared in such plays as Vincent (1981), Fiddler on the Roof, The Man in the Glass Booth, Oliver!, 6 Rms Riv Vu, Full Circle, Camelot, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The King and I, Caligula, The Four Poster, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes, Equus, and My Fair Lady and also appeared in a short lived Gore Vidal production. Nimoy appeared in the television series Next Wave and the documentary film The Once and Future Griffith Observatory, currently running in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and In 2007, he produced the play, Shakespeare’s Will by Canadian Playwright Vern Thiessen. Starring Jeanmarie Simpson as Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway.

in 2009, he made an appearance as the mysterious Dr. William Bell in the television program Fringe, exploring the existence of a parallel universe. In 2009 Nimoy appeared as a surprise guest on the skit “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live. He also voiced the Zarn in the 2009 film version of Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell and Anna Friel and has also narrated for “Selected Shorts”, an ongoing series of programs at Symphony Space in New York City which features actors and authors reading works of short fiction and has provided voiceovers for many computer games including Star Trek Online, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep as Master Xehanort, the series’ leading villain. In 2011 he provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and made a cameo appearance in the alternate version music video of Bruno Mars’ “The Lazy Song” he also appears on an episode of The Big Bang Theory called “The Transporter Malfunction” and also made a cameo appearance in the film Star Trek into Darkness.

Nimoy was a keen photographer, from childhood. He owned a camera that he rebuilt at the age of 13 and studied photography at UCLA And His work was exhibited at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. He has also published two autobiographies -I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995), along with several volumes of Poetry Including “A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life” (2002). He also adapted and starred in the one-man play Vincent (1981), based on the play Van Gogh (1979) by Phillip Stephens. In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix about first contact with aliens, which was inspired by Isaac Asimov

Nimoy also released five albums of musical vocal recordings including Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space, and Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy and sang cover versions of “Proud Mary” and Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”. Nimoy’s voice also appeared in sampled form on a song by the pop band Information Society entitled, “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy)”. In 1997, he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews and published The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God’s presence, inspired by Kabbalah.

Sadly On February 19, 2015, Nimoy was rushed to UCLA Medical Center for severe chest pains after a call to 911 having been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), he had been in and out of hospitals for the “past several months.”Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in his Bel Air home from final complications of COPD, according to his wife Susan. He was 83 years old, and is survived by His wife Susan and his two children and six grandchildren from his first marriage.

James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins)

James Iha, the Former rythm Guitarist with alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins was born 26th March 1968. The Smashing Pumpkins were formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988 with Billy Corgan on lead vocals, lead guitar and James Iha playing rhythm guitar, the band has also included Jimmy Chamberlin (drums), D’arcy Wretzky (bass), and currently includes Jeff Schroeder (rhythm guitar, backing vocals) Mike Byrne (drums), and Nicole Fiorentino (bass guitar, backing vocals) amongst its membership. Frontman Billy Corgan is the group’s primary songwriter—his grand musical ambitions and cathartic lyrics have shaped the band’s albums and songs, which all have a diverse, densely layered and guitar-heavy sound, containing elements of gothic rock, grunge, heavy metal, dream pop, psychedelic rock, progressive rock and shoegazer-style production, as well as full string arrangements and radiant orchestral chimes.

The Smashing Pumpkins broke into the musical mainstream with their second album, Siamese Dream in 1993, which is Considered by many to be the best album in the Smashing Pumpkins catalogue of Alternative Rock, and was Produced by Butch Vig (who also produced Garbage, Sonic Youth and Nirvana’s Nevermind). It is full of Billy Corgan’s angsty lyrics , which have been variously described as “anguished, bruised reports from Billy Corgan’s nightmare-land” which are delivered in his signature breathy whine. while James Iha’s & Darcy Wretsky’s provide a suitably awesome guitar sound, which was reinforced by Jimmy Chamberlin’s power drumming.(Until he left), current drummer Mike Byrne is pretty cool too.

SMASHING PUMPKINS -GLASTONBURY 2013 http://youtu.be/bpnjPx2u1WI

Sadly in 2000, internal fighting, drug use, and diminishing record sales led to a break-up of the band. However In 2006, Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlin reconvened to record a new Smashing Pumpkins album, the splendidly noisy “Zeitgeist” (One of the songs “Doomsday Clock” is also used in the first Transformers Movie). The band toured with a rotating lineup of between five and nine musicians through much of 2007 and 2008 before Chamberlin left the band in early 2009. New drummer Mike Byrne and bassist/vocalist Nicole Fiorentino joined Smashing Pumpkins with Corgan and Schroeder, and they toured through much of 2010. Nicole Fiorentino also features on the cover of Siamese Dream. Among Smashing Pumpkins latest albums are Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, Oceania, Monuments to an Elegy, ‘Day For Night, shiny & oh so bright and Atum

Steve Tyler (Aerosmith)

Steve Tyler, lead singer with the band Aerosmith was born 26th March 1948. Aerosmith are sometimes referred to as “The Bad Boys from Boston” and “America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” (by the way, while I’m on the subject of Boston, Fran Sheehan from the band Boston was also born 26th March a year later in 1949). Aerosmith were formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970. Guitarist Joe Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton, originally in a band together called the Jam Band, met up with singer Steven Tyler, drummer Joey Kramer, and guitarist Ray Tabano, and formed Aerosmith. In 1971, Tabano was replaced by Brad Whitford, and the band began developing a following in Boston, Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many subsequent rock artists. They were signed to Columbia Records in 1972, and released a string of multi-platinum albums, beginning with their 1973 eponymous debut album, followed by their 1974 album Get Your Wings. In 1975, the band broke into the mainstream with the album Toys in the Attic, and their 1976 follow-up Rocks cemented their status as hard rock superstars.

The band released two more albums, toured extensively, and charted a string of Hot 100 singles. By the end of the 1970s, they were among the most popular hard rock bands in the world and developed a loyal following of fans, often referred to as the “Blue Army”. However, drug addiction and internal conflict took their toll on the band, which resulted in the departures of Perry and Whitford in 1979 and 19re81, respectively; they were replaced by Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay. The band did not fare well between 1980 and 1984, releasing a lone album, Rock in a Hard Place, which went gold but failed to match their previous successes. Perry and Whitford returned in 1984 and the band signed a new deal with Geffen Records. After a comeback tour, the band recorded Done with Mirrors, which won some critical praise but failed to come close to commercial expectations. It was not until the band sobered up and released 1987′s Permanent Vacation that they regained the level of popularity they had experienced in the 1970s.

Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, the band scored several hits including Dude, looks like a lady Walk this Way (Featuring RUN DMC) and “love in an elvator“, and won numerous awards for music from the multi-platinum albums Pump, Get a Grip, and Nine Lives. The band also became a pop culture phenomenon with popular music videos and notable appearances in television, film, and video games. Their comeback has been described as one of the most remarkable and spectacular in rock ‘n’ roll history. Additional albums followed in 2001 and 2004 including the songs Crazy (Featuring Alicia Silverstone & Liv Tyler) and I don’t Wanna Miss a Thing, from the film Armageddon. After 42 years of performing, the band continues to tour and record music. Their latest album,is The Aerosmith reunion album “Music From Another Dimension” which was Released 2 Nov 2012, and is the first collection of new tunes since 2001. The album opens with Luv xxx followed by, the Bluesy track Oh Yeah and Out Go The Lights is an epic rock and roll song.’Closer’ also carries a bluesy edge and is a strong, slow-tempo song, while ‘Freedom Fighter’ is a pseudo-political rock number with Joe Perry on vocals. “Legendary Child.” is another awesome song

Aerosmith are one of the best-selling American rock band of all time, having sold more than 150 million albums worldwide, including 66.5 million albums in the United States alone. They also hold the record for the most gold and multi-platinum albums by an American group. The band has scored 21 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, nine number-one Mainstream Rock hits, four Grammy Awards, and ten MTV Video Music Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, and were included among both Rolling Stone’s and VH1′s lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Diana Ross

American vocalist, music artist and actress Diana Ernestine Earle Ross was born March 26, 1944. Ross first rose to fame as a founding member and lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. when at the age of fifteen, Ross was brought to the attention of music impresario Milton Jenkins, manager of the local doo-wop group the Primes, by Mary Wilson. Paul Williams, then member of The Primes, convinced Jenkins to include Ross in the Primettes, considered a “sister group” of the Primes. Ross was part of a lineup that included Wilson, Florence Ballard and Betty McGlown, who completed the lineup. In 1960, following their win at a singing contest in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the group auditioned for a spot on Motown Records after Smokey Robinson introduced the young group to Berry Gordy. Upon learning of their ages, Gordy advised them to come back after graduation. Undeterred, the quartet stayed around Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. headquarters, offering to provide extra help for Motown’s recordings, often including hand-claps and background vocals. That same year, the Primettes made their first recordings for Lu Pine Records, with Ross singing lead on her and Ballard’s composition, “Tears of Sorrow”. During the group’s early years, Ross served as the group’s main hair stylist, make-up artist, seamstress and costume designer.

In January 1961, after having replaced McGlown with Barbara Martin, Berry Gordy agreed to sign the young act under the condition they change their name. Each member picked out various names from friends. Eventually they settled on The Supremes, though Ross initially had apprehensions toward the name – she felt the name would mistake them for a male vocal group. But Gordy agreed with the new name and signed them on January 15 of that year. Following Martin’s exit in 1962, the group remained a trio. During the group’s early years, there was no designated lead vocalist for the group as they had agreed to split lead vocals between their choice of song material; Ross favoring the uptempo pop songs. That changed in 1963 when Gordy assigned Ross, who had already sung lead on the majority of their early singles, as the main lead vocalist, considering that her vocals had potential to reach Gordy’s dreams of crossover success. Following this, they recorded their first hit single, “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes”, later that year, where it peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Before this song, the Supremes were unfavorably pinned as the “no-hit Supremes”. Following this, the group reached number-one with “Where Did Our Love Go” and reached unprecedented success: between August 1964 and May 1967, Ross, Wilson and Ballard sang on ten number-one hit singles, all of which also made the UK top forty. The group had also become a hit with audiences both domestically and abroad, going on to become Motown’s most successful vocal act throughout the sixties.

Florence Ballard left the Supremes by Gordy in July 1967 and was replaced by Cindy Birdsong. In mid-1969, Gordy decided to have Ross leave the group by the end of the year and Ross began sessions for her own solo work that July. One of the first plans for Ross to establish her own solo career was to bring in a new Motown recording act. Though she herself didn’t claim discovery, Motown pinned Ross as having discovered The Jackson 5. Ross would introduce the group to several public events including The Hollywood Palace though she added in “Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5″, which didn’t sit well with the Jacksons’ father, Joseph Jackson and Gordy. In November, Ross confirmed a split from the Supremes on Billboard. Ross’ presumed first solo recording, “Someday We’ll Be Together”, was eventually released as a Supremes recording and became the group’s final number-one hit on the Hot 100. Ross made her final appearance with the Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas on January 14, 1970.

In 1968, Ross started performing as a solo artist mainly on television specials, including The Supremes’ own specials such as TCB and G.I.T. on Broadway and After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that has included successful ventures into film and Broadway. She received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), for which she won a Golden Globe award for most promising female newcomer. She has won seven American Music Awards, and won a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show, An Evening with Diana Ross, in 1977

In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the “Female Entertainer of the Century.” In 1993, the Guinness Book of World Records declared Diana Ross the most successful female music artist in history due to her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any female artist in the charts with a career total of 70 hit singles.Diana Ross has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as member of the Supremes alongside Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.Ross is also one of the few recording artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one as a solo artist and the other as a member of The Supremes. In December 2007, she received the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2012, Diana was finally honored by NARAS with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in her 50th year in the music business.

Sir Noël Coward

English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, Sir Noël Coward sadly passed away 26 March 1973 at his home, Firefly Estate, in Jamaica on of heart failure. He was Born in Teddington, on 16th December 1899 and attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward became known for his wit, flamboyance and achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward’s stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.

At the outbreak of World War II, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama, In Which We Serve, and was knighted in 1969. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”, “London Pride” and “I Went to a Marvellous Party”. His plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. Coward did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality, but it was discussed candidly after his death by biographers including Graham Payn, his long-time partner, and in Coward’s diaries and letters, published posthumously. Sadly by the end of the 1960s, Coward suffered from arteriosclerosis and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys, he struggled with bouts of memory loss. This also affected his work in The Italian Job, and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. Coward was knighted in 1969 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement.

He is buried in Jamaica, overlooking the north coast of the island. A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on 29 May 1973, and the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, wrote and delivered a poem in Coward’s honour, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier read verse and Yehudi Menuhin played Bach. On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Thanked by Coward’s partner, Graham Payn, for attending, the Queen Mother replied, “I came because he was my friend.”The Noël Coward Theatre in St Martin’s Lane, originally opened in 1903 as the New Theatre and later called the Albery, was renamed in his honour after extensive refurbishment, re-opening on 1 June 2006. A statue of Coward by Angela Conner was unveiled by the Queen Mother in the foyer of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1998.There are also sculptures of Coward displayed in New York and Jamaica. In 2008 an exhibition devoted to Coward was mounted at the National Theatre in London. The exhibition was later hosted by the Museum of Performance & Design in San Francisco and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.

Richard Tandy (Electric light orchestra)

Richard Tandy, the keyboard player with Electric Light Orchestra was born 26th March 1948. The Electric Light Orchestra were formed in Birmingham, England, In the late 1960s, after Roy Wood — guitarist, vocalist and songwriter of The Move — had an idea to form a new band that would use violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound, taking rock music in the direction “that The Beatles had left off”. Jeff Lynne, frontman of fellow Birmingham group The Idle Race, was excited by the concept. In January 1970, when Carl Wayne left The Move, Lynne accepted Wood’s second invitation to join the band on the condition that they focus their energy on the new project & when Wood added multiple cellos to a Lynne-penned song and “10538 Overture” became the first Electric Light Orchestra song. The debut album The Electric Light Orchestra was released in 1971.” and10538 Overture” was a hit.

ELO’s debut concert took place on 16 April 1972 at The Greyhound Pub in Croydon, U.K with a line-up of Wood, Lynne, Bevan, Bill Hunt (horns, keyboards), Wilfred Gibson (violin), Hugh McDowell (cello), Mike Edwards (cello), Andy Craig (cello) and Richard Tandy (bass). During the recordings for the band’s second LP, Wood left the band taking cellist McDowell and horn/keyboard player Hunt with him to form Wizzard. Despite predictions from the music press that the band would fold without Wood, Lynne stepped up to lead the band, with Bev Bevan remaining on drums, joined by Gibson on violin, Richard Tandy now playing the Moog synthesiser in place of Hunt, Mike de Albuquerque on bass and vocals, and Mike Edwards and Colin Walker on cellos. The new line-up performed at the 1972 Reading Festival. The band released their second album, ELO 2 in 1973, which produced their first US chart single,”Roll Over Beethoven”. The third album On the Third Day, was released 1973, featuring the single “Showdown. “For the band’s fourth album, Eldorado, Lynne hired an orchestra and choir & Louis Clark joined the band as string arranger. The first single of the album, “Can’t Get It Out of My Head”, became a hit, and it became ELO’s first gold album. The next album Face the Music was released in 1975, producing the hit singles “Evil Woman” and “Strange Magic” and the opening instrumental “Fire On High.

Their sixth album, A New World Record was released in 1976. It contained the hit singles “Livin’ Thing”, “Telephone Line”, “Rockaria!” and “Do Ya”. This was followed by the double-LP Out of the Blue, which featured the singles “Turn to Stone”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman”, “Mr. Blue Sky”, and “Wild West Hero”. The Electric Light Orchestra’s next album Discovery was released in 1979 and contained the songs “Don’t Bring Me Down”,”Shine a Little Love”, “Last Train to London”, “Confusion” and “The Diary of Horace Wimp” and In 1980 Jeff Lynne co-wrote the soundtrack for the film Xanadu, with John Farrar which featured Olivia Newton-John. In 1981 ELO’s sound changed again with the science fiction concept album Time, a throwback to earlier, more progressive rock albums like Eldorado this yielded the singles “Hold on Tight”, “Twilight”, “The Way Life’s Meant to Be”, “Here Is the News” and “Ticket to the Moon”. ELO’s next album Secret Messages was released in 1983 & contained the hit “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King” .

The Electric Light Orchestra’s final album of the 20th century, Balance of Power, was released early in 1986 containing the song “Calling America”. Lynne also played a small number of live ELO performances in 1986, in England, Germany & the US appearing on American Bandstand, Solid Gold, then at Disneyland. In 1986 They played a charity concert called the The Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert 1986 which was organised by fellow band member Bev Bevan in ELO’s hometown of Birmingham. George Harrison appeared onstage during the encore at Heartbeat, joining in the all-star jam of “Johnny B. Goode”. ELO’s last performance of the century occurred on 13 July 1986 in Stuttgart, Germany playing as support band to Rod Stewart & they effectively disbanded after that final show in Stuttgart. The Electric Light Orchestra also released a Greatest Hits compilation.

Between 1971 and 1986 ELO released eleven studio albums and another album in 2001, plus numerous Greatest Hits collections. They have been awarded 19 CRIA, 21 RIAA and 38 BPI awards,and sold over 50 million records worldwide . The group’s name is an intended pun based not only on electric light (as in a light bulb as seen on early album covers) but also using “electric” rock instruments combined with a “light orchestra” (orchestras with only a few cellos and violins that were popular in Britain during the 1960s). The official band logo, was designed in 1976 by artist Kosh, and was first seen on their 1976 album A New World Record and is based on a 1946 Wurlitzer jukebox model 4008 speaker which was itself based upon the upper cabinet of the Wurlitzer model 1015 jukebox.

Purple day for epilepsy🟪🟪🟪🟪

The Purple Day for Epilepsy takes place on March 26th to raise awareness of epilepsy and people are encouraged to wear a purple-coloured item of clothing on March 26. Purple and lavender are often associated with epilepsy, as for example in the wearing of a lavender ribbon. The word epilepsy is derived from Ancient Greek ἐπιλαμβάνειν, meaning “to seize, possess, or afflict” and Epilepsy refers to a group of neurological disorders characterized by epileptic seizures which can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking. These episodes can result in physical injuries, including occasionally broken bones. In epilepsy, seizures tend to recur and, as a rule, have no immediate underlying cause.  Isolated seizures that are provoked by a specific cause such as poisoning are not deemed to represent epilepsy.

The cause of most cases of epilepsy is unknown. Some cases occur as the result of brain injury, stroke, brain tumors, infections of the brain, and birth defects through a process known as epileptogenesis. Known genetic mutations are directly linked to a small proportion of cases. Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive and abnormal neuronal activity in the cortex of the brain. The diagnosis involves ruling out other conditions that might cause similar symptoms, such as fainting, and determining if another cause of seizures is present, such as alcohol withdrawal or electrolyte problems. This may be partly done by imaging the brain and performing blood tests. Epilepsy can often be confirmed with an electroencephalogram (EEG), but a normal test does not rule out the condition. Epilepsy that occurs as a result of other issues may be preventable. Seizures are controllable with medication in about 70% of cases. Inexpensive options are often available. surgery, neurostimulation or dietary changes may also be considered. In many areas of the world, those with epilepsy either have restrictions placed on their ability to drive or are not permitted to drive until they are free of seizures for a specific length of time. However Not all cases of epilepsy are lifelong, and many people improve to the point that treatment is no longer needed.

PURPLE DAY was founded in 2008 by Cassidy Megan an inspirational epileptic girl from Nova Scotia, Canada, who was motivated by her own struggles with epilepsy and wanted to create an event to raise epilepsy awareness worldwide, and get people talking about epilepsy in an effort to dispel myths and inform those with seizures that they are not alone.It is officially recognized by law as Purple Day for epilepsy awareness in Canada.The Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia came on board in 2008 to help develop Cassidy’s idea, which is now known as the Purple Day for Epilepsy campaign.

In March 2009, the official USA Purple Day Party was launched by the New York-based Anita Kaufmann Foundation – a charity dedicated to educating the public about epilepsy and they joied forces with the Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia to launch Purple Day internationally. The combined efforts of AKF and EANS have led to the involvement of numerous organizations, schools, businesses, politicians and celebrities around the world. On March 26, 2009, over 100,000 students, 95 workplaces and 116 politicians participated in Purple Day. As the global sponsors of Purple Day, both organizations are committed to partnering with individuals and organizations around the world to promote epilepsy awareness and make a difference to help others internationally and bring epilepsy out of the shadows.

Canadian Paul Shaffer of the Late Show with David Letterman was one of many special guests that attended the official launch. One of his relatives is an epileptologist in Toronto, Canada, so he is familiar with some of the barriers that affect person’s with epilepsy and wanted to attend the event to offer his support for Cassidy Megan’s campaign. Deirdre Floyd, President of the Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia and Chair of the Purple Day for Epilepsy Campaign, member agency of the Canadian Epilepsy Alliance was another special guest who also attended the event

Raymond Chandler

Famous for writing Farewell My Lovely, The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, the American crime Novelist and screenwriter Raymond Chandler, sadly died at Scripps Memorial Hospital On March 26, 1959 of pneumonial peripheral vascular shock and prerenal uremia. He was born July 23, 1888 in Chicago Illinois. He spent his early years in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, living with his mother and father near his cousins and his aunt (his mother’s sister) and uncle. Chandler’s father, an alcoholic civil engineer who worked for the railway, abandoned the family. To obtain the best possible education for Ray, his mother, originally from Ireland, moved them to the area of Upper Norwood in the London Borough of Croydon, England in 1900. Another uncle, a successful lawyer in Waterford, Ireland, supported them while they lived with Chandler’s maternal grandmother. Raymond was a first cousin to the actor Max Adrian, a founder member of the Royal Shakespeare Company; Max’s mother Mabel was a sister of Florence Thornton. Chandler was classically educated at Dulwich College, London (a public school whose alumni include the authors P. G. Wodehouse and C. S. Forester). He spent some of his childhood summers in Waterford with his mother’s family. He did not go to university, instead spending time in Paris and Munich improving his foreign language skills. In 1907, he was naturalized as a British subject in order to take the civil service examination, which he passed. He then took an Admiralty job, and published his first poem.

Chandler disliked the servility of the civil service and resigned, to the consternation of his family, and became a reporter for the Daily Express and the Bristol Western Gazette newspapers. He was unsuccessful as a journalist, but he published reviews and continued writing romantic poetry. An encounter with the slightly older Richard Barham Middleton is said to have influenced him into postponing his career as writer. “I met… also a young, bearded, and sad-eyed man called Richard Middleton. … Shortly afterwards he committed suicide in Antwerp, a suicide of despair, I should say. The incident made a great impression on me, because Middleton struck me as having far more talent than I was ever likely to possess; and if he couldn’t make a go of it, it wasn’t very likely that I could. In 1912, he returned to America, visiting his aunt and uncle before settling in San Francisco where he took a correspondence course in bookkeeping, finishing ahead of schedule. His mother joined him there in late 1912. They moved to Los Angeles in 1913, where he strung tennis rackets, picked fruit. He found steady employment with the Los Angeles Creamery.

In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He saw combat in the trenches in France with the Gordon Highlanders and was undergoing flight training in the fledgling Royal Air Force (RAF) when the war ended. After the armistice, he returned to Los Angeles by way of Canada, and soon began a love affair with Pearl Eugenie (“Cissy”) Pascal, a married woman 18 years his senior and the stepmother of Gordon Pascal, with whom Chandler had enlisted. Cissy amicably divorced her husband, Julian, in 1920, but Chandler’s mother disapproved of the relationship and refused to sanction the marriage. For the next four years Chandler supported both his mother and Cissy. After the death of Florence Chandler on September 26, 1923, he was free to marry Cissy. They were married on February 6, 1924. Having begun in 1922 as a bookkeeper and auditor, Chandler was by 1931 a highly paid vice president of the Dabney Oil Syndicate, but his alcoholism, absenteeism, promiscuity with female employees, and threatened suicides contributed to his dismissal a year later. Due to his straitened financial circumstances Following his dismissal , Chandler turned to his latent writing talent to earn a living, teaching himself to write pulp fiction by studying the Perry Mason stories of Erle Stanley Gardner. Chandler’s first professional work, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot”, was published in Black Mask magazine in 1933. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939, featuring the detective Philip Marlowe, speaking in the first person.

His second Marlowe novel, Farewell, My Lovely (1940), became the basis for three movie versions adapted by other screenwriters, including the 1944 film Murder My Sweet, which marked the screen debut of the Marlowe character, played by Dick Powell (whose depiction of Marlowe Chandler reportedly applauded). Literary success and film adaptations led to a demand for Chandler himself as a screenwriter. He and Billy Wilder co-wrote Double Indemnity (1944), based on James M. Cain’s novel of the same title. The noir screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. Said Wilder, “I would just guide the structure and I would also do a lot of the dialogue, and he (Chandler) would then comprehend and start constructing too.” Wilder acknowledged that the dialogue which makes the film so memorable was largely Chandler’s.

Chandler’s only produced original screenplay was The Blue Dahlia (1946). He had not written a denouement for the script and, according to producer John Houseman, Chandler agreed to complete the script only if drunk, which Houseman agreed to. The script gained Chandler’s second Academy Award nomination for screenplay. Chandler also collaborated on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), an ironic murder story based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, which he thought implausible. Chandler clashed with Hitchcock to such an extent that they stopped talking. In 1946 the Chandlers moved to La Jolla, California, an affluent coastal neighborhood of San Diego, where Chandler wrote two more Philip Marlowe novels, The Long Goodbye and his last completed work, Playback. The latter was derived from an unproduced courtroom drama screenplay he had written for Universal Studios.

Sadly his wife Cissy Chandler died in 1954, after a long illness. Heartbroken and drunk, Chandler neglected to inter her cremated remains, and they sat for 57 years in a storage locker in the basement of Cypress View Mausoleum. After Cissy’s death, Chandler’s loneliness worsened and he became deppressed ; he returned to drinking alcohol, never quitting it for long, and the quality and quantity of his writing suffered. In 1955, he attempted suicide. Chandler’s personal and professional life were both helped and complicated by the women to whom he was attracted—notably Helga Greene, his literary agent; Jean Fracasse, his secretary; Sonia Orwell (George Orwell’s widow); and Natasha Spender (Stephen Spender’s wife), the last two of whom assumed Chandler to be a repressed homosexual, Chandler regained his U.S. citizenship in 1956 and in 1958, Chandler was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.

ollowing some respite in England, he returned to La Jolla. Following his death in 1959. Helga Greene inherited Chandler’s $60,000 estate, after prevailing in a 1960 lawsuit filed by Fracasse contesting Chandler’s holographic codicil to his will. Chandler was Four chapters into writing his eighth novel. This was completed as the novel Poodle Springs by the mystery writer and Chandler admirer Robert B. Parker. In 1989 Parker, also finished a sequel to The Big Sleep entitled Perchance to Dream, which was salted with quotes from the original novel. Chandler’s final Marlowe short story, circa 1957, was entitled “The Pencil”. It later provided the basis of an episode of the HBO miniseries (1983–86), Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, starring Powers Boothe as Marlowe. In 2014, “The Princess and the Pedlar” (1917), a previously unknown comic operetta, with libretto by Chandler and music by Julian Pascal, was also discovered among the uncatalogued holdings of the Library of Congress. The work was never published or produced. It has been dismissed by the Raymond Chandler estate as “no more than… a curiosity.” A small team under the direction of the actor and director Paul Sand is seeking permission to produce the operetta in Los Angeles.

Chandler is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, in San Diego, California and in 2010, a petition was signed to disinter Cissy’s remains and reinter them with Chandler in Mount Hope. After a hearing in September 2010 in San Diego Superior Court, Judge Richard S. Whitney granted the request. and Cissy’s ashes were conveyed from Cypress View to Mount Hope and interred under a new grave marker above Chandler’s, as they had wished. About 100 people attended the ceremony, which included readings by the Rev. Randal Gardner, Powers Boothe, Judith Freeman and Aissa Wayne. The shared gravestone reads, “Dead men are heavier than broken hearts”, a quotation from The Big Sleep. Chandler’s original gravestone, placed by Jean Fracasse, is still at the head of his grave; the new one is at the foot.

Chandler has had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature, and is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett’s Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with “private detective,” both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe. Some of Chandler’s novels are considered to be important literary works, and three are often considered to be masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye is praised within an anthology of American crime stories as “arguably the first book since Hammett’s The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery. Many of Raymond Chandler’s novels have also been adapted for film and Television numerous times including The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely, starring Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum among others as hard-bitten detective Philip Marlowe.