title: Movie 43

text: Calvin and J.J. attempt to get revenge by telling Baxter of a film that's so dangerous it will cause the annihilation of the world. The movie is known as Movie 43. While J.J. and Baxter look for Movie 43 on a Google stand-in, Calvin retrieves Baxter's laptop and loads it with viruses from porn sites, and masturbates to a strip tease video on the porn sites in a bathroom. Baxter finds hundreds of results for Movie 43 on a website referred to by him as a dark corner of the Internet. They find the sketches starting from the 43rd search on the list of results.


title: Movie 43

text: As Baxter and J.J. keep watching videos, they are interrupted by Vrankovich and a group of Chinese mobsters wanting to find Movie 43, going so far as to take J.J.'s classmate Stevie Schraeder, film executive Griffin Schraeder's oldest son, hostage. Vrankovich warns them that if they find Movie 43, civilization will be destroyed. They ignore his claims and keep searching, eventually finding the real, one-and-only "Movie 43", which turns out to be from the future.


title: Movie 43

text: Showing Baxter as a profane commando, leading a group of recruits to survive after the world has ended. As Calvin finishes ruining Baxter's laptop, their mother enters, wearing the same shirt and shorts that the woman in the strip tease video wore, causing Calvin to have a mental breakdown, realizing he had masturbated to a video of his mother. Afterward, a deadly earthquake rumbles and mankind is lost. However, a few years later the only survivor, a crippled Calvin, finds Baxter's laptop still working despite the viruses. He watches the last remaining skits on the laptop.


title: Movie 43

text: This version of the film was released in the U.S. as part of the Blu-ray Disc of "Movie 43" as an unrated alternate cut of the film.


title: Movie 43

text: Single businesswoman Beth goes on a blind date with Davis, the city's most eligible bachelor. When they arrive together at a restaurant, Beth is shocked when he removes his scarf, revealing a pair of testicles dangling from his neck. Over dinner, it confuses her that he fails to acknowledge his anatomical abnormality, and nobody seems to be surprised by it. When two friends of Davis come by, one of them convinces him to give Beth a kiss. Davis agrees, but when he kisses her on the forehead, his neck testicles are dangling near Beth's mouth, causing her to scream and break off the kiss.


title: Movie 43

text: Recently moved in, Sean and Clare have coffee with their new neighbors, Robert and Samantha who have a teenage son, Kevin, whom they home-school. They begin inquiring about the homeschooling, and Robert and Samantha describe how they replicated a full high school experience, going as far as hazing, bullying, ostracizing, and giving out detentions.


title: Movie 43

text: To make the experience as awkward as possible, like "real high school," they threw parties that excluded Kevin, Samantha instigated Kevin's "first kiss" and Robert revealed romantic feelings for Kevin. Visibly disturbed, the neighbors end up meeting Kevin, who says he is going out and gives them the impression that all is fine: until he reveals a doll made of a mop with Samantha's face on it, referring to the doll as his girlfriend.


title: Movie 43

text: Julie and Doug have been in a relationship for a year. When he attempts to propose, she reveals that she is a coprophiliac, asking him to defecate on her in the bedroom. Urged by his best friend Larry and others to go along with it, he eats a large meal and drinks a bottle of laxative prior to the event.


title: Movie 43

text: Wanting foreplay, Julie is angered when Doug wants to finish, and she runs into the street. Chasing after her, he is then hit by a car and graphically evacuates his bowels everywhere. She cradles him and apologizes; covered and surrounded by his excrement on the road, she exclaims that it is the "most beautiful thing" she has ever seen and accepts his marriage proposal.


title: Movie 43

text: Neil is working the night shift at a local grocery store when his ex-girlfriend Veronica comes through his line and they begin arguing. Soon it turns into sexual discussion and flirtation as they lament over their relationship. Unbeknownst to them, Neil's intercom microphone broadcasts the entire explicit conversation throughout the store, where various elderly people and vagrants tune in. After she leaves in tears, the customers agree to cover his shift while he goes after her.


title: Movie 43

text: A developing company is having a meeting in their headquarters over their newly released product, the "iBabe", a life-sized, realistic replica of a nude woman which functions as an MP3 player. The boss listens to his various workers argue over the placement of a fan that was built into the genital region of the iBabe, which is cutting off the penises of teenage boys who attempt to have sex with them. The board members then agree to strongly emphasize the dangers of the product via its new commercials.


title: Movie 43

text: Robin and his cohort Batman are in Gotham City at a speed dating event seeking out a bomb threat by their nemesis Penguin. While Robin attempts to connect with various women through speed dating including Stacey, Lois Lane, and Supergirl, Batman encounters his ex Wonder Woman and attempts to stop Penguin from detonating Supergirl, who later turns out to be the Riddler in disguise, which Batman already knew and was screwing with Robin, who kissed "her" moments before Batman exposed the Riddler's ruse. Lois Lane tells Robin on their speed date that six months ago she broke up with Superman, who turns out to be a stalker/sexual predator by ejaculating on her bedroom window. Further playing with the popular discussion of Superman's sperm, like in the film "Mallrats", Lois Lane reveals that he uses his semen as a hair gel to keep the spit curl consistent.


title: Movie 43

text: A faux-Public service announcement about children stuck in machines and how adults' criticism of these particular machines affects the feelings of the children stuck inside them. This commercial was paid for by the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Inside Machines".


title: Movie 43

text: Nathan and Amanda are watching television after school at his house as their first "middle school" date. When they begin to kiss, his older brother Mikey enters the living room and makes fun of them. Amanda then discovers she is menstruating and tries to hide it. When Nathan sees blood on her pants, he panics and believes her to be bleeding to death. He causes a debacle, later including Nathan and Mikey's father Steve and Amanda's father.


title: Movie 43

text: Amanda calls them out on their stupidity, embarrassed to know that she's getting her first period in front of them and they don't know what to do about it. When she leaves with her father, Nathan yells that the process of keeping the lining of her internal organs intact by inserting his erect phallus into her vagina is much too complicated and Mikey agrees. Steve cheers them up by farting in front of them. As Mikey goes to the bathroom, Nathan and Steve watch a game on television, which has a very graphic Tampax commercial in which a girl gets eaten by a shark due to her menstruating.


title: Movie 43

text: Pete captures a leprechaun for his roommate, Brian, as a birthday present. Tying the leprechaun up in the basement, they demand he gives them a pot of gold. The obscene leprechaun threatens that his brother is coming to save him. When he arrives, Brian and Pete are shot at but ultimately kill both leprechauns. At the end of the segment, Pete reveals he has also caught a fairy who performs fellatio for gold coins.


title: Movie 43

text: Donald and Emily are on a date together at a Mexican restaurant. Tired of typical first dates, Emily challenges Donald to a game of truth or dare. She dares him to grab a man's buttocks, and he follows by daring her to blow out the birthday candles on a blind boy's cake. The game rapidly escalates to extremes, in which both of them get plastic surgery and tattoos, and humiliate themselves.


title: Movie 43

text: When Donald and Emily arrive back at Emily's apartment, they praise their date. Donald tries to kiss her, but she rejects him, claiming she's not attracted to Asian men (which he was surgically altered to resemble). She was joking and invites him to have sex with her as she shows him her enlarged breasts.


title: Movie 43

text: Set in 1959, Coach Jackson is lecturing his all-black basketball team before their first game against an all-white team. Worried about losing the game, the timid players are lectured by the coach about their superiority in the sport over their white counterparts, which he expresses vulgarly. When the game ensues, the all-white team loses miserably yet rejoices in a single point they earn.


title: Movie 43

text: Played mid-credits, Amy worries that her boyfriend Anson's animated cat Beezel is coming between them. Beezel seems to detest Amy and anyone who comes between him and Anson, but he only sees Beezel as innocent. One day, Amy witnesses Beezel masturbating to summer vacation photos of Anson in a swimsuit. He attacks and violently urinates on her.


title: Movie 43

text: Anson still finds his pet innocent but Amy threatens to leave if he doesn't get rid of Beezel. Caring more about his relationship, he agrees to find a new home for him. That night, from a closet, Beezel tearfully watches the couple make love (whilst sodomizing himself with a hairbrush and dry humping a stuffed teddy bear).


title: Movie 43

text: The next day when it comes time to take Beezel away, he is nowhere to be found. Amy goes outside to look. Beezel then runs her over with a truck and attempts to kill her with a shotgun, but she chases him into the street and begins beating him with a shovel, which is witnessed by a group of children attending a birthday party at a neighboring house.


title: Movie 43

text: When Anson approaches to see what is happening, Amy tries to explain Beezel's motives. He acts innocent and Anson sides with his cat. The children of the party then attack and murder Amy for beating up Beezel, stabbing her with plastic forks. Anson grabs him, as Beezel again fantasizes about French kissing his owner.


title: Movie 43

text: In this segment that was cut from the film, Maude and George are looking for their breast-flashing daughter Susie with the help of the private eye, who is behind the camera with only one clue which is a small video that features their daughter. The scene was included as an extra on the DVD and Blu-ray release.


title: Movie 43

text: The second segment cut from the film follows Wayne, a shy apprentice mortician who is secretly a necrophiliac at the hospital. One night, a body he's having sex with is brought back to life from the pressure of his thrusts. His supervisor Bob suddenly walks in and believes Wayne has performed a life-saving operation of some kind. The staff at the hospital and the media congratulate him while a news reporter asks what he did to save her.


title: Movie 43

text: Unable to conjure an answer, one of the cops on scene tells everyone else they can just watch the security tapes to find out. As they rush to the security room, Wayne is given a personal thanks by the girl he revived, upon which he responds with an awkward "You're welcome". Unlike "Find Our Daughter", this segment was not included in the DVD or Blu-ray release and instead premiered at the 2014 LA Comedy Festival.


title: Movie 43

text: Wessler first came up with the idea for an outrageous comedy made up of several short films in the early 2000s. "It's like "Funny or Die", only if you could go crazy," judged Farrelly, "because with "Funny or Die", there are certain limits. And we just wanted to do that kind of short and go much further than that." Charlie Wessler affirmed that he "wanted to make a "Kentucky Fried Movie" for the modern age".


title: Movie 43

text: Wessler then recruited three pairs of directors—Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, and David and Jerry Zucker—to sign on to write and direct one-third of the project each. He then began working out a deal with a studio for the project, but the project did not stick. "They ended up calling me about a month after we started negotiating the deal and said 'we can't do it' because they had political pressure to not make R-rated movies that were marketed to teenagers," claimed Wessler. He then went to multiple other studios, but, according to Wessler, "no one could understand what [he] was trying to do".


title: Movie 43

text: In 2009, Peter Farrelly and producer John Penotti took their pitch—along with about 60 scripts for the vignettes—to Relativity Media. At that meeting, Wessler, Penotti, and Farrelly presented one short that they already had shot, starring Kate Winslet as a woman going on a blind date with a seemingly successful and handsome Hugh Jackman. "They just looked at me and said, 'Go for it,'" Wessler told "The Hollywood Reporter". "It takes a lot of balls to make something that is not conventional." Relativity provided $6 million for the film, but no other studio would sign on. "Other potential backers", Farrelly revealed, "didn't believe it could happen—a movie with Kate Winslet for $6 million?"


title: Movie 43

text: The film officially began principal photography in March 2010, but due to its large cast, producer/director Farrelly told "Entertainment Weekly" that "This movie was made over four years, and they just had to wait for a year or two years for different actors. They would shoot for a week, and shut down for several months. Same thing with the directors. It was the type of movie you could come back to." Shortly before shooting, writers Parker, Stone, and the Zuckers backed out.


title: Movie 43

text: The film ended up with thirteen directors and nineteen writers tied to it, each one co-writing and directing different segments of the sixteen different storylines. Farrelly directed the parts of the movie with Halle Berry and Kate Winslet.


title: Movie 43

text: "Most agents would avoid me because they knew what I wanted to do—what agent wants to book their big client in a no pay, $800-a-day, two-day shoot?" he said. "The truth is, I had a lot of friends who were in this movie. And if they didn't say yes, this movie wouldn't have gotten made." In the end, most of the actors were willing to take part because the film only required a few days of their time and often allowed them to play a character outside of their wheelhouse.


title: Movie 43

text: Hugh Jackman was the first actor Wessler cast. He met the star at a wedding and then called him sometime later and pitched him the short. Jackman read the script and agreed to be a part of the film. "He called me back I think 24 hours later and said, 'Yeah I wanna do this,' which I think is, quite frankly, incredibly ballsy. Because you could be made a fool of, or you could look silly, and there will be people who say, 'That's crazy; he should never have done it.'"


title: Movie 43

text: After talking to the multiple agents of Kate Winslet, she eventually agreed to take part. The Winslet-Jackman sketch was shot shortly after and became the reel to attract other A-list stars.


title: Movie 43

text: John Hodgman, who plays opposite Justin Long in one sketch, signed on with no knowledge of the project. Long, Hodgman's co-star in the long-running Get a Mac series of Apple commercials, asked him to do the project, and he then signed on, without still knowing too much. Hodgman said, "I got an e-mail from Justin that said, 'I'm going to be dressing up as Robin again. Do you want to dress up as the Penguin?' And I said yes. Without even realizing cameras would be involved, or that it would be a movie."


title: Movie 43

text: James Gunn revealed during a Facebook Q&A that he was convinced to do the film by Elizabeth Banks and to "blame her" for it. He added, "I didn't even get to edit that stupid thing!" He also has never seen the film.


title: Movie 43

text: Others were not so affable. In fact, some stars hedged: Richard Gere, a friend of Wessler's, said yes—but also said he would not be available for more than a year. So Wessler waited him out, convinced his sketch was good. Gere eventually called Wessler and told him he was free to shoot, on just a couple of conditions: they had to do it in four days, and they needed to relocate the shoot from Los Angeles to New York City.


title: Movie 43

text: "They clearly wanted out!" judged Farrelly. "But we wouldn't let them. The strategy was simple: Wait for them. Shoot when they want to shoot. Guilt them to death." Colin Farrell initially agreed to be in the Butler leprechaun sketch—as Butler's brother, also a leprechaun—but then he backed out and Gerard Butler did the sketch by himself. Farrelly said that when he approached George Clooney about playing himself in a sketch (the gag was that Clooney is bad at picking up women), Clooney told him "No fucking way." There were two sketches cut from the film that were originally shown during a test screening; one that starred Anton Yelchin as a necrophiliac mortician who worked at a hospital and had sex with the dead female bodies, and another starring Julianne Moore and Tony Shalhoub as a married couple being interviewed by a detective about their missing daughter. Producer Penotti said that the sketches would be seen on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the film, however only the latter was included in the release.


title: Movie 43

text: Because the filmmakers worked around the stars' schedules, the filming of the whole movie took several years. While so many A-list actors were on board, most were not completely aware of what other sketches would be included in the film, which features thirteen vignettes tied together by a story of a mad screenwriter (Quaid) pitching ideas to a movie producer (Kinnear). Penotti said many of the actors did not ask many questions about what else was going on in the film.


title: Movie 43

text: "They were attracted to their script, and as long as that tickled their funnybone, that was enough," he revealed.


title: Movie 43

text: The title of the film, "Movie 43" has no meaning. Farrelly heard his son talking with friends about a film called "Movie 43", but when Farrelly discovered the film did not exist, he cribbed the name.


title: Movie 43

text: Relativity did little to promote the film and none of the cast members did any promotion of the film. The film was not screened for critics in advance. "The slapdash title, the lack of promotion and advance screenings, the release date—none of it bodes well," opined "Entertainment Weekly" senior editor Thom Geier. "January is usually where movies go to die," Geier argued. "And to go by the trailer—the only option—the content seems dated." A red-band trailer was released on October 3, 2012. Farrelly was optimistic: "Kids, teenagers, 50-somethings who still smoke pot—they're all going to find something here," he asserted.


title: Movie 43

text: "Movie 43" was panned by critics, with some considering it to be one of the worst films ever made. The film received a weighted average score of 18 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 23 critics, signifying "overwhelming dislike". On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 4% positive rating based on 89 reviews, with an average rating of 2.74/10. The site's critics consensus states: "A star-studded turkey, "Movie 43" is loaded with gleefully offensive and often scatological gags, but it's largely bereft of laughs." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a D rating.


title: Movie 43

text: Brian Gibson ("Vue Weekly") describes "Movie 43" as "An execrable waste cooked up by a hell's kitchen of directors and writers. It's death-of-laughter by committee. Its title? Because it's like one of those many asteroids out there—a dismal chunk of rock hurtling through an empty void, without purpose." IGN's Gregg Katzman gave the film a 1/10, with the main criticisms being its unfunny jokes and the waste of its all-star cast, with the only positive being its sub two hour running time. It would go on to tie with "Scary Movie 5" for IGN's worst movie of 2013.


title: Movie 43

text: In his guest review for Roger Ebert's website, Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" outright panned the film, giving it zero out of four stars, calling it "aggressively tasteless", and going so far as to say ""Movie 43" is the "Citizen Kane" of awful". He wrote that the film has nothing in common with "The Groove Tube" and "The Kentucky Fried Movie", two "very funny and influential" sketch-comedy films. He additionally criticized "Movie 43" for what he calls "female humiliation", saying that although the men are "jerks, idiots, dolts and fools", the women have it even worse. Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film 1/5 stars, describing it as "the work of a confused man thrashing around in an industry he no longer understands". Peter Howell of the "Toronto Star" gave the film zero out of four stars and called it the worst film he had ever seen. Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York "Daily News" gave it a negative review, saying, "As a film critic, I've seen nearly 4,000 movies over the last fifteen years. Right now, I can't think of one worse than "Movie 43"."


title: Movie 43

text: In one of the few positive reviews, Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" gave the film three and a half out of four stars, calling it "a near masterpiece of tastelessness". Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" said that the film was "gross, juvenile, disgusting, scatological, vile, reprehensible and in the worst possible taste. But heaven help me, I laughed."


title: Movie 43

text: "Movie 43" was predicted to debut to less than $10 million, with the studio expecting $8–9 million. It took in $1,810,561 on its opening Friday, far below expectations.


title: Movie 43

text: The opening weekend total came to $4,805,878, opening in seventh place. At the end of its run, closing in the United States on March 14, 2013, the film had grossed $8,840,453 domestically and $23,598,535 internationally for a worldwide total of $32,438,988.


title: Movie 43

text: Relativity stated that they had already covered all costs with international pre-sales deals and a deal with Netflix.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta (; ), commonly known as the Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of a military, chivalric, and noble nature. Though it possesses no territory, the order is often considered a sovereign entity of international law, as it maintains diplomatic relations with many countries.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order claims continuity with the Knights Hospitaller, a chivalric order that was founded about 1099 by the Blessed Gerard in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The order is led by an elected Prince and Grand Master. Its motto is "Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum" ("defence of the faith and assistance to the poor"). The Order venerates the Virgin Mary as its patroness, under the title of Our Lady of Philermos.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order's membership includes about 13,500 Knights, Dames and Chaplains. Thirty-eight of these are professed religious Knights of Justice. Until the 1990s, the highest classes of membership, including officers, required proof of noble lineage. More recently, a path was created for Knights and Dames of the lowest class (of whom proof of aristocratic lineage is not required) to be specially elevated to the highest class, making them eligible for office in the order.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order's modern-day role is largely focused on providing humanitarian assistance and assisting with international humanitarian relations, for which purpose it has had permanent observer status at the United Nations General Assembly since 1994. The Order employs about 52,000 doctors, nurses, auxiliaries and paramedics assisted by 95,000 volunteers in more than 120 countries, assisting children, homeless, disabled, elderly, and terminally ill people, refugees, and lepers around the world without distinction of ethnicity or religion. Through its worldwide relief corps, Malteser International, the order aids victims of natural disasters, epidemics and war.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order maintains diplomatic relations with 112 states, enters into treaties, and issues its own passports, coins and postage stamps. Its two headquarters buildings in Rome enjoy extraterritoriality, similar to embassies, and it maintains embassies in other countries. The ANSA news agency has called it "the smallest sovereign state in the world". The three principal officers are counted as citizens. Although the Order has been a United Nations General Assembly observer since 1994, this was granted in view of its "long-standing dedication [...] in providing humanitarian assistance and its special role in international humanitarian relations"; the same category is held by other non-state entities such as the International Olympic Committee and International Committee of the Red Cross.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has a large number of Priories, Sub-Priories, and National Associations around the world, but there also exist a number of organizations with similar-sounding names that are unrelated to the Order. These include a number of mimic orders, including Masonic and non-Catholic organizations.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has two flags. The state flag is a rectangular flag with a red ground upon which there is a white Latin cross. The flag of the Order's works is a rectangular flag with a red ground upon which there is a white eight-pointed Maltese cross.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Grand Master uses a rectangular flag with a red ground upon which there is a white eight-pointed Maltese cross, encircled by the Collar of the Order and surmounted by a crown.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The coat-of-arms of the Order, gules a cross argent (a white/silver cross on a red field), are displayed in an oval shield surrounded by a rosary, all superimposed on a white eight-pointed cross and displayed under a princely mantle surmounted by a crown.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In the ecclesiastical heraldry of the Catholic Church, the Order of Malta is one of only two orders (along with the Order of the Holy Sepulchre) whose insignia may be displayed in a clerical coat of arms. (Laypersons have no such restriction.) The shield is surrounded with a silver rosary for professed knights, or for others the ribbon of their rank. Some members may also display the Maltese cross behind their shield instead of the ribbon.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In order to protect its heritage against fraud, the Order has legally registered sixteen versions of its names and emblems in some one hundred countries.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The birth of the Knights Hospitaller dates back to around 1048. Merchants from the ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi obtained from the Caliph of Egypt the authorisation to build a church, convent, and hospital in Jerusalem, to care for pilgrims of any religious faith or race. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem – the monastic community that ran the hospital for the pilgrims in the Holy Land – became independent under the guidance of its founder, the religious brother Gerard.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: With the Papal bull "Pie postulatio voluntatis" dated 15 February 1113, Pope Paschal II approved the foundation of the Hospital and placed it under the aegis of the Holy See, granting it the right to freely elect its superiors without interference from other secular or religious authorities. By virtue of the Papal Bull, the hospital became an order exempt from the control of the local church. All the Knights were religious, bound by the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The constitution of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Crusades obliged the order to take on the military defence of the sick, the pilgrims, and the captured territories. The order thus added the task of defending the faith to that of its hospitaller mission.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: As time went on, the order adopted the white, eight-pointed Cross that is still its symbol today. The eight points represent the eight beatitudes that Jesus pronounced in his Sermon on the Mount.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: When the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell after the Siege of Acre in 1291, the order settled first in Cyprus.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In 1310, led by Grand Master Fra' Foulques de Villaret, the knights regrouped on the island of Rhodes. From there, the defense of the Christian world required the organization of a naval force; so the Order built a powerful fleet and sailed the eastern Mediterranean, fighting battles for the sake of Christendom, including Crusades in Syria and Egypt.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In the early 14th century, the institutions of the Order and the knights who came to Rhodes from every corner of Europe were grouped according to the languages they spoke. The first seven such groups, or "Langues" (Tongues) – from Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon (Navarre), England (with Scotland and Ireland), and Germany – became eight in 1492, when Castile and Portugal were separated from the "Langue" of Aragon. Each "Langue" included Priories or Grand Priories, Bailiwicks, and Commanderies.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order was governed by its Grand Master, the Prince of Rhodes, and its Council. From its beginning, independence from other nations granted by pontifical charter and the universally recognised right to maintain and deploy armed forces constituted grounds for the international sovereignty of the Order, which minted its own coins and maintained diplomatic relations with other states. The senior positions of the Order were given to representatives of different "Langues".


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In 1523, after six months of siege and fierce combat against the fleet and army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the walls collapsed from undermining explosives, and by a negotiated surrender the Knights left Rhodes carrying their arms.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order remained without a territory of its own until 1530, when Grand Master Fra' Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle Adam took possession of the island of Malta, granted to the order by Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and his mother Queen Joanna of Castile as monarchs of Sicily, with the approval of Pope Clement VII, for which the order had to honour the conditions of the Tribute of the Maltese Falcon.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In 1565, the Knights, led by Grand Master Fra' Jean de Vallette (after whom the capital of Malta, Valletta, was named), defended the island for more than three months during the Great Siege by the Ottomans.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The fleet of the Order contributed to the ultimate destruction of the Ottoman naval power in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, led by John of Austria, half brother of King Philip II of Spain.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Reformation which split Western Europe into Protestant and Catholic states affected the knights as well. In several countries, including England, Scotland and Sweden, the order was dissolved. In others, including the Netherlands and Germany, entire bailiwicks or commanderies (administrative divisions of the order) experienced Protestant conversions; these "Johanniter orders" survive in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden and many other countries, including the United States and South Africa. It was established that the order should remain neutral in any war between Christian nations.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: From 1651 to 1665, the Order ruled four islands in the Caribbean. On 21 May 1651 it acquired the islands of Saint Barthélemy, Saint Christopher, Saint Croix and Saint Martin. These were purchased from the French Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique which had just been dissolved. In 1665, the four islands were sold to the French West India Company.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In 1798, Napoleon led the French occupation of Malta. Napoleon demanded from Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim that his ships be allowed to enter the port and to take on water and supplies. The Grand Master replied that only two foreign ships could be allowed to enter the port at a time. Bonaparte, aware that such a procedure would take a very long time and would leave his forces vulnerable to British Admiral Horatio Nelson, immediately ordered a cannon fusillade against Malta. The French soldiers disembarked in Malta at seven points on the morning of 11 June and attacked. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Maltese in the west were forced to surrender.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Napoleon opened negotiations with the fortress capital of Valletta. Faced with vastly superior French forces and the loss of western Malta, the Grand Master negotiated a surrender to the invasion. Hompesch left Malta for Trieste on 18 June. He resigned as Grand Master on 6 July 1799.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The knights were dispersed, though the Order continued to exist in a diminished form and negotiated with European governments for a return to power as part of the agreement between France and Holy Roman Empire during the German mediatisation. The Russian Emperor, Paul I, gave the largest number of knights shelter in Saint Petersburg, an action which gave rise to the Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller and the Order's recognition among the Russian Imperial Orders. The refugee knights in Saint Petersburg proceeded to elect Tsar Paul as their Grand Master – a rival to Grand Master von Hompesch until the latter's abdication left Paul as the sole Grand Master. Grand Master Paul I created, in addition to the Roman Catholic Grand Priory, a "Russian Grand Priory" of no fewer than 118 Commanderies, dwarfing the rest of the Order and open to all Christians. Paul's election as Grand Master was, however, never ratified under Roman Catholic canon law, and he was the "de facto" rather than "de jure" Grand Master of the Order.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: By the early 19th century, the Order was severely weakened by the loss of its priories throughout Europe. Only 10% of the order's income came from traditional sources in Europe, with the remaining 90% being generated by the Russian Grand Priory until 1810. This was partly reflected in the government of the Order being under Lieutenants, rather than Grand Masters, in the period 1805 to 1879, when Pope Leo XIII restored a Grand Master to the order. This signaled the renewal of the Order's fortunes as a humanitarian and religious organization.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 19 September 1806, the Swedish government offered the sovereignty of the island of Gotland to the Order. The offer was rejected since it would have meant the Order renouncing their claim to Malta.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: During the seventeen years that separated the seizure of Malta and the General Peace, "the formality of electing a brother Chief to discharge the office of Grand Master, and thus to preserve the vitality of the Sovereign Institute, was duty attended to". The office of Lieutenant of the Magistery and "ad interim" of Grand Master was held by the Grand Baillies Field Marshal Counto Soltikoff, Giovanni Tommasi, De Gaevera, Giovanni y Centelles, De Candida and the Count Colloredo. Their mandates complexively covered the period until the death of the Emperor Paul in 1801.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Treaty of Amiens (1802) obliged the United Kingdom to evacuate Malta which was to be restored to a recreated Order of St. John, whose sovereignty was to be guaranteed by all of the major European powers, to be determined at the final peace. However, this was not to be because objections to the treaty quickly grew in the United Kingdom.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Bonaparte's rejection of a British offer involving a ten-year lease of Malta prompted the reactivation of the British blockade of the French coast; Britain declared war on France on 18 May.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The 1802 treaty was never implemented. Great Britain resumed hostilities citing France's imperialist policies in the West Indies, Italy, and Switzerland.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Congress of Vienna of 1815 confirmed the loss of Malta. After having temporarily resided in Messina, Catania, and Ferrara, the seat of the order was moved to Ferrara in 1826 and to Rome in 1834. The Magistral Palace in Via Condotti 68 and the Magistral Villa on the Aventine Hill enjoy extraterritorial status. The grand priories of Lombardy-Venetia and of Sicily were restored from 1839 to 1841. The office of Grand Master was restored by Pope Leo XIII in 1879, after a vacancy of 75 years, confirming Giovanni Battista Ceschi a Santa Croce as the first Grand Master of the restored Order of Malta. However, the loss of possession of Malta during this period did not affect the right of active and passive legation for the Order, which is legally important for the absolute continuity of international status, regardless of the former territorial possession.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The original hospitaller mission became the main activity of the order, growing ever stronger during the 20th century, most especially because of the contribution of the activities carried out by the Grand Priories and National Associations in many countries around the world. Large-scale hospitaller and charitable activities were carried out during World Wars I and II under Grand Master Fra' Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere (1931–1951). Under the Grand Masters Fra' Angelo de Mojana di Cologna (1962–88) and Fra' Andrew Bertie (1988–2008), the projects expanded.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In February 2013, the Order celebrated the 900th anniversary of its papal recognition with a general audience with Pope Benedict XVI and a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in Saint Peter's Basilica.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order experienced a leadership crisis beginning in December 2016, when Albrecht von Boeselager protested his removal as Grand Chancellor by Grand Master Fra' Matthew Festing.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In January 2017 Pope Francis ordered von Boeselager reinstated and required Festing's resignation. Francis also named Archbishop (later Cardinal) Giovanni Becciu as his personal representative to the Order – sidelining the Order's Cardinal Patron Raymond Burke – until the election of a new Grand Master. The pope effectively taking control over the Order was seen by some as a break with tradition and the Order's independence.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In May 2017, the Order named Mauro Bertero Gutiérrez, a Bolivian member of the Government Council, to lead its constitutional reform process. In June 2017, in a departure from tradition, the leadership of the Order wore informal attire rather than formal wear full dress uniforms to their annual papal audience. In May 2018 when a new Grand Master was elected, Francis extended Becciu's mandate indefinitely. When the Order's Chapter General met in May 2019 three of the 62 participants were women for the first time.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 1 November 2020, Pope Francis named Archbishop (later Cardinal) Silvano Tomasi to replace Becciu as his Special Delegate to the Order, reiterating the responsibilities of that office as his sole representative.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 3 September 2022, Pope Francis promulgated the new constitution of the Order and made provisional appointments to the Sovereign Council; he scheduled a convocation of the Extraordinary General Chapter for 25 January 2023, when regular appointments can be made in place of his provisional ones.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Prince and Grand Master is the head of the Order, and who governs both as sovereign and as religious superior. He is "entitled to sovereign prerogatives and honors as well as the title of "Most Eminent Highness". He is elected to a term of ten years and may be elected to a second term, but may not serve beyond the completion of his 85th year. The last Prince and Grand Master was Fra' Giacomo dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto who was elected on 2 May 2018 and died 29 April 2020. "In the event of permanent impediment, resignation or death of the Grand Master, the Order is governed by a Lieutenant "ad interim" in the person of the Grand Commander, who can only perform acts of ordinary administration without making any innovations." If it is not possible to elect a Grand Master, a Lieutenant of the Grand Master is elected, who has the same powers as the Grand Master with the exception of the prerogatives of honour pertaining to a sovereign. Both the Lieutenant "ad interim" and the Lieutenant of the Grand Master are styled "Eccellenza" (Excellency).


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Sovereign Council is the primary governing body of the Order which deals with regular business. The members are the Grand Master (or Lieutenant), the holders of the four High Officers (the Grand Commander, the Grand Chancellor, the Grand Hospitaller and the Receiver of the Common Treasure), the five Councilors of the Council of the Professed Knights, and four Councilors.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Council of the Professed Knights "assists the Grand Master in the spiritual care of the Order and in the governance of the First and Second Class". It includes the Grand Master (or Lieutenant), the Grand Commander, and five Councilors elected by the Chapter of the Professed.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Chapter General is the legislative body of the Order which meets every five years. It elects the members of the Sovereign Council.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Board of Auditors audits the Order's finances. It includes a President and four Councillors, all elected by the Chapter General.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Government Council is the advisory board to the Sovereign Council in charge of studying political, religious, humanitarian assistance and international issues.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order's judicial powers are exercised by a group of Magistral Courts, whose judges are appointed by the Grand Master and the Sovereign Council.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Most of the 48 associations are national, but there are several countries (Brazil, Germany, the United States) which have more than one association.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Membership in the Order is divided into three classes each of which is subdivided into several categories:


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Within each class and category of knights there are ranks of Knight, Knight Grand Cross, and Bailiff Knight Grand Cross.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Bishops and priests are generally admitted as chaplains of the Order of Malta. There are some priests who are knights of the Order, usually because they were admitted to the Order prior to ordination. The priests of the Order of Malta are ranked as Honorary Canons, as in the Order of the Holy Sepulchre; and they are entitled to wear the black mozetta with purple piping and purple fascia.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Prior to the 1990s, all officers of the Order had to be of noble birth (defined differently in different countries), as they were all Knights of Justice or Knights in Obedience. However, Knights of Magistral Grace (i.e. those who do not have proof of noble birth) now may make the Promise of Obedience and, at the discretion of the Grand Master and Sovereign Council, may enter the novitiate to become professed Knights of Justice.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The "Cardinalis Patronus" (Cardinal Patron), who is either a cardinal when appointed by the pope or soon raised to that rank, promotes the spiritual interests of the Order and its members, and its relations with the Holy See.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Since 2017, Pope Francis has appointed special delegates to fulfill the role that was previously assigned to the patron.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 6 February 2017 Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu as his Special Delegate to the Order.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: After Becciu resigned from the rights and privileges of a cardinal after being implicated in a financial corruption scandal, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Silvano Tomasi as his Special Delegate to the Order on 1 November 2020.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Prelate of the Order is responsible for the clergy of the Order and assists the Grand Master, the Grand Commander and the Coordinator of the Second Class in the care of the spiritual life and in the religious observance of all


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 4 July 2015 Pope Francis named as Prelate Bishop Jean Laffitte. Laffitte succeeded Archbishop Angelo Acerbi, who had held the office since 2001.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has collaborated with other mutually-recognized Orders of Saint John; for example, the SMOM is a major donor of the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem, which is primarily operated by the Venerable Order of Saint John.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: There are three enclosed monasteries of nuns of the Order, two in Spain that date from the 11/12th centuries and one in Malta. The existence of the nuns is not mentioned in the Constitutional Charter or the Code of the Order.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order "as a subject of international law, exercises sovereign functions with regard to [its] purposes", namely "promoting the glory of God and the sanctification of its members" and performing works of mercy "towards the sick, the needy, and people without a country without distinction of religion, race, sex, origin and age".


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has formal diplomatic relations with 112 states (including the Holy See) and has official relations with another five states and with the European Union. The Order maintains diplomatic missions around the world and many of the states reciprocate by accrediting ambassadors to the Order (usually their ambassador to the Holy See). During the reign of Fra' Andrew Bertie as Prince and Grand Master (1988–2008), the number of nations extending diplomatic relations to the Order more than doubled from 49 to 100.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has observer status at the General Assembly of the United Nations and some of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. One such example is the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, to which it contributed USD $36,000 from 2006–2022. The Order is not classified as a "non-member state" nor as an "intergovernmental organization", but rather as one of the "other entities having received a standing invitation to participate as observers."


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has relations with the International Committee of the Red Cross and a number of international organizations. While the International Telecommunication Union has granted radio identification prefixes to the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority, the Order has never received one. For awards purposes, amateur radio operators consider the Order to be a separate "entity", but stations transmitting from there use an unofficial callsign, starting with the prefix "1A". The Order has neither sought nor been granted a top-level domain for the Internet or an international dialing code for telephone purposes.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order's international nature is useful in enabling it to pursue its humanitarian activities without being seen as an operative of any particular nation. Its sovereignty is also expressed in the issuance of passports, licence plates, stamps, and coins.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: With its unique history and unusual present circumstances, the exact status of the Order in international law has been the subject of debate. Some scholars have questioned the Order's sovereignty based on the fact that the Order has very limited geographical territories and on account of the Order's relationship with the Holy See. The connection between the Holy See and the Order of Malta was seen as so close as to call into question the actual sovereignty of the order as a separate entity. This has prompted constitutional changes on the part of the Order, which were implemented in 1997. Since then, the Order has been widely recognized as a sovereign subject of international law in its own right.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Some legal experts claim that the Order's claim to sovereignty cannot be maintained. Wilhelm Wengler rejects the notion that recognition of the Order by some states (for example, the Republic of San Marino in 1939 recognized SMOM as a sovereign state in its own right.) makes it a subject of international law. Ian Brownlie writes that, "Even in the sphere of recognition and bilateral relations, the legal capacities of institutions like the Sovereign Order of Jerusalem and Malta must be limited simply because they lack the territorial and demographic characteristics of states." Helmut Steinberger states that, "With the historical exception of the Holy See, which maintains diplomatic relations with more than 100 States, in contemporary international law only States as distinguished from international organizations or other subjects of international law are accorded sovereignty."


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Even taking into account the Order's ambassadorial diplomatic status among many nations, a claim to sovereign status is sometimes rejected.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Other legal experts argue in favour of the Order's claim to sovereignty. Georg Dahm affirms that the Order is a "subject of international law without territory". Berthold Waldstein-Wartenberg writes that the sovereignty of the Order and its personality in international law is "generally recognized by international law doctrine". Gerhard von Glahn affirms that "the Order can be classified as a nonstate subject of international law, although of a somewhat peculiar nature." Rebecca Wallace explains that a sovereign entity does not have to be a country, and that the Order is an example of this.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 24 January 1953, the Tribunal of Cardinals appointed by Pope Pius XII stated that, "The quality of the sovereign Order of the institution is functional, that is, aimed at ensuring the achievement of the purposes of the Order itself and its development in the world." The Tribunal of Cardinals further stated that, "The status of sovereign Order...consists in the enjoyment of certain prerogatives inherent to the Order itself as a Subject of international law. These prerogatives, which are proper to sovereigntyin accordance with the principles of international lawand which, following the example of the Holy See, have also been recognized by some States, do not however constitute in the Order that complex of powers and prerogatives, which it belongs to sovereign bodies in the full sense of the word."


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 24 June 1961, Pope John XXIII approved the Constitutional Charter of the Order which stated that "the Order is a legal entity formally approved by the Holy See. It has the quality of a subject of international law" (Article 1) and that "the intimate connection existing between the two qualities of a religious order and a sovereign order do not oppose the autonomy of the order in the exercise of its sovereignty and prerogatives inherent to it as a subject of international law in relation to States." (Article 3)


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order has signed treaties with Italy dated 20 February 1884, 23 December 1915, 4 January 1938, and 1956.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Supreme Court of Cassation decreed on 6 June 1974 that, "the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Malta constitutes a sovereign international subject, in all terms equal, even if


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: without territory, to a foreign state with which Italy has normal diplomatic relations, so there is no doubt, as already this Supreme Court has warned, that it has the legal treatment of foreign states".


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The two most important properties of the Order in Rome – the Palazzo Malta in Via dei Condotti 68, where the Grand Master resides and Government Bodies meet, and the Villa del Priorato di Malta on the Aventine Hill, which hosts the Grand Priory of Rome – as well as the Embassy of the Order to Holy See and the Embassy of the Order to Italy are all recognised as extraterritorial by Italy. As Italy recognizes, in addition to extraterritoriality, the exercise by SMOM of all the prerogatives of sovereignty in its headquarters, Italian sovereignty and SMOM sovereignty uniquely coexist without overlapping.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: By a decree of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy of 28 November 1929, "The Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta enjoys in Italy the honors due to the Cardinals, and takes place after them." Further, "The representation of the Grand Magistry of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . . . immediately follows the representations of the Foreign Diplomatic Corps." Finally, the decree affirms that the Bailiffs Knights Grand Cross of Justice in Italy shall be styled "Excellency" ().


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order is one of the largest landowners in Italy; its properties are exempted from certain Italian fiscal jurisdiction.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Diplomatic vehicles of the Order in Italy receive diplomatic license plates with the code "XA". Other vehicles of the Order receive Italian license plates with the prefix SMOM.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Two bilateral treaties have been concluded between the Order and the Republic of Malta. The first treaty, dated 21 June 1991, is now no longer in force. The second treaty was signed on 5 December 1998 and ratified on 1 November 2001.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: This agreement grants the Order the use with limited extraterritoriality of the upper portion of Fort St. Angelo in the city of Birgu. Its stated purpose is "to give the Order the opportunity to be better enabled to carry out its humanitarian activities as Knights Hospitallers from Saint Angelo, as well as to better define the legal status of Saint Angelo subject to the sovereignty of Malta over it".


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The agreement has a duration of 99 years, but the document allows the Government of Malta to terminate it at any time after 50 years. Under the terms of the agreement, the flag of Malta is to be flown together with the flag of the Order in a prominent position over Fort St. Angelo. No asylum may be granted by the Order and generally the Maltese courts have full jurisdiction and Maltese law shall apply. The second bilateral treaty mentions a number of immunities and privileges, none of which appeared in the earlier treaty.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: Some 58 countries recognize the Order's postage stamps for franking purposes, including several such as Canada and Mongolia that lack full diplomatic relations with the Order. In 2005, Poste italiane, the Italian postal service, agreed with the Order to deliver internationally most classes of mail other than registered, insured, and special-delivery mail. The Order began issuing euro-denominated postage stamps in 2005, although the scudo remains the official currency of the Order.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Order states that it was the hospitaller role that enabled the Order to survive the end of the crusading era; nonetheless, it retains its military title and traditions.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: On 26 March 1876, the Association of the Italian Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta ("Associazione dei cavalieri italiani del sovrano militare ordine di Malta", ACISMOM) reformed the Order's military to a modern military unit of the era. This unit provided medical support to the Italian Army and on 9 April 1909 the military corps officially became a special auxiliary volunteer corps of the Italian Army under the name "Corpo Militare dell'Esercito dell'ACISMOM" (Army Military Corps of the ACISMOM), wearing Italian uniforms. Since then the Military Corps have operated with the Italian Army both in wartime and peacetime in medical or paramedical military functions, and in ceremonial functions for the Order, such as standing guard around the coffins of high officers of the Order before and during funeral rites.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: In 1947, after the post-World War II peace treaty forbade Italy to own or operate bomber aircraft and only operate a limited number of transport aircraft, the Italian Air Force opted to transfer some of its Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 aircraft to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, pending the definition of their exact status (the SM.82 were properly long range transport aircraft that could be adapted for bombing missions). These aircraft were operated by Italian Air Force personnel temporarily flying for the Order, carried the Order's roundels on the fuselage and Italian ones on the wings, and were used mainly for standard Italian Air Force training and transport missions but also for some humanitarian tasks proper of the Order of Malta (like the transport of sick pilgrims to the Lourdes sanctuary). In the early 1950s, when the strictures of the peace treaty had been much relaxed by the Allied authorities, the aircraft returned under full control of the Italian Air Force. One of the aircraft transferred to the Order of Malta, still with the Order's fuselage roundels, is preserved in the Italian Air Force Museum.


title: Sovereign Military Order of Malta

text: The Military Corps has become known in mainland Europe for its operation of hospital trains, a service which was carried out intensively during both World Wars. The Military Corps still operates a modern 28-car hospital train with 192 hospital beds, serviced by a medical staff of 38 medics and paramedics provided by the Order and a technical staff provided by the Italian Army's Ferrovieri Engineer Regiment.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar (; born March 1, 1974) is an American actor. He is known for his television roles, most notably as Zack Morris in "Saved by the Bell". In 1991, he won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor Starring in an Off-Primetime Series.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Other well-received roles he is known for include Paul Johnson in the ABC sitcom series "Mixed-ish", Detective John Clark Jr. in "NYPD Blue", and Peter Bash in "Franklin & Bash". He was also the lead in the 1998 film "Dead Man on Campus". He later starred in the 2016 and 2019 TV series "Pitch" and "The Passage", respectively.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar was born in Panorama City, Los Angeles, the son of Paula ( van den Brink), a homemaker and hostess for KLM, and Hans Gosselaar, a plant supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. He is the youngest of his parents' four children, and was the only one not born in the Netherlands.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: His Dutch-born father is of German and Dutch Jewish descent. Gosselaar's Jewish paternal great-grandparents, Hartog and Hester Gosselaar, were murdered at the Sobibor extermination camp during the Holocaust. His Indonesian mother, who was born in Bali, Indonesia, was a flight attendant for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar's mother was his manager. He began modeling at the age of five, and as a child, he also appeared in commercials for Oreo cookies and Smurf merchandise, later winning guest spots on television series. He spent his teenage years in the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California, where he attended Hart High School.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar has said that his natural hair color is brown, but he was "blondish" as a kid. His hair was dyed blond throughout his run on "Saved by the Bell".


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar first came to public notice as the star of the hit television comedy series "Saved by the Bell", which aired on NBC from 1989 to 1993. His character, Zack Morris, was adapted from the short-lived Disney Channel sitcom "Good Morning, Miss Bliss"; although that show was cancelled after one season, NBC executives believed that a similar show, with Zack Morris as the lead, had potential for success. He reprised the role in two TV movies and a less-successful spin-off, "". In 1994, he appeared as Zack Morris in a second spin-off series "" in the episode "Goodbye, Bayside – Part 2", along with Mario López as A.C. Slater and Lark Voorhies as Lisa Turtle.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: In 1996, he appeared in the TV-film "She Cried No", as a college student who date-rapes his best friend's sister at a fraternity party. In 1998, he starred in the feature film "Dead Man on Campus". Later that same year, Gosselaar played the central character in the TV drama "Hyperion Bay", which lasted 17 episodes. In 2001, he starred in the movie "The Princess and the Marine", with Marisol Nichols. He also starred in the short-lived WB series "D.C." From 2001–05, he played Detective John Clark on ABC's "NYPD Blue". After the series ended, he joined the cast of ABC's "Commander in Chief", which lasted only one season. He appeared on the HBO series "John from Cincinnati". He then gained the starring role of defense attorney Jerry Kellerman in the Steven Bochco-produced "Raising the Bar", which debuted on September 1, 2008, on TNT, then it was canceled in November 2009 after two seasons.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: On June 8, 2009, Gosselaar appeared on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in character as Zack Morris to promote his show "Raising the Bar", indicating that the name Mark-Paul Gosselaar is his stage name and declaring, as Zack, that he would participate in a "Saved by the Bell" "Class" reunion that is being spearheaded by Fallon. On February 4, 2015, Gosselaar reunited with Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley, Dennis Haskins and Tiffani Thiessen on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", where they appeared in a "Saved by the Bell" sketch with Fallon.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: In October 2009, he made his off-Broadway stage debut in Theresa Rebeck's play "The Understudy" with The Roundabout Theatre Company. The show extended its limited New York run until January 17, 2010.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar began filming the TNT series "Franklin & Bash" on March 28, 2010. The series premiered on June 1, 2011. On November 11, 2014, it was announced that the series was canceled, after four seasons. The FOX series "Pitch" cast Gosselaar in the main role of Mike Lawson, star catcher and team captain, in February 2016, and premiered on September 22, 2016. On May 1, 2017, it was announced that the series was canceled, after one season. He appeared in two episodes of Tiffani Thiessen's cooking show, "Dinner at Tiffani's".


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: In 2019, Gosselaar began playing the lead role of Paul Jackson (Rainbow's father) in ABC comedy series "Mixed-ish" (spin-off and prequel series of "Black-ish"). He took over the role from Anders Holm, who played the character in the pilot episode. Gosselaar also reprised his role as Zack Morris in the 2020 sequel series "Saved by the Bell".


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: In a July 2009 interview with "People", Gosselaar revealed that while "Saved by the Bell" was in production, he dated, at different times, his three female co-stars: Lark Voorhies, Tiffani Thiessen, and Elizabeth Berkley. He remains friends with his "Saved by the Bell" cast mates.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: In 1996, Gosselaar married former model Lisa Ann Russell. Together, they have two children: a son, Michael Charles (born 2004), and daughter, Ava Lorenn (born 2006). After 14 years of marriage, Gosselaar and Russell announced their separation in early June 2010. Gosselaar filed for divorce June 18, 2010, and it became final in May 2011.


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar was engaged to advertising executive Catriona McGinn in August 2011. They married July 28, 2012, at the Sunstone winery in Santa Ynez, California. They have a son, Dekker Edward (born 2013), and a daughter, Lachlyn Hope (born 2015).


title: Mark-Paul Gosselaar

text: Gosselaar is a sports car enthusiast, race car driver, track cyclist, dirt biker, and pilot. In 2005, he competed in the Far West Championships for track cycling. He won the Category 4/5 Sprint Championship event at the Encino Velodrome. He is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blue belt under Rigan Machado.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (born 10 November 1973) is an Indian film director, film producer, screenwriter and author who works in Hindi cinema. , he is a member of the board of India's Central Board of Film Certification and a cultural representative of Indian Cinema at the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri made his directorial debut with the crime thriller "Chocolate" (2005) and has directed multiple films since which failed to propel his career forward until "The Tashkent Files" (2019) which emerged as a commercial success and earned him the National Film Award for Best Screenplay - Dialogues. He also wrote and directed "The Kashmir Files" (2022) which emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all-time.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri was born in Gwalior Madhya Pradesh He studied at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication before enrolling at Harvard Extension School for a Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management. In interviews with media, he has also mentioned Bhopal School of Social Sciences and Jawaharlal Nehru University among his "almae matres".


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri started his career with the advertising agencies Ogilvy and McCann, and served as creative director for campaigns of Gillette and Coca-Cola. In 1994, he became involved with the directing and production of several television serials; his work was positively received. In 2018, Agnihotri claimed that had received threats for using the name Mohammad in his short film "Mohammad and Urvashi".


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri debuted in Bollywood with "Chocolate" (2005), a remake of the 1995 Hollywood neo-noir crime thriller "The Usual Suspects". Critical reception of the movie was negative, and the film fared poorly at box office. In 2018, Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta would accuse Agnihotri of inappropriate behaviour during its filming. He allegedly asked her to strip and dance to give expression cues to her male co-star Irrfan Khan during a close-up shot and retreated only after Irrfan and Suniel Shetty rebuffed him. Agnihotri denied the allegations as "false and frivolous", and filed a defamation case against Dutta. Sattyajit Gazmer, the film's assistant director, also disputed Tanushree's allegations.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: "Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal" is about an all-Asian football team in the United Kingdom that wins trophies while fighting on-field discrimination and the local municipality that wants to sell the team's ground. It received poor reception from critics and did "average" business at the box office. "Hate Story" received mixed critical reception and fared moderately at the box office. "Buddha in a Traffic Jam" featured his wife Pallavi and premiered at Mumbai International Film Festival in 2014; it was received unfavourably by critics and severely under-performed at the box office. "Junooniyat" was also subject to poor reviews and fared similarly.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri's 2014 erotic thriller "Zid" received poor reviews but did average business at the box office. However, Agnihotri has since claimed that credit for direction and screenplay was wrongly attributed to him, and that he was not involved with the film. "The Tashkent Files" became a sleeper box-office hit and won National Film Awards. In March 2022, Agnihotri released "The Kashmir Files" on the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus; the film has become a blockbuster hit. Shortly after the release of the film, he was provided Y-category security detail across the country by the Ministry of Home Affairs based on inputs from the Intelligence Bureau.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri has said that his upcoming film, "The Delhi Files", will be the last in the "Files" trilogy, which is "evidently about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots." In November 2022, he announced another upcoming film "The Vaccine War" to be released on 15 August 2023, on the Indian independence day. The film supposedly portrays the development of a domestic vaccine for COVID-19 pandemic in India.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: In 2017, Agnihotri was selected as convenor by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in the preview committee of 48th International Film Festival of India. The same year, he was selected as member on board of India's Central Board of Film Certification.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: On 15 September 2020, Agnihotri was appointed as cultural representative at Indian Council for Cultural Relations. He would represent Indian Cinema at ICCR.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: In 2018, Agnihotri wrote , in which he described individuals in academia and media who were allegedly colluding with Naxalites in a bid to overthrow the Indian government and were thus "invisible enemies of India" as "Urban Naxals".


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Critics said the term is "vague rhetoric" that is designed to discredit intellectuals who are critical of the establishment and political right and to stifle dissent. Reviews in the Organiser and The New Indian Express had praised the work. The Union Minister of Human Resource Development Smriti Irani endorsed Agnihotri's views of Jadavpur University and Jawaharlal Nehru University for having refused to screen "Buddha in a Traffic Jam."


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Agnihotri married Indian actress Pallavi Joshi in 1997 and has two children. He has described himself as a supporter of Narendra Modi, but not of the Bharatiya Janata Party that Modi belongs to. Agnihotri supports cannabis legalization.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: In 2022, Agnihotri announced that he was starting knee surgery after suffering a cartilage tear the previous year, which resulted in him suffering a stress fracture. He had ignored the cartilage tear for one and half years while producing "The Kashmir Files".


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: In 2022, Agnihotri delivered a speech in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The theme of the event was "India, world peace and humanism".


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: Fact checkers have noted Agnihotri to have shared misleading content from his Twitter account. In September 2018, Agnihotri tweeted a listicle claiming that a survey from the BBC found that the Indian National Congress was the second most corrupt party in the world. The survey was fake and an online editor writing for the BBC said that they have never conducted such surveys. In November 2018, Agnihotri tweeted a misleading video that appeared to show that Indian political activist Kanhaiya Kumar had converted to Islam. According to Boom Fact Check, the video was "a compilation of three separate clips which have taken Kanhaiya's statements out of context from the entire speech." In March 2019, Agnihotri falsely claimed that former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was responsible for the outcome of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Nehru had previously died in May 1964 and Lal Bahadur Shastri was Prime Minister during the war. In January 2020, Agnihotri tweeted a doctored image of an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protester that he claimed was real. In February 2020, Agnihotri falsely claimed that cannabis kills COVID-19.


title: Vivek Agnihotri

text: In September 2018, Twitter locked his account until he agreed to delete a tweet denigrating Swara Bhaskar. In response to Swara calling out politician P. C. George, who called an alleged rape victim a prostitute, Vivek tweeted "Where is the placard - '#MeTooProstituteNun'?". The tweet was interpreted as calling Swara a prostitute. Agnihotri defended his tweet and said he was making a point about the placarding by liberals at selective instances of alleged perpetrators belonging to the Hindu community.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Riteish Vilasrao Deshmukh (born 17 December 1978) is an Indian actor, comedian, television presenter, director and film producer. He is the son of former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Vilasrao Deshmukh. He works in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He has acted in over 60 films, in Hindi and Marathi cinema.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Deshmukh began his acting career with the movie "Tujhe Meri Kasam" (2003) and since then he has worked in several successful films such as "Masti" (2004), "Kyaa Kool Hai Hum" (2005), "Bluffmaster!" (2005), "Malamaal Weekly" (2006), "Heyy Babyy" (2007), "Dhamaal" (2007), "Housefull" (2010), "Double Dhamaal" (2011), "Housefull 2" (2012), "Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum" (2012), "Grand Masti" (2013), "Housefull 3" (2016), "Total Dhamaal" (2019), "Housefull 4" (2019) and "Baaghi 3" (2020). He received widespread critical acclaim for playing a serial killer in the romantic thriller "Ek Villain" (2014).


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In Marathi cinema, he debuted as a producer with "Balak-Palak" (2013) and made his Marathi acting debut with action film "Lai Bhaari" (2014) and its spiritual sequal "Mauli".


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Deshmukh is a son of the ex-chief minister of Maharashtra and Union Minister of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises India, Vilasrao Deshmukh, and Vaishali. He has an elder brother named Amit and a younger brother named Dhiraj, both of them politicians. Deshmukh studied at G D Somani Memorial School and earned an architectural degree from Kamla Raheja College of Architecture, Mumbai. He practiced for a year with an overseas architectural firm. He continued designing since his return to India. Deshmukh maintains an ownership in Evolutions, an India-based architectural and interior designing firm.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Deshmukh made his Hindi film debut with the 2003 romance, "Tujhe Meri Kasam" opposite Genelia D'Souza. He later appeared in "Out of Control". In his third film, "Masti", a comic thriller, his role was widely disparaged. Regardless, the film performed well at the box office. He gained fame after his performance in "Masti", which earned him two minor awards. He subsequently appeared "Bardaasht" and "Naach", both of them being box-office duds. His first relatively successful lead role occurred in the widely panned sex-comedy "Kyaa Kool Hai Hum" with Tusshar Kapoor. While the film was reviled by critics, it was appreciated by audiences and declared a moderate success at the box office. Deshmukh, by now had earned a strong foothold in the Bollywood film industry via his comic roles.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: He appeared in "Malamaal Weekly" and "Apna Sapna Money Money" apart from "Bluffmaster!" with Abhishek Bachchan in the lead. He was seen in guest roles in Ram Gopal Varma's "Darna Zaroori Hai", and then "Namastey London", which was a box office hit. In 2007, "Cash" followed. Later that year, he appeared in Sajid Khan's directorial debut "Heyy Babyy", co-starring Akshay Kumar and Fardeen Khan, which was a huge hit. He appeared in the comedy film "Dhamaal".


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2008, he played a lead role in "De Taali", in which his performance was praised, and later in "Chamku", both of which performed poorly at the box office.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2009, his first release was "Aladin", co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and Jacqueline Fernandez. He was in the multi-starcast, "Aladin". He then played a supporting role in Ram Gopal Varma's "Rann", again co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Paresh Rawal and Rajpal Yadav. His final film of 2009 was "Do Knot Disturb" with Govinda, Sushmita Sen, Sohail Khan and Lara Dutta.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2010, he worked with Sajid Khan on the comedy "Housefull" with Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta, Arjun Rampal and Jiah Khan. The film received negative response from critics, though it performed well commercially. His first release of 2011 was "F.A.L.T.U.", in which he played the role of Bajirao, a fake college principal. His second release of the year was the comic sequel "Double Dhamaal". Both were above-average grossers and very successful.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2012, he first appeared in "Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya" in which he is paired opposite his real wife Genelia D'Souza. It proved a commercial hit despite being a shoestring budget. He then starred in a sequel, "Housefull 2", which released on 6 April 2012 and was a huge success like its predecessor. "Housefull 2" has been marked as Ritesh's biggest success to date. His last release of the year and his latest film was sequel "Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum", which released on 27 July 2012.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Deshmukh then starred in another sequel, this time to the 2004 hit "Masti" titled "Grand Masti" which released in September 2013 and became a box office success, despite receiving negative reviews. Deshmukh made his debut as a film producer with the Marathi film "Balak Palak", directed by Ravi Jadhav, which released on 4 January 2013. Deshmukh has decided to make a Hindi remake of the film.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2014, Deshmukh appeared in 2 completely different roles; first in the romance-comedy film "Humshakals", which was a box office failure and then in the romance-thriller "Ek Villain". With "Ek Villain", Deshmukh played the antagonist for the first time in his career. "Ek Villain" was a box office success and he received many awards for acting. Besides this, he also made his acting debut in Marathi cinema the same year with the action film "Lai Bhaari". He did a small cameo in "Entertainment", which was not entertaining at the box office.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2015, he appeared in "Bangistan" along with Pulkit Samrat. The film was a comedy-satire and received a mixed critical response. However, was a box office disaster.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: In 2016, he appeared in the third installment of the Housefull and Masti series "Housefull 3" and "Great Grand Masti" and a musical drama "Banjo". He appeared in the comedy film "Bank Chor" which was released in 2017 and in the end of 2018, he did his second Marathi film MAULI which was a box office success. In 2019 he appeared in a third part of "Dhamaal" called "Total Dhamaal" which received mixed reviews still it becomes successful. In the same year he appeared in two other movies "Housefull 4" and "Marjaavaan" (as a villain after "Ek Villain"), both were received mixed reviews but they were successful at box office. "Housefull 4" become his biggest hit till date and his acting in "Marjaavaan" was appreciated.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: He married film actress Genelia D'Souza in traditional Marathi marriage ceremony on 3 February 2012. They have 2 children.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: Deshmukh launched his own production house Mumbai Film Company in 2013 with producing a Marathi film "Balak Palak", which won several awards. In 2013, he brought a cricket team with Dhiraj Deshmukh, later named as Veer Marathi in Celebrity Cricket League. He played in this league as his team's captain. Veer Marathi's brand ambassador was Genelia D'Souza.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: The actor donated Rs 2.5 million to his home town Latur for 'Jalyukta Latur', an initiative to make the parched district water sufficient after the droughts faced by Latur during April 2016. Riteish and Genelia donated Rs 2.5 million towards flood relief in Maharashtra during the 2019 Indian floods.


title: Riteish Deshmukh

text: "", he voiced Jay (Blue Ninja) in the Hindi dubbing of this show along with Nachiket Dighe as the voice of Kai (Red Ninja), Akshay Kumar as the voice of Cole (Black Ninja), and Salman Khan as the voice of Sensei Wu (Wise teacher of the Ninja).


title: Larry Hagman

text: Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 – November 23, 2012) was an American film and television actor, director, and producer, best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera, "Dallas", and the befuddled astronaut Major Anthony Nelson in the 1965–1970 sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie". Hagman had supporting roles in numerous films, including "Fail-Safe", "Harry and Tonto", "S.O.B.", "Nixon", and "Primary Colors". His television appearances also included guest roles on dozens of shows spanning from the late 1950s until his death, and a reprise of his signature role on the 2012 revival of "Dallas". Hagman also worked as a television producer and director. He was the son of actress Mary Martin. Hagman underwent a life-saving liver transplant in 1995. He died on November 23, 2012, from complications of acute myeloid leukemia.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman was born on September 21, 1931, in Fort Worth, Texas. His mother, Mary Martin, became a Broadway actress and musical comedy star after his birth. His father, Benjamin Jackson Hagman, who was of Swedish descent, was an accountant and lawyer who worked as a district attorney. Hagman's parents divorced in 1936 when he was five years old. He lived with his maternal grandmother, Juanita Presley Martin, in Texas and California, while his mother became a contract player with Paramount in 1938. In 1940, Hagman's mother met and married Richard Halliday before giving birth to a daughter, Heller, the following year. Hagman attended a strict academy, Black-Foxe Military Institute and briefly Woodstock Country School, a boarding school in Vermont.


title: Larry Hagman

text: When his mother moved to New York City to resume her Broadway career, Hagman again lived with his grandmother in California. A few years later, his grandmother died, so Hagman joined his mother in New York City. In 1946, Hagman moved back to his hometown of Weatherford, and attended Weatherford High School, from which he graduated. One summer, he worked for oilfield-equipment maker Antelope Tool Company. Although his father wanted Hagman to become a lawyer and join his practice, he was drawn to drama classes and reportedly fell in love with the stage. He graduated from high school in 1949, and decided to pursue acting. He attended Bard College, New York, majoring in dance and drama, but dropped out after one year.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman began his career in 1950 acting in productions at Margaret Webster's school at the Woodstock Playhouse in Woodstock, New York. That summer, during a break from his one year at Bard College, he worked in Dallas as a production assistant and acting in small roles in Margo Jones's theater company. He appeared in "The Taming of the Shrew" in New York City, followed by numerous tent show musicals with St. John Terrell's Music Circus in St. Petersburg, Florida and Lambertville, New Jersey. In 1951, Hagman appeared in the London production of "South Pacific" with his mother and stayed in the show for nearly a year. In 1952, Hagman received his draft notice and enlisted in the United States Air Force.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Stationed in London, he spent the majority of his military service entertaining U.S. troops in the United Kingdom and at bases in Europe. After leaving the Air Force in 1956, Hagman returned to New York City, where he appeared in the off-Broadway play "Once Around the Block", by William Saroyan. That was followed by nearly a year in another off-Broadway play, James Lee's "Career". His Broadway debut occurred in 1958 in "Comes a Day". Hagman appeared in four other Broadway plays, "God and Kate Murphy", "The Nervous Set", "The Warm Peninsula" and "The Beauty Part". During this period, he also appeared in numerous, mostly live, television programs.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman's first television role was as Kenneth Davidson in the 1957 episode "Saturday Lost" of the syndicated crime drama, "Decoy", starring Beverly Garland as the first female police officer in a television lead. In 1958, he joined Barbara Bain as a guest star in the short-lived adventure-drama series "Harbormaster" and appeared three times on Lloyd Bridges' syndicated adventure series, "Sea Hunt". In 1960, he was cast in the CBS summer medical series "" in the role of Don Harding in the episode, "The Case of the Radiant Wine". In 1961, Hagman joined the cast of daytime soap opera "The Edge of Night" as Ed Gibson and stayed in that role for two years. In 1963 and 1964, he appeared twice in segments of the CBS legal drama, "The Defenders"


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1964, he made his film debut in "Ensign Pulver", which featured a young Jack Nicholson. That same year, he also appeared in "Fail-Safe", with Henry Fonda.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1965, Hagman was cast as "genie" Barbara Eden's master and eventual love interest, Air Force Captain (later Major) Anthony Nelson, in the NBC situation comedy "I Dream of Jeannie", which ran for five seasons from 1965 to 1970. The show entered the top 30 in its first year and was NBC's answer to the successful 1960s magical comedies, "Bewitched" on ABC and "My Favorite Martian" on CBS. Two reunion movies were later made, both televised on NBC: "I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later" (1985) and "I Still Dream of Jeannie" (1991), but Hagman did not appear in either of them. At Dragon Con, in 2010, Hagman said he was never approached about it.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1999, after 29 years, Hagman agreed to reunite with "Jeannie" co-stars Barbara Eden and Bill Daily and creator/producer Sidney Sheldon on "The Donny and Marie Show". In 2002, when "I Dream of Jeannie" was set to join the cable channel TV Land, Hagman once again took part in a reunion with Eden and Daily, this time on "Larry King Live". On the "TV Land Awards" in March 2004, Hagman and Eden were the first presenters to reunite on stage. The following October, Hagman and Daily appeared at the Ray Courts Hollywood Autograph Show. And the following year, 2005, brought all three surviving stars from "I Dream of Jeannie" to the first cast reunion at the Chiller Expo Show.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman and Eden reunited in March 2006 for a publicity tour in New York City to promote the first-season DVD of "I Dream of Jeannie". He reunited once again with Eden on stage in the play "Love Letters" at the College of Staten Island in New York and the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. The appearance marked the first time the two performers had acted together since Eden appeared with Hagman in a five-episode arc on "Dallas" in 1990.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1978, Hagman was offered two roles on two television series that were debuting. One was for "The Waverly Wonders" and the other for "Dallas", in the role of conniving elder son and businessman J.R. Ewing. When Hagman read the "Dallas" script at his wife's suggestion, they both concluded it was perfect for him. Hagman based his portrayal in part on memories of the eldest son who had won the Antelope Tool Company succession battle.


title: Larry Hagman

text: "Dallas" became a worldwide success, airing in 90 countries, most notably the United Kingdom, where it was enjoyed even by members of the country's royal family, and led to several successful primetime spin-offs. Hagman became one of the best-known television stars of the era. Producers were keen to capitalize on that love/hate family relationship of J.R., building anticipation to a fever pitch in "A House Divided", the 1980 cliffhanger season finale in which J.R. is shot by an unknown assailant, leading to the world-wide "Who shot J.R.?" phenomenon.


title: Larry Hagman

text: At the beginning of the fourth season later that year, audience and actors were trying to guess "Who shot J.R.?", now one of fictional TV's most famous questions. During the media buildup, Hagman was involved in contract negotiations, delaying his return in the fourth season. Holding out for a higher salary, Hagman did not appear in the first episode of the show until the final few minutes. Producers were faced with a dilemma of whether to pay the greatly increased salary or to write J.R. out of the program. Lorimar Productions, the makers of the series, began shooting different scenes of "Dallas" that did not include Hagman. In the midst of negotiations, Hagman took his family to London for their July vacation. He continued to fight for his demands and network executives conceded that they wanted J.R. to remain on "Dallas". From then on, Hagman became one of the highest-paid stars in television. At the beginning of the 1980–81 season, writers were told to keep the storylines away from the actors until they really found out who actually shot J.R. and three weeks passed until the culprit was revealed on November 21, 1980, in a ratings record-breaking episode.


title: Larry Hagman

text: For his performance as J.R. Ewing, Hagman was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1980 and 1981, but did not win. He was also nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, between 1981 and 1985. He was nominated for a "Soap Opera Digest" award seven times for Outstanding Villain on a Prime Time Serial, Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role on a Prime Time Serial, Favorite Super Couple: Prime Time and Outstanding Actor in a Comic Relief Role on a Prime Time Serial and won five times. Hagman received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement from Academy member Ray Lee Hunt at the 1981 Achievement Summit in Dallas. In 1984, co-star Barbara Bel Geddes left "Dallas", following a contract dispute that had resulted from her March 1983 quadruple heart bypass surgery. At one point, Hagman suggested to his real-life mother Mary Martin that she play Miss Ellie, but she rejected the suggestion and Bel Geddes was briefly replaced by Donna Reed for the 1984–1985 season, before Bel Geddes returned in better health for the 1985–1986 season. By the end of its 14th season in 1991, ratings had slipped to the extent that CBS decided to end "Dallas". Hagman was the only actor to appear in all 357 episodes. He had also made five guest appearances on the "Dallas" spin-off series "Knots Landing" in the early 1980s. Some years after "Dallas" ended, Hagman appeared in two subsequent "Dallas" television movies: "" in 1996 and "" in 1998.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman reprised his role as J.R. Ewing in TNT's continuation of "Dallas", which began in 2012. In 2011, while filming the new series, Hagman said, "Of course it's fun to play the villain." As a result of Hagman's death in 2012, his character J.R. was killed off in season two of "Dallas". Unused footage of Hagman was used in season three as part of the season's story arc, which aired in 2014.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman starred in two short-lived series in the 1970s, "The Good Life" (1971–1972) and "Here We Go Again" (1973). In 1993, Hagman starred in "Staying Afloat" as a down-on-his-luck former millionaire who agrees to work undercover with the FBI to maintain his playboy lifestyle. Originally ordered for two TV movies and a weekly series by NBC, the pilot movie aired in November 1993 to critical drubbing and low ratings, ending production.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In January 1997, Hagman starred in a short-lived television series titled "Orleans" as Judge Luther Charbonnet, which lasted only eight episodes. In 2002, he made an appearance in the fourth series of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's British comedy panel game, "Shooting Stars", often appearing bewildered at the nonsensical questions and the antics of the hosts - during the show Hagman even stated that he would fire his agent as a result. In January 2011, Hagman made a guest appearance in the seventh season of "Desperate Housewives" as a new husband for Lynette Scavo's mother, Stella (played by Polly Bergen).


title: Larry Hagman

text: He also directed episodes of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "The Good Life", as well as several episodes of "Dallas" and "In the Heat of the Night", which was the only series he directed, but in which he did not act.


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman appeared in such feature films as "The Group", "Fail-Safe", "Harry and Tonto", "Mother, Jugs & Speed", "In Harm's Way", "The Eagle Has Landed", "Superman", "S.O.B.", "Nixon" and "Primary Colors". His television work included "Getting Away from It All", "Sidekicks", "The Return of the World's Greatest Detective", "Intimate Strangers", "Checkered Flag or Crash" and "A Howling in the Woods"


title: Larry Hagman

text: Hagman also directed (and appeared briefly in) a low-budget comedy and horror film in 1972 called "Beware! The Blob", also called "Son of Blob", a sequel to the classic 1958 horror film "The Blob". This was the only feature film he directed.


title: Larry Hagman

text: The release of a Columbia single performed with his mother Mary Martin, "Get Out Those Old Records", in 1950, was credited to Mary Martin and her Son Larry, with orchestration by Mitch Miller. It was released in Australia as a-78 rpm single, catalogue number DO-3409.


title: Larry Hagman

text: During the 1980s, Hagman was featured in a national televised Schlitz beer campaign, playing on, but not explicitly featuring, the J.R. character. He wore the same kind of Western business outfit – complete with cowboy hat – that he wore in his role. The end of each 30-second spot featured a male voice-over saying, "Refreshing Schlitz beer...the gusto's back..." Hagman, grinning into the camera, added: "...and I'm gonna get it!" He also made commercials for BVD brand underwear.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 2010, Hagman was hired as a spokesman for SolarWorld, a German solar energy commercial enterprise. While the SolarWorld commercials specifically mention neither "Dallas" nor J. R. Ewing, Hagman essentially revisits the character (complete with a picture of Hagman as J. R. Ewing from the original series on the mantle), stating that his oil company days are long over, "though still in the energy business", meaning solar energy, instead, which alternative energy now plays a major part of the next-generation Ewing family war between Christopher and John Ross III.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1973, his stepfather Richard Halliday died and Hagman reconciled with his mother, Mary Martin, soon after. The two were close until her death from colon cancer in 1990.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1954, Hagman married Swedish-born Maj Axelsson (born May 13, 1928, in Eskilstuna, Södermanlands län, Sweden – died May 31, 2016, in Los Angeles, California); they had two children, Heidi Kristina (born 1958) and Preston (born 1962). Longtime residents of Malibu, California, they then moved to Ojai. Hagman was a member of the Peace and Freedom Party from the 1960s. Hagman derided U.S. President George W. Bush prior to the Iraq War.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1969, Hagman's friend, musician David Crosby, supplied him with LSD after a concert: "LSD was such a profound experience in my life that it changed my pattern of life and my way of thinking and I could not exclude it [from my autobiography]." Hagman was introduced to marijuana by Jack Nicholson as a safer alternative to Hagman's heavy drinking. "I liked it because it was fun, it made me feel good and I never had a hangover." Although Hagman was a member of a 12-step program, he publicly advocated marijuana as a better alternative to alcohol.


title: Larry Hagman

text: In 1995, Hagman underwent a life-saving liver transplant after he was diagnosed with liver cancer, which was most likely brought on by roughly 40 years of heavy drinking. His clinical picture was further complicated by cirrhosis of the liver, which had been diagnosed three years earlier in 1992. Hagman did not receive preferential treatment as a celebrity, with a 1995 UPI article stating that the donor liver "matched Hagman's anonymous physical profile listed with the United Network for Organ Sharing."


title: Larry Hagman

text: He was also a heavy smoker as a young man before quitting at age 34. He was the chairman of the American Cancer Society's annual Great American Smokeout for many years and also worked on behalf of the National Kidney Foundation.


title: Larry Hagman

text: After attending a soccer game in Bucharest between FC Steaua București and West Ham United, he became a well-known fan of the Romanian team.