title: Mac Jones

text: The Week 7 victory began a seven-game winning streak for the Patriots, with Jones completing 69.4% of his passes for 1,397 yards, nine touchdowns, and two interceptions. Jones also became the first NFL rookie quarterback to have a completion percentage over 80 in consecutive games, which he obtained in victories over the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons. Amid the streak, he was named Offensive Rookie of the Month for November. In the seventh consecutive victory, he attempted only three passes against the Buffalo Bills due to heavy wind conditions, the second-fewest by a winning team since the Bills in 1974. New England's winning streak ended with consecutive losses against the Indianapolis Colts and Bills, which saw Jones record two interceptions in each game. After a Week 17 rout of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Jones became the first Patriots quarterback other than Brady to clinch a postseason berth since 1998. He also threw his 20th touchdown pass, breaking Jim Plunkett's franchise rookie record from 1971.


title: Mac Jones

text: Jones finished the season with 3,801 passing yards, 22 touchdowns, and a 67.6 completion percentage, which were the highest among rookie quarterbacks in 2021. Additionally, he was the only rookie quarterback to lead a team to a winning record and playoff appearance. Jones became the first Patriots rookie quarterback to start a playoff game with his against the Bills, throwing for 232 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions in the 47–17 loss.


title: Mac Jones

text: For his performance in his first season, Jones was named to the 2021 PFWA All-Rookie Team and finished second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting behind Ja'Marr Chase. He was also selected as an alternate to the 2022 Pro Bowl, making him the fourth Patriots rookie and the franchise's first rookie quarterback to receive Pro Bowl honors.


title: Mac Jones

text: With the departure of offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, Jones began the 2022 season under a new offense called by offensive line coach and former defensive coordinator Matt Patricia. Jones struggled over the first three games, throwing a combined five interceptions to two touchdowns and winning only one of his starts. During a Week 3 defeat against the Baltimore Ravens, in which he threw three interceptions, Jones suffered an ankle injury on his final pass. The injury was diagnosed as an ankle sprain that forced him to miss New England's next three matchups, during which the team went 2–1 under rookie Bailey Zappe.


title: Mac Jones

text: Jones returned for the Week 7 "Monday Night Football" matchup with the Chicago Bears, but after going three-and-out on his first two drives and throwing an interception on his third, he was benched for Zappe in the 33–14 defeat. Despite the benching, Jones started the following week's game against the New York Jets, completing 24 of 35 passes for 194 yards, a touchdown, and an interception in the 22–17 victory. He also had an interception returned for a touchdown by cornerback Michael Carter II, but a roughing the passer penalty on defensive end John Franklin-Myers negated the play. In a Week 9 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, he completed 20 of 30 passes for 147 yards and a touchdown, ending a seven-game interception streak. Jones had his strongest performance of the season in the Thanksgiving Day game against the Minnesota Vikings, throwing for a career-high 382 yards and two touchdowns, but the Patriots lost 33–26.


title: Mac Jones

text: Since 2019, Jones has been in a relationship with Sophie Scott, whom he met at the University of Alabama. The two reside together in Massachusetts.


title: Mac Jones

text: Jones was nicknamed "the Joker" in college for his habit of laughing with his mouth open and having fun in the locker room with his teammates.


title: Mac Jones

text: In August 2021, Jones signed an endorsement deal with Nobull, a Boston-based company that makes athletic shoes and apparel.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Cicely Louise Tyson (December 19, 1924January 28, 2021) was an American actress. In a career which spanned more than seven decades in film, television and theatre, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Having appeared in minor film and television roles early in her career, Tyson garnered widespread attention and critical acclaim for her performance as Rebecca Morgan in "Sounder" (1972); she was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her work in the film. Tyson's portrayal of the title role in the 1974 television film "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," based on the 1971 novel of the same name by Ernest J. Gaines, won her further praise; among other accolades, the role won her two Emmy Awards and a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She received another Emmy Award nomination for her role as Binta in the acclaimed series "Roots" (1977).


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson continued to act on film and television in the 21st century in projects such as "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991), "A Lesson Before Dying" (1999), "Because of Winn-Dixie", "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" (both 2005), "The Help" (2011), "The Trip to Bountiful" (2014) and "Last Flag Flying" (2017). She also played the recurring role of Ophelia Harkness in the ABC legal drama TV series "How to Get Away With Murder" since the show's inception in 2014, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series five times.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In addition to her screen career, Tyson appeared in various theater productions. She received a Vernon Rice Award in 1962 for her Off-Broadway performance in "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl". Tyson also starred as Carrie Watts in the Broadway play "The Trip to Bountiful", winning the Tony Award, the Outer Critics Award, and the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2013. She returned to Broadway in the 2016 revival of "The Gin Game" starring opposite James Earl Jones. Tyson was named a Kennedy Center honoree in 2015. In November 2016, Tyson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor in the United States. In 2020, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson was born in the Bronx, New York City, but soon relocated with her family to East Harlem. She was one of three children born to Fredericka (Huggins) Tyson, a domestic worker, and William Augustine Tyson, who worked as a carpenter and painter. Her parents were immigrants from Nevis in the West Indies. Her father arrived in New York City at age 21 and was processed at Ellis Island on August 4, 1919.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson grew up in a religious atmosphere. She sang in the choir and attended prayer meetings at an Episcopal church in East Harlem. Tyson's mother was opposed to her becoming an actress and would not speak to her for a time. She changed her mind when she saw Cicely appear on stage.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 1963, while a student at New York's New School For Social Research, Tyson appeared on the network television game show "To Tell The Truth" as an "imposter" for Australian singer Shirley Abicair, receiving two of the four possible votes.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson was discovered by a photographer for "Ebony" magazine and became a successful fashion model. Her first acting role was a bit part in the 1956 film "Carib Gold" and she first appeared onstage in Vinnette Carroll's production of "Dark of the Moon" at the Harlem YMCA in 1958. Tyson had small roles in the 1959 films "Odds Against Tomorrow" and "The Last Angry Man", as well as the 1960 comedy, "Who Was That Lady?" 1n 1961, she made her television debut in the NBC series "Frontiers of Faith".


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In the early 1960s, Tyson appeared in the original cast of French playwright Jean Genet's "The Blacks." She played the role of Stephanie Virtue Secret-Rose Diop; other notable cast members included Maya Angelou, James Earl Jones, Godfrey Cambridge, Louis Gossett Jr., and Charles Gordone. The show was the longest running off-Broadway non-musical of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. She won the 1961-1962 Vernon Rice Award (later known as the Drama Desk Award) for her performance in another off-Broadway production, "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl".


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson, who once worked for a social services agency, was spotted by producer David Susskind in "The Blacks" and in "Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright", and was cast for a role in the CBS TV series "East Side/West Side" (1963–1964), playing the secretary of a social worker played by George C. Scott. She was at the time the only African-American regular member of a TV cast, The show was noted for its treatment of social issues, and one of its episodes, on an African-American couple in Harlem (played by James Earl Jones and Diana Sands), was blacked out in Atlanta and Shreveport, Louisiana.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In the mid-1960s she had a recurring role in the soap opera "The Guiding Light". She appeared with Sammy Davis Jr. in the film "A Man Called Adam" (1966) and had a small role in the film version of "The Comedians" (1967) based on the Graham Greene novel. In 1968 Tyson had a featured role in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter".


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 1972, Tyson played the role of Rebecca Morgan in the film "Sounder". She was nominated for both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work in "Sounder," and also won the NSFC Best Actress and NBR Best Actress Awards.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 1974, Tyson played the title role in the television film "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman." Tyson's portrayal of a centenarian black woman's life from slavery until her death before the Civil rights movement won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie and an Emmy Award for Actress of the Year – Special. Tyson was also nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in this television film.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson's television roles included: Binta in the 1977 miniseries "Roots", for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie; Coretta Scott King in the 1978 miniseries "King", for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie; Marva Collins in the 1981 television film "The Marva Collins Story", for which she received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie; and Muriel in the 1986 television film "", for which she received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 1989, Tyson appeared in the television miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place." In 1991, Tyson appeared in "Fried Green Tomatoes" as Sipsey. In the 1994–95 television series "Sweet Justice," Tyson portrayed a civil rights activist and attorney named Carrie Grace Battle, a character she modeled after Washington, D.C. civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree. Her other notable film roles include the dramas "Hoodlum" (1997) and "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" (2005), and the television films "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" (1994) (for which she received her third Emmy Award) and "A Lesson Before Dying" (1999). In 2005, Tyson co-starred in "Because of Winn-Dixie."


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 2010, Tyson appeared in "Why Did I Get Married Too?" and narrated the Paul Robeson Award-winning documentary "Up from the Bottoms: The Search for the American Dream." In 2011, Tyson appeared in her first music video in Willow Smith's "21st Century Girl." That same year, she played Constantine Jefferson, a maid in Jackson, Mississippi, in the critically acclaimed period drama "The Help." Set in the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, the film won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Acting Ensemble and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: At the 67th Tony Awards, on June 9, 2013, Tyson won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance as Miss Carrie Watts in "The Trip to Bountiful." Upon winning, the 88-year-old actress became the oldest recipient of the Best Actress Tony Award. She also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for the role.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 2013, Tyson played a supporting role in the horror film "." Beginning in 2014, Tyson guest-starred on "How to Get Away with Murder" as Ophelia Harkness, the mother of main character Annalise Keating (Viola Davis); for this role, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: At the age of 18, Tyson married Kenneth Franklin on December 27, 1942. They had a daughter two months later, in February 1943. According to her divorce decree, her husband abandoned her after less than eighteen months of marriage. The marriage was formally dissolved in 1956.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson began dating jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in the 1960s when he was in the process of divorcing dancer Frances Davis. Davis used a photo of Tyson for his 1967 album, "Sorcerer". Davis told the press in 1967 that he intended to marry Tyson in March 1968 after his divorce was finalized, but instead he married singer Betty Davis that September.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson and Davis rekindled their relationship in 1978. They were married on November 26, 1981, in a ceremony conducted by Atlanta mayor Andrew Young at the home of actor Bill Cosby. Their marriage was tumultuous due to Davis' volatile temper and infidelity. Davis credited Tyson with saving his life and helping him overcome his cocaine addiction. They resided in Malibu, California, and New York City, until she filed for divorce in 1988. Their divorce was finalized in 1989, two years before Davis died in 1991.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson was godmother to the singer Lenny Kravitz, having been friends with his mother, actress Roxie Roker, as well as to Denzel Washington's daughter Katia and Tyler Perry's son Aman.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson was an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She was a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York. She was a vegetarian. She was also a first-cousin of Louis Farrakhan, a longtime leader of the Nation of Islam.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson's memoir, "Just as I Am", was published on January 26, 2021, and she promoted the book during the last weeks of her life. When she was asked how she wanted to be remembered in an interview with Gayle King, Tyson said, "I've done my best. That's all."


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson died on January 28, 2021, at the age of 96. Her funeral was held February 16 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and was attended by Tyler Perry, her godson Lenny Kravitz, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Cicely Tyson is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Honorary Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. Tyson has won three Primetime Emmy Awards for her work in television winning for, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974), and "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" (1994). She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play her performance in "The Trip to Bountiful" in 2014. Tyson won her Honorary Academy Award in 2018 with the inscription reading, ""Whose unforgettable performances and personal integrity have inspired generations of filmmakers, actors and audiences."


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson has also received various honours for her lifetime achievement as a groundbreaking artist. In 2015, she received a Kennedy Center Honor. In 2016 she was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. In 2020, she received a Career Achievement Peabody Award. That same year she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 1977, Tyson was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. In 1980, she received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1982, Tyson was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. The award is given to outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. In 1988, Tyson received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. In 1997, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: In 2005, Tyson was honored at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball. She was also honored by the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the National Council of Negro Women. Tyson was awarded the NAACP's 2010 Spingarn Medal for her contribution to the entertainment industry, her modeling career, and her support of civil rights. Tyson was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015. She was awarded the United States' highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama in November 2016. In September 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Tyson would receive an Academy Honorary Award. On November 18, 2018, Tyson became the first African-American woman to receive an honorary Oscar. In 2018, Tyson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. One of 12 soundstages was named after Tyson in her honor at Tyler Perry Studios. She was chosen to be inducted into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame in 2020. In 2022, she was posthumously inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame in 2022.


title: Cicely Tyson

text: Tyson received honorary degrees from Clark Atlanta University, Columbia University; Howard University; and Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college. The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was named after her in 2009.


title: Michael Pitt

text: Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor, model, and musician. Pitt is known in film for his roles in "Murder by Numbers" (2002), Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" (2003), Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" (2005), and Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" (2007), and in television for his roles as Henry Parker in the teen drama "Dawson's Creek" (1999–2000), Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" (2010–2011), and Mason Verger in the second season of the NBC series "Hannibal" (2014). He has also appeared in the films "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001), "Bully" (2001), "Silk" (2007), "Seven Psychopaths" (2012), "I Origins" (2014), and "Ghost in the Shell" (2017).


title: Michael Pitt

text: Michael Carmen Pitt was born on April 10, 1981 in West Orange, New Jersey to Donald B. Pitt, an auto mechanic, and Eleanor Carol (née DeMaio) Pitt, a waitress. He has two older sisters and one older brother. Pitt is of Italian and Irish heritage on his mother's side, and of English descent on his father's. By age 16, Pitt had been to three or four different high schools, among them Morris Catholic High School, and was in "special classes" before ultimately dropping out. He also did a brief stint at the Essex County Youth House, a detention center.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2001, Pitt earned a breakout role as Tommy Gnosis, the lover of a trans rock star named Hedwig, in the film "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", an adaptation of John Cameron Mitchell's 1998 stage musical. Although not his first film role, Pitt's performance as Gnosis led to a series of supporting roles in many acclaimed and often controversial films, including Larry Clark's "Bully" (2001), "Murder by Numbers" (2002), and "Funny Games", a 2007 remake of Michael Haneke's 1997 film of the same title. One of Pitt's more notable roles was as the lead in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" (2003).


title: Michael Pitt

text: Pitt attributes his success in films to a combination of hard work and the presence of "a few angels in my life." He has also stressed that he chooses roles not with the hope that they will garner commercial success or to gain notoriety but to create art, challenge the audience, and ultimately contribute to a project that he is proud of:


title: Michael Pitt

text: To be honest, I make very controversial films. The films that I've made have been very, very bold choices. As the years go by, I think my work is going to come more and more in context. The truth is that you can't take what people say too seriously. If I cared what people think about my career, I would have not done—just look at my work. Don't look at me, look at what I've done. Every movie that I've picked, from my first film on, has been considered by everyone to be "career suicide." And I have an amazing life. I have an amazing career. I work with artists. But I'm not making Spider-Man.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2004, Pitt has also appeared in Asia Argento's "Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" and M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" and in 2005 starred in Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" as a rock musician "inspired" by Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain. He performed all of the songs, which closely resembled Cobain's guitar and singing styles.


title: Michael Pitt

text: On the set of "Last Days", he met Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, who had been hired by Van Sant to serve as the film's music consultant. The pair formed a close bond, with Moore writing, "[Gus] wanted me to hang out with Michael and talk about his character, and let him be in character. We ended up spending a lot of time together. My daughter Coco still relates to Michael as Blake from "Last Days"".


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2006, he starred in the unconventional romantic comedy "Delirious" as a young homeless man who befriends a celebrity photographer and falls in love with a pop singer. The movie appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The following year, he played opposite Keira Knightley in "Silk", adapted from the novel by Alessandro Baricco, as Hervé Joncour, a French silkworm smuggler, who falls in love with a baron's concubine while in Japan.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2014, Pitt juggled two starring roles, as Tommy Uva in the comedic American crime drama "Rob the Mob" and as a molecular biologist in search of the truth about the origins of the eye in the science fiction romantic drama "I Origins".


title: Michael Pitt

text: Pitt made his Off-Broadway debut in 1999 in the play "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek" at the New York Theatre Workshop.


title: Michael Pitt

text: During his theater debut, a casting agent whom Pitt had mistaken for a police officer attempting to arrest him noticed him and recommended him for a role on the television series "Dawson's Creek." He played Henry Parker on a recurring basis in the third season (1999–2000).


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2010, Pitt was cast as Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" (about the rise of Atlantic City during the Prohibition era), as the protégé of corrupt politician Nucky Thompson. He appeared in the show's first two seasons and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics's Choice Award for his performance. Pitt said of Boardwalk Empire, "I'm proud of the work we did on that show. My grandfather was an Italian-American and he met my grandmother in Atlantic City. So Jimmy Darmody spoke to me; he felt very close to home."


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2014, he was cast in the recurring role of Mason Verger in the NBC series "Hannibal" playing the role in the show's second season. He subsequently left and was replaced by Joe Anderson.


title: Michael Pitt

text: Pitt sang and played guitar in his band, Pagoda, whose self-titled debut album was released by Universal/Fontana/Ecstatic Peace in 2007.


title: Michael Pitt

text: Under the title Jimi Pitt and the Twins of Evil, Pitt performed "Hey Joe" with the Twins of Evil for "The Dreamers" soundtrack.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In January 2015, Pitt made his official directorial debut with a campaign film for fashion label Rag & Bone's Spring 2015 collection. The video features Pitt and prior co-stars actress Astrid Bergès-Frisbey—the new face of Rag & Bone womenswear—and British actor Stephen Graham, from "I Origins" and "Boardwalk Empire", respectively. Says Rag & Bone co-head, Marcus Wainwright, "[Pitt]'s a really talented actor and musician, and he came to us with this concept of doing a film-based campaign. We thought it was awesome and well worth trying." Pitt has also directed a number of music videos for Pagoda.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2020, he revealed he had recently directed a film in Italy called "Nocturnal", although there is no release date set yet.


title: Michael Pitt

text: Pitt has modeled for numerous designer campaigns. In 2012, he was named the face of Italian fashion house Prada and modeled their menswear line. He was also featured in two separate Rag & Bone campaigns prior to the release of his self-directed campaign—once for Fall/Winter 2013, with French actress Léa Seydoux, and once for Fall/Winter 2014, with actress Winona Ryder.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In 2005, Pitt revealed that he had been "engaged for a long time now" to model Jamie Bochert and said of her: "She's my other half." The two ended their relationship in 2014. Pitt had previously been engaged to Asia Argento from 2003 to 2004.


title: Michael Pitt

text: In July 2022, Pitt was arrested and charged with assault and petty larceny after allegedly hitting another man multiple times and taking his phone. In September, Pitt was hospitalized and deemed "emotionally disturbed" after being accused of throwing items at people from the rooftop of a building.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water. The northern and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, it straddles the Canada–United States border with the province of Ontario to the north and east, and the states of Minnesota to the northwest and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean.


title: Lake Superior

text: The Ojibwe name for the lake is "gichi-gami" (in syllabics: , pronounced "gitchi-gami" or "kitchi-gami" in different dialects), meaning "great sea". Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this name as "Gitche Gumee" in the poem "The Song of Hiawatha", as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song "The Wreck of the "Edmund Fitzgerald"".


title: Lake Superior

text: According to other sources, the full Ojibwe name is "Ojibwe Gichigami" ("Ojibwe's Great Sea") or "Anishinaabe Gichigami" ("Anishinaabe's Great Sea"). The 1878 dictionary by Father Frederic Baraga, the first one written for the Ojibway language, gives the Ojibwe name as "Otchipwe-kitchi-gami" (a transliteration of "Ojibwe Gichigami").


title: Lake Superior

text: In the 17th century, the first French explorers approached the great inland sea by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Huron; they referred to their discovery as "le lac supérieur" (the upper lake, i.e. above Lake Huron). Some 17th-century Jesuit missionaries referred to it as "Lac Tracy" (for Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy). After taking control of the region from the French in the 1760s following their defeat in the French and Indian War, the British anglicized the lake's name to "Superior", "on account of its being superior in magnitude to any of the lakes on that vast continent".


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron via the St. Marys River and the Soo Locks (Sault Ste. Marie locks). Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world in area and the third largest in volume, behind Lake Baikal in Siberia and Lake Tanganyika in East Africa. The Caspian Sea, while larger than Lake Superior in both surface area and volume, is brackish. Though presently isolated, prehistorically the Caspian has been repeatedly connected to and then isolated from the Mediterranean via the Black Sea.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior has a surface area of , which is approximately the size of South Carolina or Austria. It has a maximum length of and maximum breadth of . Its average depth is with a maximum depth of . Lake Superior contains 2,900 cubic miles (12,100 km³) of water. There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America to a depth of . The shoreline of the lake stretches (including islands).


title: Lake Superior

text: American limnologist J. Val Klump was the first person to reach the lowest depth of Lake Superior on July 30, 1985, as part of a scientific expedition, which at 122 fathoms 1 foot () below sea level is the second-lowest spot in the continental interior of the United States and the third-lowest spot in the interior of the North American continent after Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada ( below sea level) and Iliamna Lake in Alaska (942 feet [287 m] below sea level). (Though Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States and deeper than Lake Superior, Crater Lake's elevation is higher and consequently its deepest point is "above" sea level.)


title: Lake Superior

text: While the temperature of the surface of Lake Superior varies seasonally, the temperature below is an almost constant 39 °F (4 °C). This variation in temperature makes the lake seasonally stratified. Twice per year, however, the water column reaches a uniform temperature of 39 °F (4 °C) from top to bottom, and the lake waters thoroughly mix. This feature makes the lake dimictic. Because of its volume, Lake Superior has a retention time of 191 years.


title: Lake Superior

text: Annual storms on Lake Superior regularly feature wave heights of over . Waves well over have been recorded.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior is fed by more than 200 rivers, including the Nipigon River, the St. Louis River, the Pigeon River, the Pic River, the White River, the Michipicoten River, the Bois Brule River and the Kaministiquia River. The lake's outlet at St. Marys River has a relatively steep gradient with rapids. The Soo Locks enable ships to bypass the rapids and to overcome the height difference between Lakes Superior and Huron.


title: Lake Superior

text: The lake's average surface elevation is above sea level. Until approximately 1887, the natural hydraulic conveyance through the St. Marys River rapids determined the outflow from Lake Superior. By 1921, development in support of transportation and hydroelectric power resulted in gates, locks, power canals and other control structures completely spanning St. Marys rapids. The regulating structure is known as the Compensating Works and is operated according to a regulation plan known as Plan 1977-A. Water levels, including diversions of water from the Hudson Bay watershed, are regulated by the International Lake Superior Board of Control, which was established in 1914 by the International Joint Commission.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior's water level was at a new record low in September 2007, slightly less than the previous record low in 1926. Water levels recovered within a few days.


title: Lake Superior

text: The lake's water level fluctuates from month to month, with the highest lake levels in October and November. The normal high-water mark is above datum (601.1 ft or 183.2 m). In the summer of 1985, Lake Superior reached its highest recorded level at above datum. 2019 and 2020 set new high-water records in nearly every month.


title: Lake Superior

text: The lake's lowest levels occur in March and April. The normal low-water mark is below datum. In the winter of 1926 Lake Superior reached its lowest recorded level at below datum. Additionally, the entire first half of the year (January to June) included record low months. The low water was a continuation of the dropping lake levels from the previous year, 1925, which set low-water records for October through December. During the nine-month period of October 1925 to June 1926, water levels ranged from to below Chart Datum. In the summer of 2007 monthly historic lows were set; August at , September at .


title: Lake Superior

text: According to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Lake Superior may have warmed faster than its surrounding area. Summer surface temperatures in the lake appeared to have increased by about between 1979 and 2007, compared with an approximately increase in the surrounding average air temperature. The increase in the lake's surface temperature may be related to the decreasing ice cover. Less winter ice cover allows more solar radiation to penetrate and warm the water. If trends continue, Lake Superior, which freezes over completely once every 20 years, could routinely be ice-free by 2040 although more current data through 2021 does not support this trend.


title: Lake Superior

text: Warmer temperatures could lead to more snow in the lake effect snow belts along the shores of the lake, especially in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Two recent consecutive winters (2013–2014 and 2014–2015) brought high ice coverage to the Great Lakes, and on March 6, 2014, overall ice coverage peaked at 92.5%, the second-highest in recorded history. Lake Superior's ice coverage further beat 2014's record in 2019, reaching 95% coverage.


title: Lake Superior

text: The largest island in Lake Superior is Isle Royale in Michigan. Isle Royale contains several lakes, some of which also contain islands. Other well-known islands include Madeline Island in Wisconsin, Michipicoten Island in Ontario, and Grand Island (the location of the Grand Island National Recreation Area) in Michigan.


title: Lake Superior

text: The larger cities on Lake Superior include the twin ports of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin; Thunder Bay, Ontario; Marquette, Michigan; and the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Duluth-Superior, at the western end of Lake Superior, is the most inland point on the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the most inland port in the world.


title: Lake Superior

text: Among the scenic places on the lake are Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Brockway Mountain Drive on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Isle Royale National Park, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Pukaskwa National Park, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Grand Island National Recreation Area, Sleeping Giant (Ontario) and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The Great Lakes Circle Tour is a designated scenic road system connecting all of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior's size reduces the severity of the seasons of its humid continental climate (more typically seen in locations like Nova Scotia). The water surface's slow reaction to temperature changes, seasonally ranging between 32 and 55 °F (0–13 °C) around 1970, helps to moderate surrounding air temperatures in the summer (cooler with frequent sea breeze formations) and winter, and creates lake-effect snow in colder months. The hills and mountains that border the lake hold moisture and fog, particularly in the fall.


title: Lake Superior

text: The rocks of Lake Superior's northern shore date back to the early history of the earth. During the Precambrian (between 4.5 billion and 540 million years ago) magma forcing its way to the surface created the intrusive granites of the Canadian Shield. These ancient granites can be seen on the North Shore today. It was during the Penokean orogeny, part of the process that created the Great Lakes tectonic zone, that many valuable metals were deposited. The region surrounding the lake has proved to be rich in minerals, with copper, iron, silver, gold and nickel the most frequently mined. Notable production includes gold from the Hemlo mine near Marathon, copper from the Keweenaw Peninsula and the Mamainse Point Formation, iron from the Gogebic Range, silver at Silver Islet, and uranium at Theano Point.


title: Lake Superior

text: The mountains steadily eroded, depositing layers of sediments that compacted and became limestone, dolomite, taconite and the shale at Kakabeka Falls. The continental crust was later riven, creating one of the deepest rifts in the world. The lake lies in this long-extinct Mesoproterozoic rift valley, the Midcontinent Rift. Magma was injected between layers of sedimentary rock, forming diabase sills. This hard diabase protects the layers of sedimentary rock below, forming the flat-topped mesas in the Thunder Bay area. Amethyst formed in some of the cavities created by the Midcontinent Rift, and there are several amethyst mines in the Thunder Bay area.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lava erupted from the rift and formed the black basalt rock of Michipicoten Island, Black Bay Peninsula, and St. Ignace Island.


title: Lake Superior

text: In the most recent geological history, during the Wisconsin glaciation 10,000 years ago, ice covered the region at a thickness of . The land contours familiar today were carved by the advance and retreat of the ice sheet. The retreat left gravel, sand, clay and boulder deposits. Glacial meltwaters gathered in the Superior basin creating Lake Minong, a precursor to Lake Superior. Without the immense weight of the ice, the land rebounded, and a drainage outlet formed at Sault Ste. Marie, becoming today's St. Mary's River.


title: Lake Superior

text: The first people came to the Lake Superior region 10,000 years ago after the retreat of the glaciers in the Last Glacial Period. They are known as the Plano, and they used stone-tipped spears to hunt caribou on the northwestern side of Lake Minong. The Shield Archaic peoples arrived around 5000 BC; evidence of this culture can be found at the eastern and western ends of the Canadian shore. They used bows and arrows, paddled dugout canoes, fished, hunted, mined copper for tools and weapons, and established trading networks. They are believed to be the direct ancestors of the Ojibwe and Cree. The people of the Laurel complex (c. 500 BC to AD 500) developed seine net fishing, evidence being found at rivers around Superior such as the Pic and Michipicoten. The people of the Terminal Woodland period were evident in the area from 900 AD to 1650. They were Algonquian peoples who hunted, fished and gathered berries. They used snowshoes, birch bark canoes and conical or domed lodges. At the mouth of the Michipicoten River, nine layers of encampments have been discovered. Most of the Pukaskwa Pits were likely made during this time.


title: Lake Superior

text: The Anishinaabe people, which includes the Ojibwe or Chippewa, have inhabited the Lake Superior region for over five hundred years and were preceded by the Dakota, Fox, Menominee, Nipigon, Noquet and Gros Ventres. After the arrival of Europeans, the Anishinaabe made themselves middle-men between the French fur traders and other Native peoples. They soon became the dominant Native American nation in the region: they forced out the Sioux and Fox and won a victory against the Iroquois west of Sault Ste. Marie in 1662. By the mid-18th century, the Ojibwe occupied all of Lake Superior's shores.


title: Lake Superior

text: In the 18th century, as the booming fur trade supplied Europe with beaver hats, the Hudson's Bay Company had a virtual monopoly in the region until 1783, when the rival North West Company was formed. The North West Company built forts on Lake Superior at Grand Portage, Fort William, Nipigon, the Pic River, the Michipicoten River, and Sault Ste. Marie. But by 1821, with competition harming the profits of both, the companies merged under the Hudson's Bay Company name. Many towns around the lake are current or former mining areas, or engaged in processing or shipping. Today, tourism is another significant industry: the sparsely populated Lake Superior country, with its rugged shorelines and wilderness, attracts vacationers and adventurers.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior has been an important link in the Great Lakes Waterway, providing a route for the transportation of iron ore as well as grain and other mined and manufactured materials. Large cargo vessels called lake freighters, as well as smaller ocean-going freighters, transport these commodities across Lake Superior. Shipping was slow to arrive at Lake Superior in the 19th century. The first steamboat to run on the lake was the "Independence" in 1847, whereas the first steamers on the other Great Lakes began sailing in 1816. Ice closes the lake shipping from mid-January to late March. Exact dates for the shipping season vary each year, depending on weather conditions that form and break the ice.


title: Lake Superior

text: The southern shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Michigan, and Whitefish Point is known as the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes;" more ships have been lost around the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. These shipwrecks are now protected by the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve. Storms that claimed multiple ships include the Mataafa Storm in November 1905 and the Great Lakes Storm of 1913.


title: Lake Superior

text: Wreckage of —a ore carrier that sank on October 11, 1907, during a Lake Superior storm in 77 fathoms () of water—was located in August 2007. Built in Lorain, Ohio, "Cyprus" was launched August 17, 1907, and was lost on her second voyage hauling iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York, with the sole survivor among her 23 crew being Charles G. Pitz. In 1918 the last warships to sink in the Great Lakes, French minesweepers "Inkerman" and "Cerisoles", vanished in a Lake Superior storm, perhaps upon striking the uncharted danger of the Superior Shoal in an otherwise deep part of the lake. With 78 crewmembers dead, their sinking marked the largest loss of life on Lake Superior to date.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lightfoot sings that "Superior, they said, never gives up her dead". This is because of the unusually cold water, under on average around 1970. Normally, bacteria decaying a sunken body will bloat it with gas, causing it to float to the surface after a few days. But Lake Superior's water is cold enough year-round to inhibit bacterial growth, and bodies tend to sink and never resurface. Joe MacInnis reported that in July 1994, explorer Frederick Shannon's Expedition 94 to the wreck of "Edmund Fitzgerald" discovered a man's body near the port side of her pilothouse, not far from the open door, "fully clothed, wearing an orange life jacket, and lying face down in the sediment".


title: Lake Superior

text: More than 80 species of fish have been found in Lake Superior. Species native to the lake include banded killifish, bloater, brook trout, burbot, cisco, lake sturgeon, lake trout, lake whitefish, longnose sucker, muskellunge, northern pike, pumpkinseed, rock bass, round whitefish, smallmouth bass, walleye, white sucker and yellow perch. In addition, many fish species have been either intentionally or accidentally introduced to Lake Superior: Atlantic salmon, brown trout, carp, chinook salmon, coho salmon, freshwater drum, pink salmon, rainbow smelt, rainbow trout, round goby, ruffe, sea lamprey and white perch.


title: Lake Superior

text: Lake Superior has fewer dissolved nutrients relative to its water volume than the other Great Lakes and so is less productive in terms of fish populations and is an oligotrophic lake. This is a result of the underdeveloped soils found in its relatively small watershed. It is also a reflection of relatively small human population and small amount of agriculture in its watershed. However, nitrate concentrations in the lake have been continuously rising for more than a century. They are still much lower than levels considered dangerous to human health; but this steady, long-term rise is an unusual record of environmental nitrogen buildup. It may relate to anthropogenic alternations to the regional nitrogen cycle, but researchers are still unsure of the causes of this change to the lake's ecology.


title: Lake Superior

text: As for other Great Lakes fish, populations have also been affected by the accidental or intentional introduction of foreign species such as the sea lamprey and Eurasian ruffe. Accidental introductions have occurred in part by the removal of natural barriers to navigation between the Great Lakes. Overfishing has also been a factor in the decline of fish populations.


title: Amitabh Bachchan filmography

text: Amitabh Bachchan is an Indian actor, occasional playback singer, film producer, television host and former politician who works in Hindi films. He made his acting debut in 1969 with "Saat Hindustani", and narrated Mrinal Sen's "Bhuvan Shome" (1969). He later appeared as Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Anand" (1971), for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1973, Bachchan played the role of Inspector Vijay Khanna in Prakash Mehra's action film "Zanjeer". He has since appeared in several films with the character name "Vijay". During the same year, he appeared in "Abhimaan" and "Namak Haraam". For the latter, he received the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later he appeared along with Shashi Kapoor, in Yash Chopra's "Deewaar", which earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Actor nomination. He was cited as the "angry young man" for his roles in "Deewaar" and "Zanjeer". Later he starred in Ramesh Sippy's "Sholay" (1975), which is considered to be one of the greatest Indian films of all time. After appearing in the romantic drama "Kabhie Kabhie" (1976), Bachchan starred in Manmohan Desai's action comedy "Amar Akbar Anthony" (1977). He won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for his performance in the latter. He then played dual roles of Don and Vijay in "Don" (1978), which again earned him the Filmfare Best Actor Award for the consecutive year.


title: Amitabh Bachchan filmography

text: In the 1980s, Bachchan was cast in numerous films, including the action films: "Dostana" (1980), "Shaan" (1980) and "Kaalia" (1981), the romantic film "Silsila" (1981); and the drama "Shakti" (1982) with Dilip Kumar. Bachchan's popularity continued to increase in the early 1980s, and his critically and commercially successful ventures in this period include "Dostana" (1980), "Shaan" (1980), "Ram Balram" (1980), "Kranti" (1981), "Naseeb" (1981), "Lawaaris" (1981), "Anusandhan" (1981), "Kaalia" (1981),"Yaarana" (1981), "Satte Pe Satta" (1982), "Desh Premee" (1982), "Namak Halaal" (1982), "Khud-Daar" (1982), "Bemisal" (1982), "Shakti" (1982), "Andha Kanoon" (1983), "Mahaan" (1983), and "Coolie" (1983). His performances in these films were critically acclaimed, and his performances in "Dostana" and "Shakti" earned him the nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. He suffered a near-fatal injury while shooting for "Coolie" (1983). His workload decreased for the upcoming four years (1984—1987), but he found critical and commercial success in "Inquilaab" (1984), "Sharaabi" (1984), "Geraftaar" (1985), "Mard" (1985) and "Aakhree Raasta" (1986). He returned to the screen with the box-office success "Shahenshah" (1988). This was followed by critical and commercial failures, leading to a setback in his acting career. A year later, Bachchan played the role of gangster Vijay Deenanath Chauhan in Mukul S. Anand's "Agneepath" (1990) and later starred in "Hum" (1991), which was a commercial success. Despite being a box-office failure, the former garnered him the National Film Award for Best Actor and has since developed a cult status. He also earned the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for "Hum", following which he took another break from acting. He then played Badshah Khan in Anand's 1992 drama "Khuda Gawah", for which he received a civilian award from the President of Afghanistan. "Khuda Gawah", released on 8 May 1992, was also a critical and commercial success, and Bachchan's performance was well received both domestically and internationally. In 1996, he started his film production company Amitabh Bachchan Corporation whose first release "Tere Mere Sapne" (1996) was a box-office hit.


title: Amitabh Bachchan filmography

text: In 2000, Bachchan appeared in a supporting role in Aditya Chopra's "Mohabbatein". It won him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. During the same year, he made his television debut as the host of the game show "Kaun Banega Crorepati". He has since hosted its every season except for the third one. He then went on to play the roles of a short-tempered banker in "Aankhen" (2002), a disillusioned father in "Baghban" (2003), and a conflicted cop in "Khakee" (2004). In 2005, he played the role of a teacher of a blind and deaf girl in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black", for which he received the National Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. He received another National Award for Best Actor for playing a progeria patient in R. Balki's "Paa" (2009). He also portrayed the title character of a friendly ghost in "Bhoothnath" (2008), and its sequel "Bhoothnath Returns" (2014);. and played a hypochondriac in the comedy-drama "Piku" (2015). It earned him his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor.


title: Amitabh Bachchan filmography

text: Bachchan has also narrated several films including "Shatranj Ke Khilari" (1977), "Lagaan" (2001), "Parineeta" (2005), "Jodhaa Akbar" (2008), "Ra.One" (2011), and "Krrish 3" (2013). He has also performed as a playback singer for films like "Laawaris" (1981), "Silsila", and "Baghban".


title: Seven Samurai

text: At the time, the film was the most expensive film made in Japan. It took a year to shoot and faced many difficulties. It was the second-highest-grossing domestic film in Japan in 1954. Many reviews compared the film to westerns.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Since its release, "Seven Samurai" has consistently ranked highly in critics' lists of the greatest films in cinema history, such as the BFI's "Sight & Sound" and Rotten Tomatoes polls. It was also voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 international critics' poll. Its influence on the film industry has been unprecedented, and it is often regarded today as one of the most "remade, reworked, and referenced" films in cinema.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In 1586, a bandit gang discusses raiding a mountain village, but their chief decides to wait until after the harvest. The villagers overhear this and turn to Gisaku, the village elder and miller, who declares that they should hire samurai to protect them. Since they have no money and can only offer food as payment, Gisaku advises them to find "hungry" samurai.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Several villagers go into town and eventually find Kambei, an aging but experienced rōnin, whom they see rescuing a young boy held hostage by a cornered thief. A young samurai named Katsushirō asks to become Kambei's disciple. The villagers ask for Kambei's help, and though initially reluctant, he agrees. He then recruits his old comrade-in-arms Shichirōji, along with Gorobei, Heihachi, and Kyūzō, a taciturn master swordsman whom Katsushirō regards with awe. Kikuchiyo, a wild and eccentric rōnin, is also accepted despite attempts to drive him away.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Upon arrival, the samurai find the villagers cowering in their homes, refusing to greet them. Insulted, Kikuchiyo rings the village alarm, prompting the villagers to come out and beg for protection. Slowly, the samurai and farmers learn to trust each other. Katsushirō meets Shino, a farmer's daughter whose father has disguised her as a boy, and becomes intimate despite knowing their different social classes prohibit it. Later, the samurai are angered when Kikuchiyo brings them armor and weapons, which the villagers acquired by killing other samurai injured or fleeing from battle. Kikuchiyo angrily retorts that samurai are responsible for much of the suffering farmers endure, revealing his origin as an orphaned farmer's son. The samurai's anger turns to shame.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kambei arms the villagers with bamboo spears, and divides them into squads to prepare defences and train. Three bandit scouts are spotted; two are killed, while the survivor reveals the location of their encampment before being slain by the villagers. The samurai burn down the camp in a pre-emptive strike. Rikichi, a troubled villager aiding the samurai, breaks down when he sees his wife, who was kidnapped and made a concubine after a previous raid. Upon seeing Rikichi, she runs back into a burning hut to her death. Heihachi is killed by a gun shot while rescuing Rikichi. The saddened villagers are inspired by Kikuchiyo, who raises a banner Heihachi made to represent the samurai and the village.


title: Seven Samurai

text: When the bandits finally arrive, they are confounded by the new fortifications, which include a moat and high wooden fences. They burn the village's outlying houses, including Gisaku's mill. Gisaku's family tries to save him when he refuses to abandon it, but all perish except a lone baby rescued by Kikuchiyo. The bandits then besiege the village, but many are killed as the defenders thwart every attack, which include cavalry charges that are allowed through a breach so that they could be ambushed.


title: Seven Samurai

text: The bandits possess three matchlock muskets. Kyūzō ventures out alone and retrieves one; an envious Kikuchiyo abandons his squad to bring back another. However, Kikuchiyo's absence allows a handful of bandits to infiltrate his post and kill several farmers, and Gorobei is slain defending his position. That night, Kambei predicts that the bandits will make one final assault due to their dwindling numbers. Meanwhile, Katsushirō and Shino's relationship is discovered by her father, who is enraged that her virginity has been taken and beats her. Kambei and the villagers intervene; Shichirōji reasons that such a coupling is normal before battle and that they should be forgiven, but the social shame is irreconcilable.


title: Seven Samurai

text: The next morning, the defenders allow the remaining bandits to enter the village and then ambush them. As the battle winds down, the bandit chief hides in the women's hut armed with a musket, and shoots Kyūzō dead. An enraged Kikuchiyo charges in and is shot as well, but kills the chief before dying. The remaining outlaws are slain.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In the aftermath, Kambei, Katsushirō and Shichirōji watch from the funeral mounds of their comrades as the joyful villagers sing whilst planting their new crops. Katsushirō and Shino meet one last time, but their relationship has ended. Kambei reflects to Shichirōji that it is another pyrrhic victory for the samurai: "The victory belongs to those peasants. Not to us."


title: Seven Samurai

text: Akira Kurosawa had originally wanted to direct a film about a single day in the life of a samurai. Later, in the course of his research, he discovered a story about samurai defending farmers. According to actor Toshiro Mifune, the film was originally going to be called "Six Samurai", with Mifune playing the role of Kyūzō. During the six-week scriptwriting process, Kurosawa and his screenwriters realized that "six sober samurai were a bore—they needed a character that was more off-the-wall". Kurosawa recast Mifune as Kikuchiyo and gave him creative license to improvise actions in his performance. During the six-week scriptwriting process, the screenwriters were not allowed visitors or phone calls.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kurosawa and the writers were innovative in refining the theme of the assembly of heroic characters to perform a mission. According to Michael Jeck's DVD commentary, "Seven Samurai" was among the first films to use the now-common plot element of the recruiting and gathering of heroes into a team to accomplish a specific goal, a device used in later films such as "The Guns of Navarone", "Sholay", the western remake "The Magnificent Seven", and Pixar's animated film "A Bug's Life". Film critic Roger Ebert speculates in his review that the sequence introducing the leader Kambei (in which the samurai shaves off his topknot, a sign of honor among samurai, in order to pose as a monk to rescue a boy from a kidnapper) could be the origin of the practice, now common in action movies, of introducing the main hero with an undertaking unrelated to the main plot.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Other plot devices such as the reluctant hero, romance between a local woman and the youngest hero, and the nervousness of the common citizenry, had appeared in other films before this but were combined in this film.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kurosawa refused to shoot the peasant village at Toho Studios and had a complete set constructed at Tagata on the Izu Peninsula, Shizuoka. Although the studio protested the increased production costs, Kurosawa was adamant that "the quality of the set influences the quality of the actors' performances... For this reason, I have the sets made exactly like the real thing. It restricts the shooting but encourages that feeling of authenticity."


title: Seven Samurai

text: He also spoke of 'intense labour' of making the film: "It rained all the time, we didn't have enough horses. It was just the kind of picture that is impossible to make in this country."


title: Seven Samurai

text: Long before it was released, the film had already become a topic of wide discussion. After three months of pre-production it had 148 shooting days spread out over a year—four times the span covered in the original budget, which eventually came to almost half a million dollars. Toho Studios closed down production at least twice. Each time, Kurosawa calmly went fishing, reasoning that the studio had already heavily invested in the production and would allow him to complete the picture. The film's final battle scene, originally scheduled to be shot at the end of summer, was shot in February in near-freezing temperatures. Mifune later recalled that he had never been so cold in his life.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Through the creative freedom provided by the studio, Kurosawa made use of telephoto lenses, which were rare in 1954, as well as multiple cameras which allowed the action to fill the screen and place the audience right in the middle of it. "If I had filmed it in the traditional shot-by-shot method, there was no guarantee that any action could be repeated in exactly the same way twice." He found it to be very effective and he later used it in movies that were less action-oriented. His method was to put one camera in the most orthodox shooting position, another camera for quick shots and a third camera "as a kind of guerrilla unit". This method made for very complicated shoots, for which Kurosawa choreographed the movement of all three cameras by using diagrams.


title: Seven Samurai

text: The martial arts choreography for the film was led by Yoshio Sugino of the Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū. Initially Junzo Sasamori of the Ono-ha Itto-ryu was working along with Sugino, but he was asked by the Ministry of Education to teach in Europe during production.


title: Seven Samurai

text: During filming, Kurosawa quickly earned a reputation with his crew as the "world's greatest editor" because of his practice of editing late at night throughout the shooting. He described this as a practical necessity that is incomprehensible to most directors, who on major production spent at least several months with their editors assembling and cutting the film after shooting is completed.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kurosawa had a heightened interest in the soundtracks of his films. For "The Seven Samurai", he collaborated for the seventh and penultimate time with friend and composer Fumio Hayasaka. Hayasaka was already seriously ill when Kurosawa visited him during the filming of the "Seven Samurai" and he died prematurely of tuberculosis on October 15, 1955, at the age of 41, while Kurosawa was filming "I Live in Fear", Kurosawa's next film, which Hayasaka was unable to complete.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In analyzing the film's accuracy to sixteenth century Japan, Philip Kemp wrote, "to the farmers whose crops were pillaged, houses burned, womenfolk raped or abducted, the distinction between samurai warriors and bandit troupes became all but meaningless." Kemp notes how Kikuchiyo is "A farmer's son who wants to become a samurai, he can see both sides: yes, he rages, the farmers are cowardly, mean, treacherous, quite capable of robbing and killing a wounded samurai—but it's the samurai, with their looting and brutality, who have made the farmers that way. And the shamefaced reaction of his comrades makes it clear that they can't dispute the charge."


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kenneth Turan notes that the long runtime "reflects the entirety of the agricultural year, from planting to gorgeous blossoming to harvesting." Historian David Conrad notes that at the time of the movie's release, nearly half of the Japanese population was still employed in agriculture. Although farm incomes were already rising as part of the Japanese economic miracle that would transform rural and urban lives in the 1950s and 60s, many of the village conditions depicted in the movie were still familiar to audiences in 1954.


title: Seven Samurai

text: At 207 minutes, including a five-minute intermission with music, "Seven Samurai" would be the longest picture of Kurosawa's career. Fearing that American audiences would be unwilling to sit through the entire picture, Toho Studios originally removed 50 minutes from the film for U.S. distribution. Similar edits were distributed around the world until the 1990s; since then the complete version is usually seen.


title: Seven Samurai

text: The film was released in the United States in 1955, initially under the title "The Magnificent Seven". Following the 1960 release of the American remake "The Magnificent Seven", the Japanese film's title was reverted back to its original title "Seven Samurai" in the United States.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Prior to the advent of DVD, various edited versions were distributed on video, but most DVDs and Blu-rays contain Kurosawa's complete original version, including its five-minute intermission. Since 2006, the Criterion Collection's US releases have featured their own exclusive 2K restoration, whereas most others, including all non-US Blu-rays, have an older HD transfer from Toho in Japan.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In 2016, Toho carried out a six-month-long 4K restoration, along with Kurosawa's "Ikiru" (1952). As the whereabouts of "Seven Samurai"'s original negative are unknown, second generation fine grain positive and third generation duplicate negative elements were used. As of 2020, this version has not been released anywhere on home video. It is available as a Digital Cinema Package from the British Film Institute.


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Seven Samurai" was well received by Japanese audiences, earning a distribution rental income of , within the first twelve months of its release. It was Japan's third highest-grossing film of 1954, out-grossing "Godzilla", which itself had sold tickets and grossed an inflation-adjusted equivalent of or in 1998.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Overseas, the box office income for the film's 1956 North American release is currently unknown. The film's 2002 re-release grossed $271,841 in the United States and $4,124 in France. At the 2002 Kurosawa & Mifune Festival in the United States, the film grossed $561,692. This adds up to at least $833,533 grossed in the United States.


title: Seven Samurai

text: While it initially received mixed reviews from Western critics, "Seven Samurai" is now considered one of the greatest films in cinema history. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a perfect approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads: "Arguably Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, "The Seven Samurai" is an epic adventure classic with an engrossing story, memorable characters, and stunning action sequences that make it one of the most influential films ever made". It currently ranks 18th on their action/adventure voting list, and third on their top 100 art house and international films.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Upon its initial US release as "The Magnificent Seven", film critic Wanda Hale reviewed the film in "New York Daily News" and rated it four stars in 1956. She noted it was very different from Kurosawa's previous films "Rashomon" (1950) and "Gate of Hell" (1953) in that it was "an action picture" but that Kurosawa "has exceeded himself" with "The Magnificent Seven." She praised Kurosawa's storytelling for "his deep perception of human nature" and "awareness that no two people are alike," his "sensitive, knowing direction" that "never lets audiences lose interest" in the plot development, his talent for making the battle scenes and violent action "terrifically exciting to audiences" and his ability to naturally weave humor and romance between the serious action. She also praised the "inspired performances" of the cast, including Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune, among other actors.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Many critics outside of Japan have compared the film to westerns. Bosley Crowther, writing for "The New York Times", said the film "bears cultural comparison with our own popular western "High Noon". That is to say, it is a solid, naturalistic, he-man outdoor action film, wherein the qualities of human strength and weakness are discovered in a crisis taut with peril." Film historian Peter Cowie quoted Kurosawa as saying, "Good westerns are liked by everyone. Since humans are weak, they want to see good people and great heroes. Westerns have been done over and over again, and in the process, a kind of grammar has evolved. I have learned from this grammar of the western." Cowie continues this thought by saying, "That "Seven Samurai" can be so seamlessly transposed to an American setting underlines how carefully Kurosawa had assimilated this grammar."


title: Seven Samurai

text: In 1982, it was voted number three in the "Sight & Sound" critics' poll of greatest films. In the 2002 "Sight & Sound" critics' poll the film was ranked at number eleven. In the "Sight & Sound" directors' poll, it was voted at number ten in 1992 and number nine in 2002. It also ranked number seventeen on the 2012 "Sight & Sound" critics' poll, in both cases being tied with Kurosawa's own "Rashomon" (1950). It also ranked at number seventeen in 2012 "Sight & Sound" directors' poll.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In 1998, the film was ranked at number five in "Time Out" magazine's Top 100 Films (Centenary). "Entertainment Weekly" voted it the 12th Greatest film of all time in 1999. In 2000, the film was ranked at No.23 in "The Village Voice"s 100 Greatest Films list. In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 81 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics.


title: Seven Samurai

text: In 2007, the film was ranked at No. 3 by "The Guardian"s readers' poll on its list of "40 greatest foreign films of all time". The film was voted at No. 57 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine "Cahiers du cinéma" in 2008. In 2009 the film was voted at No. 2 on the list of "The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time" by Japanese film magazine "Kinema Junpo". "Seven Samurai" was ranked number one on "Empire" magazine's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Film critic Roger Ebert added it to his list of Great Movies in 2001. Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker." It was also listed by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky as one of his top ten favorite films.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Kurosawa both directed and edited many of his films, including "Seven Samurai". In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed "Seven Samurai" as the 33rd best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its members. In 2018, it was voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's poll of 209 critics in 43 countries. In 2019, when "Time Out" polled film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors, "Seven Samurai" was voted the second best action film of all time. In 2021 the film was ranked at number 7 on "Time Out" magazine's list of "The 100 Best Movies of All Time".


title: Seven Samurai

text: As of 2017, "Seven Samurai" is the best-selling home video title ever released by the British Film Institute.


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Seven Samurai" was a technical and creative watershed that became Japan's highest-grossing movie and set a new standard for the industry. It has remained highly influential, often seen as one of the most "remade, reworked, referenced" films in cinema.


title: Seven Samurai

text: There have been pachinko machines based on "Seven Samurai" in Japan. "Seven Samurai" pachinko machines have sold 94,000 units in Japan , equivalent to an estimated in gross revenue.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Its influence can be most strongly felt in the Western "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), a film specifically adapted from "Seven Samurai". Director John Sturges took "Seven Samurai" and adapted it to the Old West, with the samurai replaced by gunslingers. Many of "The Magnificent Seven"s scenes mirror those of "Seven Samurai". The film's title itself comes from the US localized title of "Seven Samurai", which was initially released under the title "The Magnificent Seven" in the United States in 1955. However, in an interview with R. B. Gadi, Kurosawa expressed how "the American copy of "The Magnificent Seven" is a disappointment, although entertaining. It is not a version of "Seven Samurai"". Stephen Prince argues that considering samurai films and Westerns respond to different cultures and contexts, what Kurosawa found useful was not their content but rather he was inspired by their levels of syntactic movement, framing, form and grammar.


title: Seven Samurai

text: "The Invincible Six" (1970), an American action film directed by Jean Negulesco, has been described as "a knockoff of the "Seven Samurai"/"Magnificent Seven" genre set in 1960s Iran."


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980) is an American science fiction film directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and produced by Roger Corman. The film, intended as a ""Magnificent Seven" in outer space", is based on the plots of "The Magnificent Seven" and "Seven Samurai". The movie acknowledges its debt to "Seven Samurai" by calling the protagonist's homeworld "Akir" and its inhabitants the "Akira".


title: Seven Samurai

text: The plot of "Seven Samurai" was re-worked for "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" (1983), an Italian sword-and-sandal film.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Several elements from "The Seven Samurai" are also argued to have been adapted for "Star Wars" (1977). Plot elements of "Seven Samurai" are also used in the "Star Wars" Anthology film "Rogue One" (2016). The "" episode "Bounty Hunters" (2008) pays direct homage to Akira Kurosawa by adapting the film's plot, as does "" episode "" (2019).


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Seven Swords" (2005), a Hong Kong "wuxia" film produced and directed by Tsui Hark, has a plot revolving around seven warriors helping villagers to defend against mercenaries in homage to "Seven Samurai".


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Seven Samurai" is largely touted as what made the "assembling the team" trope popular in movies and other media. This has since become a common trope in many action movies and heist films. "Seven Samurai" spawned its own subgenre of "men-on-a-mission" films, also known as the ""Seven Samurai" formula" where "a team of disparate characters are grouped to undertake a specific mission." The formula has been widely adopted by many films and other media. Along with remakes already listed above, other examples of the ""Seven Samurai" formula" can be seen in films such as "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), "Star Wars" (1977), "The Savage Seven" (1968), "The 13th Warrior" (1999), "The Expendables" and "". as well as television series such as "The A-Team" and "The Walking Dead".


title: Seven Samurai

text: According to Stephen Prince, the film's "racing, powerful narrative engine, breathtaking pacing, and sense-assaulting visual style" (what he calls a "kinesthetic cinema" approach to "action filmmaking and exciting visual design") was "the clearest precursor" and became "the model for" the Hollywood blockbuster "brand of moviemaking" that emerged in the 1970s. The visuals, plot, dialogue and film techniques of "Seven Samurai" inspired a wide range of filmmakers, ranging from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. According to Prince, Kurosawa was "a mentor figure" to an emerging generation of American filmmakers, such as Spielberg and Lucas, who went on to develop the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s.


title: Seven Samurai

text: Elements from "Seven Samurai" have been borrowed by many films. Examples include plot elements in films such as "Three Amigos" (1986) by John Landis, borrowed scenes in George Miller's "" (2015), and various elements (including visual elements and the way the action, suspense and movement are presented) in the large-scale battle scenes of films such as "" (2002), "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003) and numerous Marvel Studios films. The opening action scene (where the hero is introduced in an action scenario unrelated to the rest of the plot) later seen in many action films (such as the "James Bond" films) has origins in "Seven Samurai", with its opening action scene where Kambei poses as a monk to save a boy from a kidnapper. A visual element from "Seven Samurai" that has inspired a number of films is the use of rain to set the tone for action scenes; examples of this include "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", and "The Matrix Revolutions". "Seven Samurai"'s film editing technique of cutting on motion and the mentor-student dynamics in the plot (also seen in other Kurosawa films) have also been widely adopted by Hollywood blockbusters (such as Marvel films).


title: Seven Samurai

text: "Sholay" (1975), a "Curry Western" Indian film written by Salim–Javed (Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar) and directed by Ramesh Sippy, has a plot that was loosely styled after "Seven Samurai". "Sholay" became the most commercially successful Indian film and revolutionized Bollywood. Later Indian films inspired by "Seven Samurai" include Mani Ratnam's "Thalapathi" (1991) and the Bollywood film "China Gate" (1998).


title: Seven Samurai

text: Director Zack Snyder said, "Bruce [Wayne] is having to go out and sort of ‘Seven Samurai' the Justice League together” in the 2017 film "Justice League". According to Bryan Young of "Syfy Wire", the Marvel Cinematic Universe films "The Avengers" (2012) and "" (2018) also owe "a great debt to" "Seven Samurai", noting a number of similar plot and visual elements. Other examples of films that reference "Seven Samurai" include the Australian science fiction film "" (1981), the American comedy film "Galaxy Quest" (1999), and the 2016 remake of "The Magnificent Seven".


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Isabelle Yasmina Adjani ; born 27 June 1955) is a French actress and singer of Algerian and German descent. She is the only performer in history to win five César Awards for acting; she won the Best Actress award for "Possession" (1981), "One Deadly Summer" (1983), "Camille Claudel" (1988), "La Reine Margot" (1994) and "Skirt Day" (2009). She was made a Knight of France's Legion of Honour in 2010 and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2014.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Her performance as Adèle Hugo in the 1975 film "The Story of Adèle H." earned then 20-year-old Adjani her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, making her the youngest nominee in the Best Actress category at the time. Her second nomination—for "Camille Claudel"–made her the first French actress to receive two nominations for foreign-language films. She won the Best Actress award at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival for her performances in "Possession" and "Quartet", and, later, she won the Best Actress award at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival for "Camille Claudel". Her other notable film performances include "The Tenant" (1976), "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979), "Subway" (1985), "Diabolique" (1996) and "French Women" (2014).


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Isabelle Yasmina Adjani was born on 27 June 1955 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, to Mohammed Cherif Adjani, an Algerian Kabyle from Constantine, and Emma Augusta "Gusti" Schweinberger, a German Catholic from Bavaria.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Adjani's parents met near the end of World War II, when her father was in the French Army. They married and her mother returned with him to Paris, despite not speaking a word of French. She asked him to take Cherif as his first name as she thought it sounded more "American".


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Isabelle grew up bilingual, speaking French and German fluently, in Gennevilliers, a northwestern suburb of Paris, where her father worked in a garage. After winning a school recitation contest, Adjani began acting by the age of 12 in amateur theater. She successfully passed her baccalauréat and was auditing classes at the University of Vincennes in 1976.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: At the age of 14, Adjani starred in her first motion picture, "Le Petit Bougnat" (1970). She first gained fame as a classical actress at the Comédie-Française, which she joined in 1972. She was praised for her interpretation of Agnès, the main female role in Molière's "L'École des femmes." She soon left the theatre to pursue a film career.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: After minor roles in several films, she enjoyed modest success in the 1974 film "La Gifle" ("The Slap"), which François Truffaut saw. He immediately cast her in her first major role in his "The Story of Adèle H." (1975) which he had finished writing five years prior. Critics praised her performance, with the American critic Pauline Kael describing her acting talents as "prodigious".


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Only 19 when she made the film, Adjani was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, becoming the youngest Best Actress nominee at the time (a record she held for almost 30 years). She quickly received offers for roles in Hollywood films, such as Walter Hill's 1978 crime thriller "The Driver". She had previously turned down the chance to star in films like "The Other Side of Midnight." She had described Hollywood as a "city of fiction" and said, "I'm not an American. I didn't grow up with that will to win an award." Truffaut on the other hand said, "France is too small for her. I think Isabelle is made for American cinema." She agreed to make "The Driver" because she was an admirer of Hill's first film "Hard Times". Adjani said:


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: I think he is wonderful, very much in the tradition of Howard Hawks, lean and spare. The story is contemporary but also very stylized, and the roles that Ryan and I play are like Bogart and Bacall. We are both gamblers in our souls and we do not show our emotions or say a lot. For us, talk is cheap. I am really quite a mysterious girl in this film, with no name and no background. And I must say that it is restful not to have a life behind me; this way, I don't have to dig deep to play the part. All I know is that life for me is gambling and I am a loser. I have what people call a poker face.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: The film was seen more than 1.1 million times in Adjani's native France but did not do as well in the US.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: She played Lucy in the German director Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of "" which was well-received critically and performed well at box offices in Europe. Roger Ebert loved the film, calling Herzog's casting of Adjani one of his "masterstrokes" in the film. He wrote that she "is used here not only for her facial perfection but for her curious quality of seeming to exist on an ethereal plane." The cast and the crew filmed both English- and German-language versions simultaneously upon request of 20th Century Fox, the American distributor, as Kinski and Ganz could act more confidently in their native language.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In 1981, she received a double Cannes Film Festival's Best Actress award for her roles in the Merchant Ivory film "Quartet," based on the novel by Jean Rhys, and in the horror film "Possession" (1981). The following year, she received her first César Award for "Possession", in which she had portrayed a woman having a nervous breakdown. In 1983, she won her second César for her depiction of a vengeful woman in the French blockbuster "One Deadly Summer". That same year, Adjani released the French pop album "Pull marine", written and produced by Serge Gainsbourg. She starred in a music video for the hit title song, "Pull Marine", which was directed by Luc Besson.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In 1988, she co-produced and starred in a biopic of the sculptor "Camille Claudel". She received her third César and second Oscar nomination for her role in the film, becoming the first French actress to receive two Oscar nominations. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: She received her fourth César for the 1994 film "Queen Margot", an ensemble epic directed by Patrice Chéreau. She received her fifth César for "Skirt Day" (2009), the most that any actress has received. The film features her as a middle school teacher in a troubled French suburb who takes her class hostage when she accidentally fires off a gun she found on one of her students. It was premiered on the French Arte channel on 20 March 2009, attaining a record 2.2 million viewers) and then in movie theaters on 25 March 2009. The film was her return to the cinema after eight years of absence. In 2010, she made an appearance in the social comedy Mammuth, from directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern, and in which she played the phantom of Gérard Depardieu's first love. The same year, she lent her voice to the character of Mother Gothel in the animated film Rapunzel. In 2011, she co-starred in De Force, the first film directed by Frank Henry. She embodied the commander Clara Damico, head of the brigade for the repression of banditry.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In 1979, Adjani had a son, Barnabé Saïd-Nuytten, with the cinematographer Bruno Nuytten, whom she later hired to direct her project "Camille Claudel," a biopic of the sculptor who was the lover of Rodin.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: From 1989 to 1995, she had a relationship with Daniel Day-Lewis, which ended before the birth of their son, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, in 1995.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: Adjani has been vocal against anti-immigrant and anti-Algerian sentiment in France. In 2009, she criticized statements by Pope Benedict XVI, who claimed that condoms are not an effective method of AIDS prevention.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In September 2009, she signed a petition in support of Roman Polanski, calling for his release after he was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In 2017, Adjani was interviewed by on the French public radio station France Inter. During the interview, she expressed her vaccine hesitancy and opposition to mandatory vaccination.


title: Isabelle Adjani

text: In addition to specific awards for particular films, Adjani was made a Knight of France's Legion of Honour on 14 July 2010 for her contributions to the arts.


title: Christian Brando

text: Christian Devi Brando (May 11, 1958 – January 26, 2008) was an American actor who was one of the eleven children of actor Marlon Brando, and the only one Brando had with his first wife, former actress Anna Kashfi.


title: Christian Brando

text: On May 16, 1990, Brando fatally shot Dag Drollet, the boyfriend of his half-sister Cheyenne, at his father's residence on Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. The family drama and trial were heavily publicized that year. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to prison in 1991. He was released in 1996. In 2004, information introduced at the trial of Robert Blake for the 2001 murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, exposed Brando's relationship with Bakley and his possible involvement in her murder. In 2005, Brando pleaded no contest to spousal abuse of his then-wife Deborah and was given probation. He died of pneumonia on January 26, 2008, aged 49.


title: Christian Brando

text: Christian Brando was named after his father's longtime friend French film director Christian Marquand who later directed Marlon in the film "Candy (1968)". Christian was born in Los Angeles on May 11, 1958, the product of an affair between Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi, an actress born to a British family in colonial India. Marlon and Kashfi met in 1955, and Kashfi became pregnant in 1957. They married in 1958 and divorced one year later.


title: Christian Brando

text: Christian was shuttled between his mother and father. His parents became increasingly hostile and abusive toward each other, and engaged in a protracted custody battle. The 12-year custody battle and his mother's uncontrollable temper due to her abuse of drugs and alcohol had a major effect on young Christian. Marlon eventually won custody of Christian, who was then 13 years old. At that time, Marlon had described his son as a "basket case of emotional disorder".


title: Christian Brando

text: Marlon was a distant father and spent little time with young Christian, who was raised by nannies and servants. Christian moved between Hollywood and Tetiaroa, his father's private island near Tahiti. Marlon continued to have relationships with multiple women by whom he fathered numerous children. Years later, while commenting on his childhood, Christian said, "The family kept changing shape, I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, 'Who are you?'"


title: Christian Brando

text: In 1972, while his father was abroad in France filming "Last Tango in Paris", Christian was kidnapped by his mother, who took him from school, then brought him to a gang of hippie friends in Baja California, Mexico. Apparently, she had promised them $10,000 if they would hide Christian away. When she refused to pay, they took and hid the boy; a posse of private detectives hired by Marlon, from an agency named "The Investigators", led by private investigator Jay J. Armes, rescued him late one night. He was found living in a tent and ill with bronchial pneumonia. His mother was arrested near the Mexican border after being pulled over for drunk driving and disorderly behavior. Back in court his father was awarded sole custody.


title: Christian Brando

text: During his teen years, he dropped out of high school and began drinking and using LSD. He was an occasional actor but was not interested in being in the spotlight. He ran away from home to Washington state to move in with family friends, something that his father later approved and supported him in. His father would visit him there and later purchased a remote cabin for him where he practised artistic welding at the age of 22. He would divide his time between there and his father's Hollywood Hills residence.


title: Christian Brando

text: As a child, Christian had two small roles in movies: in "The Secret Life of an American Wife" and "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!", both released in 1968. He appeared in four other films and four made-for-TV productions, sometimes using the alias "Gary Brown", between 1980 and 1990. He played a killer in the "Sacra Corona Unita" (the Quarter Italian Mafia) in the film "La Posta in gioco" ("The Prize at Stake"), filmed in Southern Italy in 1987.


title: Christian Brando

text: On May 16, 1990, Brando fatally shot Dag Drollet, the boyfriend of his half-sister Cheyenne in the living room of his father's house in Beverly Hills, California. Drollet was in a four-year relationship with Cheyenne, who was 8 months pregnant by Drollet at the time.


title: Christian Brando

text: A few days before the incident, Drollet had flown in from Tahiti to Los Angeles to visit Cheyenne. Cheyenne was visiting her father along with her mother, and both were staying at Marlon Brando's residence. Marlon Brando had known the Drollet family for years; however, Christian Brando met Dag Drollet for the first time several hours before he shot him to death.


title: Christian Brando

text: On the evening of the killing, Brando and Cheyenne had dinner at Musso & Frank Grill, where Cheyenne told Brando that Drollet had been physically abusive toward her. Christian Brando said to a reporter from the "Los Angeles Times", "She went off on this bizarre tangent."


title: Christian Brando

text: Later, around 11 p.m. that night, Brando, who admitted to being drunk at the time, confronted Drollet at the Brando home and shot him. Brando claimed that he did not intend to kill Drollet. "I just wanted to scare him", he said. Cheyenne was staying in a separate room. Christian Brando claimed that he and Drollet were fighting over the gun when it accidentally went off. In an interview with "The Times", Brando said that later revelations about Cheyenne's mental health had made him question whether she was ever beaten by Drollet. "I feel like a complete chump for believing her", he said.


title: Christian Brando

text: Robert Shapiro was one of Christian Brando's lawyers. Brando was initially charged with murder; however, prosecutors were unable to proceed with a murder charge because of the absence of Cheyenne, who was a crucial witness to their case. Marlon Brando had Cheyenne admitted into a psychiatric hospital in Tahiti. After several attempts to get her to return to California, a judge eventually quashed all efforts by the prosecution. Without Cheyenne's testimony, prosecutors felt they could no longer prove that Drollet's death was premeditated; therefore, Christian was not charged with first-degree murder and was presented with a plea deal. When his father pleaded for a reduced sentence for his son, he took the stand in the Santa Monica courthouse and said, "I think that perhaps I failed as a father." After heavily publicized pre-trial proceedings, Brando pleaded guilty to manslaughter and spent five years in prison.


title: Christian Brando

text: Cheyenne attempted suicide twice during the trial. Then, in 1995, a year before Christian was released from prison, she committed suicide by hanging herself at her mother's house in Tahiti at the age of 25 after losing custody of her son.


title: Christian Brando

text: Conditional on his release, he was accepted and enrolled in the state community college system in southern New Hampshire. After a year in the program, he moved to Washington state for a few years while working as a tree cutter and artistic welder.


title: Christian Brando

text: Robert Blake and his defense attorneys claimed that Christian Brando was involved in the 2001 murder of Blake's 44-year-old wife Bonny Lee Bakley. Robert Blake was ultimately charged with his wife's murder and although acquitted in the criminal trial, he was found liable for her death in the civil case.


title: Christian Brando

text: Testimony introduced during the criminal pre-trial hearings and the subsequent civil trial attempted to implicate Christian in the murder, suggesting that he had the same motive as Blake to have Bonny Lee Bakley killed. Bakley had become pregnant and claimed to both Brando and Blake that they were the father. A DNA test subsequently determined that Robert Blake, not Christian Brando, was the biological father.


title: Christian Brando

text: According to trial testimony, just days before her death Bakley continued to claim Brando was the father of her child. Dianne Mattson testified in court that Brando became enraged, and at one point stated "somebody should put a bullet in that bitch's head". In a tape-recorded conversation between Brando and Bakley, Brando stated, "You're lucky. You know, I mean, not on my behalf, but you're lucky someone ain't out there to put a bullet in your head."


title: Christian Brando

text: According to pre-trial testimony and corroboration, Christian Brando was in Washington state on the night of Bakley's death. Other pre-trial testimony alleged that associates of Brando were involved in the murder. One of those allegedly involved was the prosecution star witness: Duffy Hambleton, a stunt man. Hambleton claimed that Blake tried to hire him to kill Bakley. Hambleton claimed he refused the offer. Blake, however, testified that he hired Hambleton for personal security to protect himself and Bakley from a stalker. Criminal pre-trial and civil trial testimony claimed that Hambleton was an associate of Christian Brando and that he arranged the murder of Bakley to curry favor with Brando. The judge in the criminal case prevented the defense from presenting that view during trial.


title: Christian Brando

text: Brando was called as a witness in Blake's civil trial but refused to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment constitutional rights. Brando's behavior in court got him a contempt of court charge and conviction.


title: Christian Brando

text: Brando's first marriage to make-up artist Mary McKenna ended without acrimony in 1987 after six years; they first met when both were ten years old. On October 16, 2004, in Las Vegas, after a five-year-long relationship, Brando wed Deborah Presley, an actress who had claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of Elvis Presley. The marriage lasted a short time and was annulled in June 2005 while both were residents of California. Brando pleaded no contest to charges of spousal abuse involving Deborah in January 2005. He was placed on probation and ordered to drug and alcohol rehabilitation.


title: Christian Brando

text: In December 2005, Deborah filed a lawsuit against Brando in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging spousal abuse involving an incident in Brando's home. Brando counterclaimed for "a savage beating" during the same incident claiming that she broke into his home and beat him because he wanted to annul their marriage only 10 weeks after exchanging vows. They stayed in contact while Christian was sent to a treatment center for his drug abuse/use. The case was not settled as Christian Brando died and his estate never settled with Deborah.


title: Christian Brando

text: Brando died of pneumonia on January 26, 2008, at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center at the age of 49. He had been admitted into Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center on January 11, 2008.


title: Amy Jackson

text: Amy Louise Jackson (born 31 January 1992) is a British actress and model known for her work in Indian films, predominantly in Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu languages. A former Miss Teen World, Jackson has appeared in over fifteen films. She made her US debut in 2017 with Warner Brothers television production of DC Comics Supergirl as Imra Ardeen/ Saturn Girl. Jackson's most notable roles include her debut into the industry as Amy Wilkinson in "Madrasapattinam" (2010), Sarah in action film "Singh Is Bliing" (2015), and Nila in India's most expensive film "2.0" (2018).


title: Amy Jackson

text: She has won an Ananda Vikatan Cinema Award, a SIIMA Award, and a London Asian Film Festival award. She was featured in "The Times of India"s "Most Desirable Women of 2014" as well as the "Most Promising Female Newcomers of 2012" list.


title: Amy Jackson

text: In 2009, Jackson won the Miss Teen World title in America. At the age of 15, she began her modeling career in the UK and has since worked with designers such as Hugo Boss, Carolina Herrera, JW Anderson, Bvlgari, and Cartier. In a twist of fate, Jackson was called to London to audition for the lead role in the Tamil-language period-drama "Madrasapattinam" (2010) directed by A. L. Vijay. Despite having had no previous acting experience, Jackson landed the role and thus began her career in India.


title: Amy Jackson

text: Jackson is a patron for charities such as "The Sneha Sargar Orphanage for girls". In 2018, she was honoured with the United Nations' International Day of The Girl Child award in London. Jackson is a proclaimed vegan animal rights advocate and has been an ambassador for PETA since 2016 as well as supporting The Elephant Family with their mission to aid human-animal conflict primarily in Asia.


title: Amy Jackson

text: Amy Louise Jackson was born on 31 January 1992 in Douglas on the Isle of Man, the daughter of Marguerita and Alan Jackson, who divorced several years after Amy Jackson was born. She has an elder sister, Alicia, who is a school teacher. When she was two years old, the family returned to Liverpool and lived with Jackson's grandmother in Woolton so that her father could continue his career with BBC Radio Merseyside. Jackson attended St Edward's College from the age of 3 - 16. She had the intention of taking her A–Levels in English literature, philosophy and ethics before she was cast in her first film.


title: Amy Jackson

text: After winning the Miss Teen Liverpool and Miss Teen Great Britain pageants, Jackson won the title of Miss Teen World in 2009, which resulted in a modelling contract in the US. In 2009, Jackson started her modelling career with the Northern-based modelling agency, Boss Model Management, and then went on to sign with her London agency, Models 1. She won Miss Liverpool in 2010. She competed for the Miss England title in 2010 and was crowned the runner-up to Jessica Linley.