title: Hathor

text: Hathor's sexual side was seen in some short stories. In a cryptic fragment of a Middle Kingdom story, known as "The Tale of the Herdsman", a herdsman encounters a hairy, animal-like goddess in a marsh and reacts with terror. On another day he encounters her as a nude, alluring woman. Most Egyptologists who study this story think this woman is Hathor or a goddess like her, one who can be wild and dangerous or benign and erotic. Thomas Schneider interprets the text as implying that between his two encounters with the goddess the herdsman has done something to pacify her. In "The Contendings of Horus and Set", a New Kingdom short story about the dispute between those two gods, Ra is upset after being insulted by another god, Babi, and lies on his back alone. After some time, Hathor exposes her genitals to Ra, making him laugh and get up again to perform his duties as ruler of the gods. Life and order were thought to be dependent on Ra's activity, and the story implies that Hathor averted the disastrous consequences of his idleness. Her act may have lifted Ra's spirits partly because it sexually aroused him, although why he laughed is not fully understood.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was praised for her beautiful hair. Egyptian literature contains allusions to a myth not clearly described in any surviving texts, in which Hathor lost a lock of hair that represented her sexual allure. One text compares this loss with Horus's loss of his divine Eye and Set's loss of his testicles during the struggle between the two gods, implying that the loss of Hathor's lock was as catastrophic for her as the maiming of Horus and Set was for them.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was called "mistress of love", as an extension of her sexual aspect. In the series of love poems from Papyrus Chester BeattyI, from the Twentieth Dynasty (c. 1189–1077 BC), men and women ask Hathor to bring their lovers to them: "I prayed to her [Hathor] and she heard my prayer. She destined my mistress [loved one] for me. And she came of her own free will to see me."


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was considered the mother of various child deities. As suggested by her name, she was often thought of as both Horus's mother and consort. As both the king's wife and his heir's mother, Hathor was the divine counterpart of human queens.


title: Hathor

text: Isis and Osiris were considered Horus's parents in the Osiris myth as far back as the late Old Kingdom, but the relationship between Horus and Hathor may be older still. If so, Horus only came to be linked with Isis and Osiris as the Osiris myth emerged during the Old Kingdom. Even after Isis was firmly established as Horus's mother, Hathor continued to appear in this role, especially when nursing the pharaoh. Images of the Hathor-cow with a child in a papyrus thicket represented his mythological upbringing in a secluded marsh. Goddesses' milk was a sign of divinity and royal status. Thus, images in which Hathor nurses the pharaoh represent his right to rule. Hathor's relationship with Horus gave a healing aspect to her character, as she was said to have restored Horus's missing eye or eyes after Set attacked him. In the version of this episode in "The Contendings of Horus and Set", Hathor finds Horus with his eyes torn out and heals the wounds with gazelle's milk.


title: Hathor

text: Beginning in the Late Period (664–323 BC), temples focused on the worship of a divine family: an adult male deity, his wife, and their immature son. Satellite buildings, known as mammisis, were built in celebration of the birth of the local child deity. The child god represented the cyclical renewal of the cosmos and an archetypal heir to the kingship. Hathor was the mother in many of these local triads of gods. At Dendera, the mature Horus of Edfu was the father and Hathor the mother, while their child was Ihy, a god whose name meant "sistrum-player" and who personified the jubilation associated with the instrument. At Kom Ombo, Hathor's local form, Tasenetnofret, was mother to Horus's son Panebtawy. Other children of Hathor included a minor deity from the town of Hu, named Neferhotep, and several child forms of Horus.


title: Hathor

text: The milky sap of the sycamore tree, which the Egyptians regarded as a symbol of life, became one of her symbols. The milk was equated with water of the Nile inundation and thus fertility. In the late Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, many temples contained a creation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation. The version from Hathor's temple at Dendera emphasizes that she, as a female solar deity, was the first being to emerge from the primordial waters that preceded creation, and her life-giving light and milk nourished all living things.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor's maternal aspects can be compared with those of Isis and Mut, yet there are many contrasts between them. Isis's devotion to her husband and care for their child represented a more socially acceptable form of love than Hathor's uninhibited sexuality, and Mut's character was more authoritative than sexual. The text of the first century AD Insinger Papyrus likens a faithful wife, the mistress of a household, to Mut, while comparing Hathor to a strange woman who tempts a married man.


title: Hathor

text: Like Meskhenet, another goddess who presided over birth, Hathor was connected with "shai", the Egyptian concept of fate, particularly when she took the form of the Seven Hathors. In two New Kingdom works of fiction, the "Tale of Two Brothers" and the "Tale of the Doomed Prince", the Hathors appear at the births of major characters and foretell the manner of their deaths. The Egyptians tended to think of fate as inexorable. Yet in "The Tale of the Doomed Prince", the prince who is its protagonist is able to escape one of the possible violent deaths that the Seven Hathors have foretold for him, and while the end of the story is missing, the surviving portions imply that the prince can escape his fate with the help of the gods.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was connected with trade and foreign lands, possibly because her role as a sky goddess linked her with stars and hence navigation, and because she was believed to protect ships on the Nile and in the seas beyond Egypt as she protected the barque of Ra in the sky. The mythological wandering of the Eye goddess in Nubia or Libya gave her a connection with those lands as well.


title: Hathor

text: Egypt maintained trade relations with the coastal cities of Syria and Canaan, particularly Byblos, placing Egyptian religion in contact with the religions of that region. At some point, perhaps as early as the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians began to refer to the patron goddess of Byblos, Baalat Gebal, as a local form of Hathor. So strong was Hathor's link to Byblos that texts from Dendera say she resided there. The Egyptians sometimes equated Anat, an aggressive Canaanite goddess who came to be worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom, with Hathor. Some Canaanite artworks depict a nude goddess with a curling wig taken from Hathor's iconography. Which goddess these images represent is not known, but the Egyptians adopted her iconography and came to regard her as an independent deity, Qetesh, whom they associated with Hathor.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was closely connected with the Sinai Peninsula, which was not considered part of Egypt proper but was the site of Egyptian mines for copper, turquoise, and malachite during the Middle and New Kingdoms. One of Hathor's epithets, "Lady of "Mefkat"", may have referred specifically to turquoise or to all blue-green minerals. She was also called "Lady of Faience", a blue-green ceramic that Egyptians likened to turquoise. Hathor was also worshipped at various quarries and mining sites in Egypt's Eastern Desert, such as the amethyst mines of Wadi el-Hudi, where she was sometimes called "Lady of Amethyst".


title: Hathor

text: South of Egypt, Hathor's influence was thought to have extended over the land of Punt, which lay along the Red Sea coast and was a major source for the incense with which Hathor was linked, as well as with Nubia, northwest of Punt. The autobiography of Harkhuf, an official in the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2345–2181 BC), describes his expedition to a land in or near Nubia, from which he brought back great quantities of ebony, panther skins, and incense for the king. The text describes these exotic goods as Hathor's gift to the pharaoh. Egyptian expeditions to mine gold in Nubia introduced her cult to the region during the Middle and New Kingdoms, and New Kingdom pharaohs built several temples to her in the portions of Nubia that they ruled.


title: Hathor

text: Although the Pyramid Texts, the earliest Egyptian funerary texts, rarely mention her, Hathor was invoked in private tomb inscriptions from the same era, and in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts and later sources, she is frequently linked with the afterlife.


title: Hathor

text: Just as she crossed the boundary between Egypt and foreign lands, Hathor passed through the boundary between the living and the Duat, the realm of the dead. She helped the spirits of deceased humans enter the Duat and was closely linked with tomb sites, where that transition began. The necropolises, or clusters of tombs, on the west bank of the Nile were personified as Imentet, the goddess of the west, who was frequently regarded as a manifestation of Hathor. The Theban necropolis, for example, was often portrayed as a stylized mountain with the cow of Hathor emerging from it. Her role as a sky goddess was also linked to the afterlife. Because the sky goddess—either Nut or Hathor—assisted Ra in his daily rebirth, she had an important part in ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs, according to which deceased humans were reborn like the sun god. Coffins, tombs, and the underworld itself were interpreted as the womb of this goddess, from which the deceased soul would be reborn.


title: Hathor

text: Nut, Hathor, and Imentet could each, in different texts, lead the deceased into a place where they would receive food and drink for eternal sustenance. Thus, Hathor, as Imentet, often appears on tombs, welcoming the deceased person as her child into a blissful afterlife. In New Kingdom funerary texts and artwork, the afterlife was often illustrated as a pleasant, fertile garden, over which Hathor sometimes presided. The welcoming afterlife goddess was often portrayed as a goddess in the form of a tree, giving water to the deceased. Nut most commonly filled this role, but the tree goddess was sometimes called Hathor instead.


title: Hathor

text: The afterlife also had a sexual aspect. In the Osiris myth, the murdered god Osiris was resurrected when he copulated with Isis and conceived Horus. In solar ideology, Ra's union with the sky goddess allowed his own rebirth. Sex therefore enabled the rebirth of the deceased, and goddesses like Isis and Hathor served to rouse the deceased to new life. But they merely stimulated the male deities' regenerative powers, rather than playing the central role.


title: Hathor

text: Ancient Egyptians prefixed the names of the deceased with Osiris's name to connect them with his resurrection. For example, a woman named Henutmehyt would be dubbed "Osiris-Henutmehyt". Over time they increasingly associated the deceased with both male and female divine powers. As early as the late Old Kingdom, women were sometimes said to join the worshippers of Hathor in the afterlife, just as men joined the following of Osiris. In the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC), Egyptians began to add Hathor's name to that of deceased women in place of that of Osiris. In some cases, women were called "Osiris-Hathor", indicating that they benefited from the revivifying power of both deities. In these late periods, Hathor was sometimes said to rule the afterlife as Osiris did.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was often depicted as a cow bearing the sun disk between her horns, especially when shown nursing the king. She could also appear as a woman with the head of a cow. Her most common form, however, was a woman wearing a headdress of the horns and sun disk, often with a red or turquoise sheath dress, or a dress combining both colors. Sometimes the horns stood atop a low modius or the vulture headdress that Egyptian queens often wore in the New Kingdom. Because Isis adopted the same headdress during the New Kingdom, the two goddesses can be distinguished only if labeled in writing. When in the role of Imentet, Hathor wore the emblem of the west upon her head instead of the horned headdress. The Seven Hathors were sometimes portrayed as a set of seven cows, accompanied by a minor sky and afterlife deity called the Bull of the West.


title: Hathor

text: Some animals other than cattle could represent Hathor. The uraeus was a common motif in Egyptian art and could represent a variety of goddesses who were identified with the Eye of Ra. When Hathor was depicted as a uraeus, it represented the ferocious and protective aspects of her character. She also appeared as a lioness, and this form had a similar meaning. In contrast, the domestic cat, which was sometimes connected with Hathor, often represented the Eye goddess's pacified form. When portrayed as a sycamore tree, Hathor was usually shown with the upper body of her human form emerging from the trunk.


title: Hathor

text: Like other goddesses, Hathor might carry a stalk of papyrus as a staff, though she could instead hold a "was" staff, a symbol of power that was usually restricted to male deities. The only goddesses who used the "was" were those, like Hathor, who were linked with the Eye of Ra. She also commonly carried a sistrum or a "menat" necklace. The sistrum came in two varieties: a simple loop shape or the more complex "naos" sistrum, which was shaped to resemble a "naos" shrine and flanked by volutes resembling the antennae of the Bat emblem. Mirrors were another of her symbols, because in Egypt they were often made of gold or bronze and therefore symbolized the sun disk, and because they were connected with beauty and femininity. Some mirror handles were made in the shape of Hathor's face. The "menat" necklace, made up of many strands of beads, was shaken in ceremonies in Hathor's honor, similarly to the sistrum. Images of it were sometimes seen as personifications of Hathor herself.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was sometimes represented as a human face with bovine ears, seen from the front rather than in the profile-based perspective that was typical of Egyptian art. When she appears in this form, the tresses on either side of her face often curl into loops. This mask-like face was placed on the capitals of columns beginning in the late Old Kingdom. Columns of this style were used in many temples to Hathor and other goddesses. These columns have two or four faces, which may represent the duality between different aspects of the goddess or the watchfulness of Hathor of the Four Faces. The designs of Hathoric columns have a complex relationship with those of sistra. Both styles of sistrum can bear the Hathor mask on the handle, and Hathoric columns often incorporate the "naos" sistrum shape above the goddess's head.


title: Hathor

text: During the Early Dynastic Period, Neith was the preeminent goddess at the royal court, while in the Fourth Dynasty, Hathor became the goddess most closely linked with the king. The later dynasty's founder, Sneferu, may have built a temple to her, and a daughter of Djedefra was the first recorded priestess of Hathor. Old Kingdom rulers donated resources only to temples dedicated to particular kings or to deities closely connected with kingship. Hathor was one of the few deities to receive such donations. Late Old Kingdom rulers especially promoted the cult of Hathor in the provinces, as a way of binding those regions to the royal court. She may have absorbed the traits of contemporary provincial goddesses.


title: Hathor

text: Many female royals, though not reigning queens, held positions in the cult during the Old Kingdom. Mentuhotep II, who became the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom despite having no relation to the Old Kingdom rulers, sought to legitimize his rule by portraying himself as Hathor's son. The first images of the Hathor-cow suckling the king date to his reign, and several priestesses of Hathor were depicted as though they were his wives, although he may not have actually married them. In the course of the Middle Kingdom, queens were increasingly seen as directly embodying the goddess, just as the king embodied Ra. The emphasis on the queen as Hathor continued through the New Kingdom. Queens were portrayed with the headdress of Hathor beginning in the late Eighteenth Dynasty. An image of the sed festival of Amenhotep III, meant to celebrate and renew his rule, shows the king together with Hathor and his queen Tiye, which could mean that the king symbolically married the goddess in the course of the festival.


title: Hathor

text: Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled as a pharaoh in the early New Kingdom, emphasized her relationship to Hathor in a different way. She used names and titles that linked her to a variety of goddesses, including Hathor, so as to legitimize her rule in what was normally a male position. She built several temples to Hathor and placed her own mortuary temple, which incorporated a chapel dedicated to the goddess, at Deir el-Bahari, which had been a cult site of Hathor since the Middle Kingdom.


title: Hathor

text: The preeminence of Amun during the New Kingdom gave greater visibility to his consort Mut, and in the course of the period, Isis began appearing in roles that traditionally belonged to Hathor alone, such as that of the goddess in the solar barque. Despite the growing prominence of these deities, Hathor remained important, particularly in relation to fertility, sexuality, and queenship, throughout the New Kingdom.


title: Hathor

text: After the New Kingdom, Isis increasingly overshadowed Hathor and other goddesses as she took on their characteristics. In the Ptolemaic period (305–30 BC), when Greeks governed Egypt and their religion developed a complex relationship with that of Egypt, the Ptolemaic dynasty adopted and modified the Egyptian ideology of kingship. Beginning with Arsinoe II, wife of Ptolemy II, the Ptolemies closely linked their queens with Isis and with several Greek goddesses, particularly their own goddess of love and sexuality, Aphrodite. Nevertheless, when the Greeks referred to Egyptian gods by the names of their own gods (a practice called "interpretatio graeca"), they sometimes called Hathor Aphrodite. Traits of Isis, Hathor, and Aphrodite were all combined to justify the treatment of Ptolemaic queens as goddesses. Thus, the poet Callimachus alluded to the myth of Hathor's lost lock of hair in the "Aetia" when praising Berenice II for sacrificing her own hair to Aphrodite, and iconographic traits that Isis and Hathor shared, such as the bovine horns and vulture headdress, appeared on images portraying Ptolemaic queens as Aphrodite.


title: Hathor

text: More temples were dedicated to Hathor than to any other Egyptian goddess. During the Old Kingdom her most important center of worship was in the region of Memphis, where "Hathor of the Sycamore" was worshipped at many sites throughout the Memphite Necropolis. During the New Kingdom era, the temple of Hathor of the Southern Sycamore was her main temple in Memphis. At that site she was described as the daughter of the city's main deity, Ptah. The cult of Ra and Atum at Heliopolis, northeast of Memphis, included a temple to Hathor-Nebethetepet that was probably built in the Middle Kingdom. A willow and a sycamore tree stood near the sanctuary and may have been worshipped as manifestations of the goddess. A few cities farther north in the Nile Delta, such as Yamu and Terenuthis, also had temples to her.


title: Hathor

text: Dendera, Hathor's oldest temple in Upper Egypt, dates to at least to the Fourth Dynasty. After the end of the Old Kingdom it surpassed her Memphite temples in importance. Many kings made additions to the temple complex through Egyptian history. The last version of the temple was built in the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods and is today one of the best-preserved Egyptian temples from that time.


title: Hathor

text: As the rulers of the Old Kingdom made an effort to develop towns in Upper and Middle Egypt, several cult centers of Hathor were founded across the region, at sites such as Cusae, Akhmim, and Naga ed-Der. In the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BC) her cult statue from Dendera was periodically carried to the Theban necropolis. During the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, MentuhotepII established a permanent cult center for her in the necropolis at Deir el-Bahari. The nearby village of Deir el-Medina, home to the tomb workers of the necropolis during the New Kingdom, also contained temples of Hathor. One continued to function and was periodically rebuilt as late as the Ptolemaic Period, centuries after the village was abandoned.


title: Hathor

text: In the Old Kingdom, most priests of Hathor, including the highest ranks, were women. Many of these women were members of the royal family. In the course of the Middle Kingdom, women were increasingly excluded from the highest priestly positions, at the same time that queens were becoming more closely tied to Hathor's cult. Thus, non-royal women disappeared from the high ranks of Hathor's priesthood, although women continued to serve as musicians and singers in temple cults across Egypt.


title: Hathor

text: The most frequent temple rite for any deity was the daily offering ritual, in which the cult image, or statue, of a deity would be clothed and given food. The daily ritual was largely the same in every Egyptian temple, although the goods given as offerings could vary according to which deity received them. Wine and beer were common offerings in all temples, but especially in rituals in Hathor's honor, and she and the goddesses related to her often received sistra and "menat" necklaces. In Late and Ptolemaic times, they were also offered a pair of mirrors, representing the sun and the moon.


title: Hathor

text: Many of Hathor's annual festivals were celebrated with drinking and dancing that served a ritual purpose. Revelers at these festivals may have aimed to reach a state of religious ecstasy, which was otherwise rare or nonexistent in ancient Egyptian religion. Graves-Brown suggests that celebrants in Hathor's festivals aimed to reach an altered state of consciousness to allow them interact with the divine realm. An example is the Festival of Drunkenness, commemorating the return of the Eye of Ra, which was celebrated on the twentieth day of the month of Thout at temples to Hathor and to other Eye goddesses. It was celebrated as early as the Middle Kingdom, but it is best known from Ptolemaic and Roman times. The dancing, eating and drinking that took place during the Festival of Drunkenness represented the opposite of the sorrow, hunger, and thirst that the Egyptians associated with death. Whereas the rampages of the Eye of Ra brought death to humans, the Festival of Drunkenness celebrated life, abundance, and joy.


title: Hathor

text: In a local Theban festival known as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, which began to be celebrated in the Middle Kingdom, the cult image of Amun from the Temple of Karnak visited the temples in the Theban Necropolis while members of the community went to the tombs of their deceased relatives to drink, eat, and celebrate. Hathor was not involved in this festival until the early New Kingdom, after which Amun's overnight stay in the temples at Deir el-Bahari came to be seen as his sexual union with her.


title: Hathor

text: Several temples in Ptolemaic times, including that of Dendera, observed the Egyptian new year with a series of ceremonies in which images of the temple deity were supposed to be revitalized by contact with the sun god. On the days leading up to the new year, Dendera's statue of Hathor was taken to the "wabet", a specialized room in the temple, and placed under a ceiling decorated with images of the sky and sun. On the first day of the new year, the first day of the month of Thoth, the Hathor image was carried up to the roof to be bathed in genuine sunlight.


title: Hathor

text: The best-documented festival focused on Hathor is another Ptolemaic celebration, the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion. It took place over fourteen days in the month of Epiphi. Hathor's cult image from Dendera was carried by boat to several temple sites to visit the gods of those temples. The endpoint of the journey was the Temple of Horus at Edfu, where the Hathor statue from Dendera met that of Horus of Edfu and the two were placed together. On one day of the festival, these images were carried out to a shrine where primordial deities such as the sun god and the Ennead were said to be buried. The texts say the divine couple performed offering rites for these entombed gods. Many Egyptologists regard this festival as a ritual marriage between Horus and Hathor, although Martin Stadler challenges this view, arguing that it instead represented the rejuvenation of the buried creator gods. C. J. Bleeker thought the Beautiful Reunion was another celebration of the return of the Distant Goddess, citing allusions in the temple's festival texts to the myth of the solar eye. Barbara Richter argues that the festival represented all three things at once. She points out that the birth of Horus and Hathor's son Ihy was celebrated at Dendera nine months after the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion, implying that Hathor's visit to Horus represented Ihy's conception.


title: Hathor

text: The third month of the Egyptian calendar, Hathor or Athyr, was named for the goddess. Festivities in her honor took place throughout the month, although they are not recorded in the texts from Dendera.


title: Hathor

text: Egyptian kings as early as the Old Kingdom donated goods to the temple of Baalat Gebal in Byblos, using the syncretism of Baalat with Hathor to cement their close trading relationship with Byblos. A temple to Hathor as Lady of Byblos was built during the reign of Thutmose III, although it may simply have been a shrine within the temple of Baalat. After the breakdown of the New Kingdom, Hathor's prominence in Byblos diminished along with Egypt's trade links to the city. A few artifacts from the early first millennium BC suggest that the Egyptians began equating Baalat with Isis at that time. A myth about Isis's presence in Byblos, related by the Greek author Plutarch in his work "On Isis and Osiris" in the 2nd century AD, suggests that by his time Isis had entirely supplanted Hathor in the city.


title: Hathor

text: A pendant found in a Mycenaean tomb at Pylos, from the 16th century BC, bears Hathor's face. Its presence in the tomb suggests the Mycenaeans may have known that the Egyptians connected Hathor with the afterlife.


title: Hathor

text: Egyptians in the Sinai built a few temples in the region. The largest was a complex dedicated primarily to Hathor as patroness of mining at Serabit el-Khadim, on the west side of the peninsula. It was occupied from the middle of the Middle Kingdom to near the end of the New. The Timna Valley, on the fringes of the Egyptian empire on the east side of the peninsula, was the site of seasonal mining expeditions during the New Kingdom. It included a shrine to Hathor that was probably deserted during the off-season. The local Midianites, whom the Egyptians used as part of the mining workforce, may have given offerings to Hathor as their overseers did. After the Egyptians abandoned the site in the Twentieth Dynasty, however, the Midianites converted the shrine to a tent shrine devoted to their own deities.


title: Hathor

text: In contrast, the Nubians in the south fully incorporated Hathor into their religion. During the New Kingdom, when most of Nubia was under Egyptian control, pharaohs dedicated several temples in Nubia to Hathor, such as those at Faras and Mirgissa. AmenhotepIII and Ramesses II both built temples in Nubia that celebrated their respective queens as manifestations of female deities, including Hathor: Amenhotep's wife Tiye at Sedeinga and Ramesses's wife Nefertari at the Small Temple of Abu Simbel. The independent Kingdom of Kush, which emerged in Nubia after the collapse of the New Kingdom, based its beliefs about Kushite kings on the royal ideology of Egypt. Therefore, Hathor, Isis, Mut, and Nut were all seen as the mythological mother of each Kushite king and equated with his female relatives, such as the "kandake", the Kushite queen or queen mother, who had prominent roles in Kushite religion. At Jebel Barkal, a site sacred to Amun, the Kushite king Taharqa built a pair of temples, one dedicated to Hathor and one to Mut as consorts of Amun, replacing New Kingdom Egyptian temples that may have been dedicated to these same goddesses. But Isis was the most prominent of the Egyptian goddesses worshipped in Nubia, and her status there increased over time. Thus, in the Meroitic period of Nubian history (c. 300 BCAD 400), Hathor appeared in temples mainly as a companion to Isis.


title: Hathor

text: In addition to formal and public rituals at temples, Egyptians privately worshipped deities for personal reasons, including at their homes. Birth was hazardous for both mother and child in ancient Egypt, yet children were much desired. Thus fertility and safe childbirth are among the most prominent concerns in popular religion, and fertility deities such as Hathor and Taweret were commonly worshipped in household shrines. Egyptian women squatted on bricks while giving birth, and the only known surviving birth brick from ancient Egypt is decorated with an image of a woman holding her child flanked by images of Hathor. In Roman times, terracotta figurines, sometimes found in a domestic context, depicted a woman with an elaborate headdress exposing her genitals, as Hathor did to cheer up Ra. The meaning of these figurines is not known, but they are often thought to represent Hathor or Isis combined with Aphrodite making a gesture that represented fertility or protection against evil.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was one of a handful of deities, including Amun, Ptah, and Thoth, who were commonly prayed to for help with personal problems. Many Egyptians left offerings at temples or small shrines dedicated to the gods they prayed to. Most offerings to Hathor were used for their symbolism, not for their intrinsic value. Cloths painted with images of Hathor were common, as were plaques and figurines depicting her animal forms. Different types of offerings may have symbolized different goals on the part of the donor, but their meaning is usually unknown. Images of Hathor alluded to her mythical roles, like depictions of the maternal cow in the marsh. Offerings of sistra may have been meant to appease the goddess's dangerous aspects and bring out her positive ones, while phalli represented a prayer for fertility, as shown by an inscription found on one example.


title: Hathor

text: Some Egyptians also left written prayers to Hathor, inscribed on stelae or written as graffiti. Prayers to some deities, such as Amun, show that they were thought to punish wrongdoers and heal people who repented for their misbehavior. In contrast, prayers to Hathor mention only the benefits she could grant, such as abundant food during life and a well-provisioned burial after death.


title: Hathor

text: As an afterlife deity, Hathor appeared frequently in funerary texts and art. In the early New Kingdom, for instance, she was one of the three deities most commonly found in royal tomb decoration, the others being Osiris and Anubis. In that period she often appeared as the goddess welcoming the dead into the afterlife. Other images referred to her more obliquely. Reliefs in Old Kingdom tombs show men and women performing a ritual called "shaking the papyrus". The significance of this rite is not known, but inscriptions sometimes say it was performed "for Hathor", and shaking papyrus stalks produces a rustling sound that may have been likened to the rattling of a sistrum. Other Hathoric imagery in tombs included the cow emerging from the mountain of the necropolis and the seated figure of the goddess presiding over a garden in the afterlife. Images of Nut were often painted or incised inside coffins, indicating the coffin was her womb, from which the occupant would be reborn in the afterlife. In the Third Intermediate Period, Hathor began to be placed on the floor of the coffin, with Nut on the interior of the lid.


title: Hathor

text: Tomb art from the Eighteenth Dynasty often shows people drinking, dancing, and playing music, as well as holding "menat" necklaces and sistra—all imagery that alluded to Hathor. These images may represent private feasts that were celebrated in front of tombs to commemorate the people buried there, or they may show gatherings at temple festivals such as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley. Festivals were thought to allow contact between the human and divine realms, and by extension, between the living and the dead. Thus, texts from tombs often expressed a wish that the deceased would be able to participate in festivals, primarily those dedicated to Osiris. Tombs' festival imagery, however, may refer to festivals involving Hathor, such as the Festival of Drunkenness, or to the private feasts, which were also closely connected with her. Drinking and dancing at these feasts may have been meant to intoxicate the celebrants, as at the Festival of Drunkenness, allowing them to commune with the spirits of the deceased.


title: Hathor

text: Hathor was said to supply offerings to deceased people as early as the Old Kingdom, and spells to enable both men and women to join her retinue in the afterlife appeared as early as the Coffin Texts. Some burial goods that portray deceased women as goddesses may depict these women as followers of Hathor, although whether the imagery refers to Hathor or Isis is not known. The link between Hathor and deceased women was maintained into the Roman Period, the last stage of ancient Egyptian religion before its extinction.


title: LTE frequency bands

text: Long-Term Evolution (LTE) telecommunications networks use several frequency bands with associated bandwidths.


title: LTE frequency bands

text: From Tables 5.5-1 "E-UTRA Operating Bands" and 5.6.1-1 "E-UTRA Channel Bandwidth" of the latest published version of the 3GPP TS 36.101, the following table lists the specified frequency bands of LTE and the channel bandwidths each band supports.


title: LTE frequency bands

text: These bands were defined by the 3GPP, but have never been deployed commercially, supported by commercial devices or are no longer used.


title: LTE frequency bands

text: The following table shows the standardized LTE bands and their regional use. The main LTE bands are in bold print. Not yet deployed are not available (N/A). Partial deployments varies from country to country and the details are available at List of LTE networks.


title: Lucas Bravo

text: Lucas Bravo (born 26 March 1988) is a French actor and model. He is best known for starring in the Netflix romantic comedy series "Emily in Paris" (2020–present) as chef Gabriel, Emily's downstairs neighbor and love interest.


title: Lucas Bravo

text: Bravo was born on 26 March 1988 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes; the son of the retired French footballer Daniel Bravo and singer Eva Bravo. He attended the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine.


title: Lucas Bravo

text: Bravo made his screen debut in "Sous le soleil de Saint Tropez" (2013). The following year, he appeared as Antoine Mufla in the French comedy-drama film "La Crème de la crème", directed by Kim Chapiron. Since 2020, he has been starring opposite Lily Collins in the Netflix romantic comedy series "Emily in Paris" as chef Gabriel, Emily's downstairs neighbor and love interest.


title: Lucas Bravo

text: Bravo starred in "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris", with Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, and Jason Isaacs, directed by Anthony Fabian, and based on Paul Gallico's novella of the same name. In August, it was reported that he will appear in Dean Craig's upcoming film "The Honeymoon", alongside Maria Bakalova. In October, he was cast in the romantic comedy "Ticket to Paradise" starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Kaitlyn Dever, and directed by Ol Parker.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Mike Nichols (born Michael Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was an American film and theater director, producer, actor, and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and for his aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their experience. He is one of 17 people to have won all four of the major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). His other honors included three BAFTA Awards, the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. His films received a total of 42 Academy Award nominations, and 7 wins.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv act was a hit on Broadway, and each of their three albums was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album; their second album, "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May", won the award in 1962. After Nichols and May disbanded in 1961, he began directing plays, and quickly became known for his innovative productions and ability to elicit polished performances. His Broadway directing debut was Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" in 1963, with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. He continued to direct plays on Broadway, including "Luv" (1964), and "The Odd Couple" (1965) for each of which he received Tony Awards. In 2012, he won his sixth Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play with a revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. Nichols directed and/or produced more than 25 Broadway plays throughout his prolific career.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1966, Warner Brothers invited Nichols to direct his first film, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It won five Academy Awards and was the top-grossing film of 1966. His next film, "The Graduate" (1967), starred then unknown actor Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. It was another critical and financial success and received seven Academy Award nominations, winning Nichols the Academy Award for Best Director. Among the other films Nichols directed were "Catch-22" (1970), "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), "Silkwood" (1983), "Working Girl" (1988), "Postcards from the Edge" (1990), "The Birdcage" (1996), "Primary Colors" (1998), "Closer" (2004), and "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007). Nichols also was known for work on television, directing HBO's "Wit" (2001) with Emma Thompson and "Angels in America" (2003) starring Meryl Streep.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols was born Michael Igor Peschkowsky on November 6, 1931, in Berlin, Germany. He was a son of Brigitte (née Landauer) and Pavel Peschkowsky, a physician. His father was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant family. Nichols's father's family had been wealthy and lived in Siberia, leaving after the Russian Revolution, and settling in Germany around 1920. Nichols's mother's family were German Jews. His maternal grandparents were Gustav Landauer, a leading theorist on anarchism, and author Hedwig Lachmann. Through his mother, Nichols was a third cousin twice removed of scientist Albert Einstein.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In April 1939, when the Nazis were arresting Jews in Berlin, seven-year-old Michael and his three-year-old brother Robert were sent alone to the United States to join their father, who had fled months earlier. His mother joined the family by escaping through Italy in 1940. The family moved to New York City on April 28, 1939. His father, whose original name was Pavel Nikolaevich Peschkowsky, changed his name to Paul Nichols, Nichols derived from his Russian patronymic. Before Paul Nichols had received his U.S. medical license, he was employed by a union on 42nd Street, X-raying union members. He later had a successful medical practice in Manhattan, enabling the family to live near Central Park.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Before he established his practice, he was a union doctor, and part of his job was X-raying union members. They didn't know about shielding X-ray machines, and he died of leukemia at 44. [in 1944]


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols's youth was difficult because by age four, following an inoculation for whooping cough, he lost his hair, and consequently wore wigs and false eyebrows for the rest of his life. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944 and attended public elementary school in Manhattan (). After graduating from the Walden School, a private progressive school on Central Park West, Nichols briefly attended New York University before dropping out. In 1950, he enrolled in the pre-med program at the University of Chicago. He later described this college period as "paradise", recalling how "I never had a friend from the time I came to this country until I got to the University of Chicago."


title: Mike Nichols

text: While in Chicago in 1953, Nichols joined the staff of struggling classical music station WFMT, 98.7 FM, as an announcer. Co-owner Rita Jacobs asked Nichols to create a folk music program on Saturday nights, which he named "The Midnight Special". He hosted the program for two years before leaving for New York City. Nichols frequently invited musicians to perform live in the studio and eventually created a unique blend of "folk music and farce, showtunes and satire, odds and ends", along with his successor Norm Pellegrini. The program endures today in the same time slot.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols first saw Elaine May when she was sitting in the front row while he was playing the lead in a Chicago production of "Miss Julie," and they made eye contact. Weeks later he ran into her in a train station where he started a conversation in an assumed accent, pretending to be a spy, and she played along, using another accent. They hit it off immediately, which led to a brief romance. Later in his career, he said "Elaine was very important to me from the moment I saw her."


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1953, Nichols left Chicago for New York City to study method acting under Lee Strasberg, but was unable to find stage work there. He was invited back to join Chicago's Compass Players in 1955, the predecessor to Chicago's Second City, whose members included May, Shelley Berman, Del Close, and Nancy Ponder, directed by Paul Sills. In Chicago, he started doing improvisational routines with May, which eventually led to the formation of the comedy duo Nichols and May in 1958, first performing in New York City.


title: Mike Nichols

text: They performed live satirical comedy acts and eventually released three records of their routines, which became best-sellers. They also appeared in nightclubs and were on radio and television. Jack Rollins, who later became Woody Allen's manager and producer, invited them to audition and was most impressed: "Their work was so startling, so new, as fresh as could be. I was stunned by how really good they were, actually as impressed by their acting technique as by their comedy ... I thought, My God, these are two people writing hilarious comedy on their feet!"


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1960, Nichols and May opened the Broadway show "An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May", directed by Arthur Penn. The LP album of the show won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. Personal idiosyncrasies and tensions, such as on the unsuccessful "A Matter of Position", a play written by May and starring Nichols, eventually drove the duo apart to pursue other projects in 1961. About their sudden breakup, director Arthur Penn said, "They set the standard and then they had to move on," while talk show host Dick Cavett said "they were one of the comic meteors in the sky." Comedy historian Gerald Nachman describes the effect of their break-up on American comedy:


title: Mike Nichols

text: They later reconciled and worked together many times. They appeared together at President Jimmy Carter's inaugural gala, in 1977, and in a 1980 New Haven stage revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" with Swoosie Kurtz and James Naughton. May scripted Nichols's films "The Birdcage" (1996) and "Primary Colors" (1998). In 2010, at the AFI's "Life Achievement Award" ceremony, May gave a humor-filled tribute to Nichols.


title: Mike Nichols

text: After the professional split with May, Nichols went to Vancouver, British Columbia, to work in the theater directing a production of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" and acted in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's "St. Joan".


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1963, Nichols was chosen to direct Neil Simon's play "Barefoot in the Park". He realized at once that he was meant to be a director, saying in a 2003 interview: "On the first day of rehearsal, I thought, 'Well, look at this. Here is what I was meant to do.' I knew instantly that I was home". "Barefoot in the Park" was a big hit, running for 1530 performances and earning Nichols a Tony Award for his direction.


title: Mike Nichols

text: This began a series of highly successful plays on Broadway (often from works by Simon) that would establish his reputation. After directing an off-Broadway production of Ann Jellicoe's "The Knack", Nichols directed Murray Schisgal's play "Luv" in 1964. Again the show was a hit and Nichols won a Tony Award (shared with "The Odd Couple"). In 1965 he directed another play by Neil Simon, "The Odd Couple". The original production starred Art Carney as Felix Ungar and Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison. The play ran for 966 performances and won Tony Awards for Nichols, Simon and Matthau. Overall, Nichols won nine Tony Awards: including six for Best Director of either a play or a musical, one for Best Play, and one for Best Musical.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1966, Nichols was a star stage director and "Time" magazine called him "the most in-demand director in the American theatre." Although he had no experience in filmmaking, after befriending Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Warner Bros. invited Nichols to direct a screen adaptation of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis for which he received a fee of $400,000. The film was critically acclaimed, with critics calling Nichols "the new Orson Welles", and a financial success, the number 1 film of 1966.


title: Mike Nichols

text: The film was considered groundbreaking for having a level of profanity and sexual innuendo unheard of at that time. It won five Academy Awards and garnered thirteen nominations (including Nichols's first nomination for Best Director), earning the distinctions of being one of only two films nominated in every eligible category at the Oscars (the other being "Cimarron"), and the first film to have its entire credited cast nominated for acting Oscars. It also won three BAFTA Awards and was later ranked No. 67 in "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)".


title: Mike Nichols

text: His next film was "The Graduate" (1967), starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross for which he was paid $150,000, a deal he had made four years earlier with producer Joseph E. Levine. It became the highest-grossing film of 1967 and one of the highest-grossing films in history up to that date, with Nichols receiving 16⅔% of the profits, making him a millionaire. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, with Nichols winning as Best Director. In 2007, it was ranked #17 in "AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)".


title: Mike Nichols

text: However, getting the film made was difficult for Nichols, who, while noted for being a successful Broadway director, was still an unknown in Hollywood. Producer Lawrence Turman, who wanted only Nichols to direct it, was continually turned down for financing. He then contacted Levine, who said he would finance the film because he had associated with Nichols on "The Knack", and because he heard that Elizabeth Taylor specifically wanted Nichols to direct her and Richard Burton in "Virginia Woolf". With financing assured, Nichols suggested Buck Henry for screenwriter, although Henry's experience had also been mostly in improvised comedy, and had no writing background. Nichols said to Henry, "I think you could do it; I think you "should" do it."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols also took a chance on using Dustin Hoffman, who had no film experience, for the lead, when others had suggested using known star Robert Redford. Hoffman credits Nichols for having taken a great risk in giving him, a relative unknown, the starring role: "I don't know of another instance of a director at the height of his powers who would take a chance and cast someone like me in that part. It took tremendous courage."


title: Mike Nichols

text: The quality of the cinematography was also influenced by Nichols, who chose Oscar winner Robert Surtees to do the photography. Surtees, who had photographed major films since the 1920s, including "Ben-Hur", said later, "It took everything I had learned over 30 years to be able to do the job. I knew that Mike Nichols was a young director who went in for a lot of camera. We did more things in this picture than I ever did in one film."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols also chose the music by Simon and Garfunkel. When Paul Simon was taking too long to write new songs for the film, he used existing songs, originally planning to replace them with newly written ones. In the end only one new song was available, and Nichols used the existing previously released songs. At one point, when Nichols heard Paul Simon's song, "Mrs. Roosevelt", he suggested to Simon that he change it to "Mrs. Robinson". The song won a Grammy after the film was released and became America's number 1 pop song. Nichols selected all the numerous songs for the film and chose which scenes they would be used in. The placement and selection of songs would affect the way audiences understood the film. Even actor William Daniels, who played Hoffman's father, remembers that after first hearing the songs, especially "The Sound of Silence", he thought, "Oh, wait a minute. That changed the whole idea of the picture for me," suddenly realizing the film would not be a typical comedy.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols had previously returned to Broadway to direct "The Apple Tree", starring Second City alumna, Barbara Harris. After doing "The Graduate", he again returned to the Broadway stage with a revival of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" in 1967, which ran for 100 performances. He then directed Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite" in 1968, earning him another Tony Award for Best Director. He also directed the short film "Teach Me!" (1968), which starred actress Sandy Dennis.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1969 his film production company, Friwaftt, was acquired by Avco Embassy, the distributor of "The Graduate", who also appointed him to the board of directors. Friwaftt stood for "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols's next film was a big-budget adaptation of Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" (1970), followed by "Carnal Knowledge" (1971) starring Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret, Art Garfunkel and Candice Bergen. The latter film was highly controversial upon release because of the casual and blunt depiction of sexual intercourse. In Georgia, a theatre manager was convicted in 1972 of violating the state's obscenity statutes by showing the film, a conviction later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Jenkins v. Georgia".


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols returned to Broadway to direct Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" in 1971. The play won Nichols another Tony Award for Best Director. In 1973, Nichols directed a revival of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" on Broadway starring George C. Scott and with a new translation by himself and Albert Todd. In 1973 Nichols directed the film "The Day of the Dolphin" starring George C. Scott, based on the French novel "Un animal doué de raison" (lit. "A Sentient Animal") by Robert Merle and adapted by Buck Henry. The film was not successful financially and received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols next directed "The Fortune" (1975), starring Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Stockard Channing. Again, the film was a financial failure and received mostly negative reviews. In 1975, Nichols began filming "Bogart Slept Here", an original screenplay by Neil Simon. The film starred Robert De Niro and Simon's wife, Marsha Mason. After one week of filming, displeased with the results, Nichols and the studio fired De Niro and shut the production down. Simon would retool the script two years later as "The Goodbye Girl". Nichols would not direct another narrative feature film for eight years.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols returned to the stage with two moderately successful productions in 1976; David Rabe's "Streamers" opened in April and ran for 478 performances. Trevor Griffiths's "Comedians" ran for 145 performances. In 1976 Nichols also worked as Executive Producer to create the television drama "Family" for ABC. The series ran until 1980.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1977, Nichols produced the original Broadway production of the hugely successful musical "Annie", which ran for 2,377 performances until 1983. Nichols won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Later in 1977, Nichols directed D.L. Coburn's "The Gin Game". The play ran for 517 performances and won a Tony Award for Best Actress for Jessica Tandy.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1980, Nichols directed the documentary "Gilda Live", a filmed performance of comedian Gilda Radner's one-woman show "Gilda Radner Live on Broadway". It was released at the same time as the album of the show, both of which were successful. Nichols was then involved with two unsuccessful shows: he produced "Billy Bishop Goes to War", which opened in 1980 and closed after only twelve performances, and directed Neil Simon's "Fools", in 1981, which closed after forty performances.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Returning to Hollywood, Nichols's career rebounded in 1983 with the film "Silkwood", starring Meryl Streep, Cher and Kurt Russell, based on the life of whistleblower Karen Silkwood. The film was a financial and critical success, with film critic Vincent Canby calling it "the most serious work Mike Nichols has yet done." The film received five Academy Award nominations, including a Best Director nomination for Nichols.


title: Mike Nichols

text: That same year, Nichols and Peter Stone helped to fix up and rewrite the musical "My One and Only" just days before its Boston premiere. The show eventually went to Broadway and ran for 767 performances, winning Tony Awards for Best Actor, Best Choreography (both for Tommy Tune) and Best Supporting Actor (Charles "Honi" Coles).


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1984, Nichols directed the Broadway premiere of Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing". "The New York Times" critic Frank Rich wrote that "The Broadway version of "The Real Thing"—a substantial revision of the original London production—is not only Mr. Stoppard's most moving play, but also the most bracing play that anyone has written about love and marriage in years." The play was nominated for seven Tony Awards and won five, including a Best Director Tony for Nichols.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols followed the success with the Broadway premiere of David Rabe's "Hurlyburly", also in 1984. It was performed just two blocks away from the theater showing "The Real Thing". It was nominated for three Tony Awards and won Best Actress for Judith Ivey.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1983, Nichols had seen comedian Whoopi Goldberg's one woman show, "The Spook Show", at Dance Theater Workshop and wanted to help her expand it. Goldberg's self-titled Broadway show opened in October 1984 and ran for 156 performances. Rosie O'Donnell later said that Nichols had discovered Goldberg while she was struggling as a downtown artist: "He gave her the entire beginning of her career and recognized her brilliance before anyone else." In 1986 Nichols directed the Broadway premiere of Andrew Bergman's "Social Security" and in 1988 directed "Waiting for Godot", starring Robin Williams and Steve Martin. Williams cited Nichols and May as among his early influences for performing intelligent comedy.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1986, Nichols directed the film "Heartburn", which received mixed reviews, and starred Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. In 1988, Nichols completed two feature films. The first was an adaptation of Neil Simon's autobiographical stage play "Biloxi Blues" starring Matthew Broderick, also receiving mixed critical reviews. Nichols directed one of his most successful films, "Working Girl", which starred Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. The film was a huge hit upon its release. It also received mostly positive reviews from critics with an 84% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 73 metascore at Metacritic. It was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Director for Nichols) and won the Academy Award for Best Song for Carly Simon's "Let the River Run".


title: Mike Nichols

text: At one point in the 1980s, Nichols—who was prone to bouts of depression—reported that he had considered suicide, a feeling apparently brought on by a psychotic episode he experienced after taking the drug Halcion.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In the 1990s, Nichols directed several more successful, well-received films including "Postcards from the Edge" (1990) starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine; "Primary Colors" (1998) starring John Travolta and Emma Thompson; and "The Birdcage" (1996), an American remake of the 1978 French film "La Cage aux Folles" starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest. Both "The Birdcage" and "Primary Colors" were written by Elaine May, Nichols's comedy partner earlier in his career. Other films directed by Nichols include "Regarding Henry" (1991) starring Harrison Ford and "Wolf" (1994) starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. When he was honored by Lincoln Center in 1999 for his life's work, Elaine May—speaking once again as his friend—served up the essence of Nichols with the following:


title: Mike Nichols

text: So he's witty, he's brilliant, he's articulate, he's on time, he's prepared and he writes. But is he perfect? He knows you can't really be liked or loved if you're perfect. You have to have just enough flaws. And he does. Just the right, perfect flaws to be absolutely endearing.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In the 2000s, Nichols directed the films "What Planet Are You From?" (2000), "Closer" (2004) and "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007), a political drama that was ultimately his final feature film. "What Planet Are You From?" received mixed reviews from critics, while "Closer" and "Charlie Wilson's War" received generally positive reviews and were both nominated for Academy Awards, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols also directed widely acclaimed adaptations of "Wit" (2001) and "Angels in America" (2003) for television, winning Emmy Awards for both of them. For his direction of the Broadway musical "Spamalot", he won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical in 2005.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 2012, Nichols won the Best Direction of a Play Tony Award for a revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". In 2013, he directed Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz in a Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal". The play began previews of its limited run on October 1, 2013 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, opened on October 27, and closed on January 4, 2014.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Among projects that remained uncompleted when he died, in April 2013 it was announced that Nichols was in talks to direct a film adaptation of Jonathan Tropper's novel "One Last Thing Before I Go". The film was to be produced by J. J. Abrams, who previously wrote the Nichols-directed film "Regarding Henry" (1991). In July 2014, it was announced that Nichols and Streep would reunite for an HBO film of Terrence McNally's 1985 play "Master Class", with Nichols directing Streep in the starring role of opera singer Maria Callas.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols was a contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post". He was also a co-founder of The New Actors Workshop in New York City, where he occasionally taught. In addition, he remained active in the Directors Guild of America, interviewing fellow film director Bennett Miller on stage in October 2011 after the Guild's screening of Miller's "Moneyball".


title: Mike Nichols

text: In January 2016, PBS aired "", an "American Masters" documentary about Nichols directed by his former improv partner, Elaine May. On February 22, 2016, HBO aired the documentary "Becoming Mike Nichols".


title: Mike Nichols

text: After his early successes as a stage and film director, Nichols had developed a reputation as an auteur who likes to work intimately with his actors and writers, often using them repeatedly in different films. Writer Peter Applebome noted that "few directors have such a gift for getting performances out of actors." During a half-year period in 1967 he had four hit plays running simultaneously on Broadway, during which time his first Hollywood feature, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", had also become a popular and critical success. Combined with his second film, "The Graduate", in 1967, the two films had already earned a total of 20 Oscar nominations, including two for Best Director, and winning it for "The Graduate."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols was able to get the best out of actors regardless of their acting experience, whether an unknown such as Dustin Hoffman or a major star like Richard Burton. For his first film, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", each of the four actors was nominated for an Oscar, with Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis winning. Burton later said, "I didn't think I could learn anything about comedy—I'd done all of Shakespeare's. But from him I learned," adding, "He conspires with you to get your best."


title: Mike Nichols

text: However, it was Taylor who chose Nichols to be their director, because, writes biographer David Bret, "she particularly admired him because he had done a number of ad-hoc jobs to pay for his education after arriving in America as a seven-year-old Jewish refugee." Producer Ernest Lehman agreed with her choice: "He was the only one who could handle them," he said. "The Burtons were quite intimidating, and we needed a genius like Mike Nichols to combat them." Biographer Kitty Kelley says that neither Taylor nor Burton would ever again reach the heights of acting performance they did in that film.


title: Mike Nichols

text: The same style of directing was used for "The Graduate", where, notes film historian Peter Biskind, Nichols took Dustin Hoffman, with no movie acting experience, along with Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross and others, and managed to get some of their finest acting on screen. This ability to work closely with actors would remain consistent throughout his career. Hoffman credits Nichols for permitting the realistic acting needed for the satirical roles in that film:


title: Mike Nichols

text: In a similar way, Jeremy Irons, who acted in the play "The Real Thing", said that Nichols creates a very "protective environment: he makes you feel he's only there for you," while Ann-Margret, for her role in "Carnal Knowledge", felt the same: "What's wonderful about Mike is that he makes you feel like you're the one that's come up with the idea, when it's actually his."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols's first marriage was to Patricia Scot; they were married from 1957 to 1960. His second was to Margot Callas, a former "muse" of the poet Robert Graves, from 1963 to 1974. The couple had a daughter together, Daisy Nichols. His third marriage, in 1975, to Annabel Davis-Goff, produced two children, Max Nichols and Jenny Nichols; it ended in divorce in 1986. His fourth was to former "Good Morning America" and "ABC World News" anchor Diane Sawyer, whom he married on April 29, 1988. None of his wives were Jewish and his children were not brought up according to a religion, but they identify as Jewish. His son Max married former ESPN journalist Rachel Nichols.


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols had a lifelong interest in Arabian horses. From 1968 to 2004, he owned a farm in Connecticut and was a noted horse breeder. He also imported quality Arabian horses from Poland, some of which sold for record-setting prices.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 2009, Nichols signed a petition in support of releasing director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols died of a heart attack on November 19, 2014, at his apartment in Manhattan, thirteen days after his 83rd birthday. During the 87th annual Academy Awards on 22 February 2015, Nichols was featured in the "In Memoriam" segment, in anchor position. Nichols left John Frederick Herring Sr.'s painting "Horse with Groom" to his son Max.


title: Mike Nichols

text: When Nichols died, many celebrities paid tribute to him, including Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey and Tom Stoppard. On November 8, 2015, stars and artists gathered at New York's IAC Building to pay tribute to Nichols. Hosts for the private event included Elaine May and Lorne Michaels. Eric Idle and John Cleese performed. Guests included Streep, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Natalie Portman, Carly Simon, Nathan Lane and Christine Baranski.


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 2017, during an Oscars Actress Roundtable with "The Hollywood Reporter", Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, and Annette Bening spoke about the impact Nichols had on their lives. In 2020 Woody Allen described Nichols as "maybe the best comedy director ever on the stage."


title: Mike Nichols

text: Nichols received five Academy Award nominations, winning Best Director for "The Graduate" (1967). He was also nominated for his work on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), "Silkwood" (1983), "Working Girl" (1988) and for producing "The Remains of the Day" (1993). For his collaborations with Elaine May, Nichols was nominated for three Grammy Awards winning for Best Comedy Album in 1962. Nichols also known for his extensive work on Broadway and received 16 Tony Award nominations, winning eight times for "Barefoot in the Park" (1964), "Luv"/"The Odd Couple" (1965), "Plaza Suite" (1968), "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (1972), "Annie" (1977), "The Real Thing" (1984), "Monty Python's Spamalot" (2005), and "Death of a Salesman" (2012). Nichols also received Primetime Emmy Awards for directing and producing the HBO television film "Wit" (2001) and miniseries "Angels in America" (2003).


title: Mike Nichols

text: In 1989 Nichols was presented the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement by Awards Council member Diane Sawyer. He also received a Gala tribute from Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1999. In 2001, he received the Peabody Award for his HBO television film "Wit" which starred Emma Thompson. In 2003 he was awarded with the Kennedy Center Honors where he was honored by Elaine May, Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen and Tom Stoppard. In 2010 he was honored with the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award where he was honored by Elaine May, Nora Ephron, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Julia Roberts, Candice Bergen, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, and Shirley MacLaine.


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: Harry Edward Melling (born 17 March) is an English actor, known for playing Dudley Dursley in five "Harry Potter" films, and for his role as Harry Beltik in "The Queen's Gambit". His grandfather was actor Patrick Troughton.


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: In his early career, Harry Melling performed in stage productions of "The Provoked Wife", "King John", "Antigone", and "Plenty". He appeared in five of the "Harry Potter" films as Harry Potter's spoiled cousin, Dudley Dursley. In 2009, he starred in a revival of "Mother Courage and her Children" at the Royal National Theatre. He appeared in "The Sorcerer's Shadow", an episode of the BBC television series "Merlin", playing a young warlock named Gilli who intends to use magic to help him win Camelot's legendary tournament. He also played Robert Brown in the BBC television series "Just William".


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: In October 2009, it was announced that Melling had lost so much weight since his last appearance in "Harry Potter" that he was now "unrecognisable". The role of Dudley was almost recast for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1", but Melling was able to reprise the part by wearing a fat suit. He commented positively about the change, "I can now shed the child actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley."


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: In 2018, Melling played alongside Liam Neeson in the Coen brothers' Western "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs". Of Melling's performance, "New Yorker" film critic Anthony Lane wrote:


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: [I] came away haunted by a scattering of sights and sounds--above all, by the recitations of the limbless man, which thrum with genuine yearning. He is beautifully played, with a little help from C.G.I., by Harry Melling, who was once the odious Dudley Dursley in the "Harry Potter" films. Funny how people grow up.


title: Harry Melling (actor)

text: In 2020, Melling played Evangelical priest Roy Laferty in the Netflix thriller "The Devil All The Time". That same year, he appeared in the Netflix series drama "The Queen's Gambit" in which he plays Harry Beltik, a friend and one of Beth's competitors in Kentucky.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015) was an American professional baseball catcher who later took on the roles of manager and coach. He played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) (1946–1963, 1965), all but the last for the New York Yankees. He was an 18-time All-Star and won 10 World Series championships as a player—more than any other player in MLB history. Berra had a career batting average of .285, while hitting 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in. He is one of only six players to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award three times. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was a native of St. Louis and signed with the Yankees in 1943 before serving in the United States Navy as a gunner's mate in the Normandy landings during World War II, where he earned a Purple Heart. He made his major-league debut at age 21 in 1946 and was a mainstay in the Yankees' lineup during the team's championship years beginning in 1949 and continuing through 1962. Despite his short stature (he was tall), Berra was a power hitter and strong defensive catcher. Berra played 18 seasons with the Yankees before retiring after the 1963 season. He spent the next year as their manager, then joined the New York Mets in 1965 as coach (and briefly a player again). Berra remained with the Mets for the next decade, serving the last four years as their manager. He returned to the Yankees in 1976, coaching them for eight seasons and managing for two, before coaching the Houston Astros. He is one of nine managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series. Berra appeared as a player, coach or manager in every one of the 13 World Series that New York baseball teams won from 1947 through 1981. Overall, he played or coached in 21 World Series, 13 on the winning side. Berra caught Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. He also holds the all-time record for shutouts caught with 173.


title: Yogi Berra

text: The Yankees retired his uniform number 8 in 1972; Bill Dickey had previously worn number 8, and both catchers had that number retired by the Yankees. The club honored him with a plaque in Monument Park in 1988. Berra was named to the MLB All-Century Team in a vote by fans in 1999. For the remainder of his life, he was closely involved with the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, which he opened on the campus of Montclair State University in 1998.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra quit school after the eighth grade. He was known for his malapropisms as well as pithy and paradoxical statements, such as "It ain't over 'til it's over", while speaking to reporters. He once simultaneously denied and confirmed his reputation by stating, "I really didn't say everything I said."


title: Yogi Berra

text: Yogi Berra was born Lorenzo Pietro Berra in a primarily Italian neighborhood of St. Louis called The Hill. His parents were Italian immigrants Pietro and Paolina () Berra. Pietro was originally from Malvaglio near Milan; he arrived at Ellis Island on October 18, 1909, at the age of 23. In a 2005 interview for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Berra said, "My father came over first. He came from the old country. And he didn't know what baseball was. He was ready to go to work. And then I had three other brothers and a sister. My brother and my mother came over later on. My two oldest brothers, they were born there—Mike and Tony. John and I and my sister Josie were born in St. Louis."


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra's parents originally gave him the nickname "Lawdie", which was derived from his mother's difficulty pronouncing "Lawrence" or "Larry" correctly. He grew up on Elizabeth Avenue, across the street from boyhood friend and later competitor Joe Garagiola, Sr. That block was also home to Jack Buck early in his Cardinals broadcasting career, and it was later renamed "Hall of Fame Place". Berra was a Catholic, and he attended South Side Catholic, now called St. Mary's High School, in south St. Louis with Garagiola. Berra has been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.


title: Yogi Berra

text: He began playing baseball in local American Legion Baseball leagues, where he learned the basics of catching while playing both outfield and infield positions. He also played for a Cranston, Rhode Island, team under an assumed name. While playing in American Legion Baseball, he received the nickname "Yogi" from his friend Jack Maguire, who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after a losing game.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In 1942, the St. Louis Cardinals overlooked Berra in favor of his boyhood best friend, Joe Garagiola Sr. On the surface, the Cardinals seemed to think that Garagiola was the superior prospect, but team president Branch Rickey actually had an ulterior motive. Rickey already knew that he was going to leave St. Louis to take over the operation of the Brooklyn Dodgers and was more impressed with Berra than he let on; he apparently had planned to hold Berra off until he could sign him for the Dodgers. However, the Yankees signed Berra for the same $500 bonus ($ in current dollar terms) the Cardinals offered Garagiola before Rickey could sign Berra to the Dodgers.


title: Yogi Berra

text: During World War II, Berra served in the United States Navy as a gunner's mate on the attack transport during the Normandy landings. A Second Class Seaman, Berra was one of a six-man crew on a Navy rocket boat, firing machine guns and launching rockets at the German defenses on Omaha Beach. He was fired upon and later received several commendations for his bravery. During an interview on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day, Berra confirmed that he was sent to Utah Beach during the D-Day invasion as well. Although the Yogi Berra Museum website claimed that Berra was "fired upon, but was not hit," according to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, he was shot in the left hand during Operation Dragoon, an injury which earned him a Purple Heart. Following Operation Dragoon, he was sent to Tunisia before returning to the United States in January 1945 and being stationed at Naval Submarine Base New London. He was ultimately discharged in May 1946.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Following his military service, Berra played minor-league baseball with the Newark Bears, surprising the team's manager with his talent despite his short stature. He was mentored by Hall of Famer Bill Dickey, whose uniform number Berra took. He later said, "I owe everything I did in baseball to Bill Dickey."


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was called up to the Yankees and played his first game on September 22, 1946; he played 7 games that season and 83 games in 1947. He played in more than a hundred games in each of the following 14 years. Berra appeared in 14 World Series, including 10 World Series championships, both of which are records.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In part because Berra's playing career coincided with the Yankees' most consistent period of World Series participation, he established Series records for the most games (75), at bats (259), hits (71), doubles (10), singles (49), games caught (63), and catcher putouts (457). In Game 3 of the 1947 World Series, Berra hit the first pinch-hit home run in World Series history, off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca (who later gave up Bobby Thomson's famous Shot Heard 'Round the World in 1951).


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was an All-Star for 15 seasons, and was selected to 18 All-Star Games (MLB held two All-Star Games in 1959 through 1962). He won the American League (AL) MVP award in 1951, 1954, and 1955; Berra never finished lower than fourth in the MVP voting from 1950 to 1957. He received MVP votes in 15 consecutive seasons, tied with Barry Bonds and second only to Hank Aaron's 19 straight seasons with MVP support. From 1949 to 1955, on a team filled with stars such as Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, it was Berra who led the Yankees in RBI for seven consecutive seasons.


title: Yogi Berra

text: One of the most notable games of Berra's playing career came when he caught Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the first of only three no-hitters ever thrown in MLB postseason play. The picture of Berra leaping into Larsen's arms following Dale Mitchell's called third strike to end the game is one of the sport's most memorable images.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was excellent at hitting pitches outside of the strike zone, covering all areas of the strike zone (as well as beyond) with great extension. In addition to this wide plate coverage, he also had great bat control. He was able both to swing the bat like a golf club to hit low pitches for deep home runs and to chop at high pitches for line drives. Whether changing speeds or location, pitcher Early Wynn soon discovered that "Berra moves right with you." Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950. The combination of bat control and plate coverage made Berra a feared "clutch hitter", proclaimed by rival manager Paul Richards "the toughest man in the league in the last three innings". Contrasting him with teammate Mickey Mantle, Wynn declared Berra "the real toughest clutch hitter", grouping him with Cleveland slugger Al Rosen as "the two best clutch hitters in the game".


title: Yogi Berra

text: As a catcher Berra was outstanding: quick, mobile, and a great handler of pitchers, Berra led all American League catchers eight times in games caught and in chances accepted, six times in double plays (a major-league record), eight times in putouts, three times in assists, and once in fielding percentage. Berra left the game with the AL records for catcher putouts (8,723) and chances accepted (9,520). He was also one of only four catchers ever to field 1.000 in a season, playing 88 errorless games in 1958. He was the first catcher to leave one finger outside his glove, a style that most other catchers eventually emulated. Tom Sturdivant, who pitched for the Yankees from 1955 to 1959, said "I can't say enough for Yogi Berra. It gives a young pitcher a lot of confidence to have a fellow like Berra calling the pitches. No one could set up the hitters better."


title: Yogi Berra

text: At age 37 in June 1962, Berra showed his superb physical endurance by catching an entire 22-inning, seven-hour game against the Detroit Tigers. Casey Stengel, Berra's manager during most of his playing career with the Yankees and with the Mets in 1965, once said, "I never play a game without my man."


title: Yogi Berra

text: Later in his career, Berra became a good defensive outfielder in Yankee Stadium's notoriously difficult left field.


title: Yogi Berra

text: After spending as a player-coach—he appeared in 64 games (35 as a catcher and 29 as a pinch hitter, batting .293 in 164 at bats), and held down the Yanks' first-base coaching job otherwise—Berra retired as an active player after the 1963 World Series and was immediately named to succeed Ralph Houk as manager of the Yankees.


title: Yogi Berra

text: An unforgettable incident, called the Harmonica Incident, occurred on board the team bus in August 1964. Following a loss, infielder Phil Linz was playing his harmonica, and Berra ordered him to stop. Seated on the other end of the bus, Linz could not hear what Berra had said, and Mickey Mantle impishly informed Linz, "He said to play it louder." When Linz did so, an angry Berra slapped the harmonica out of his hands.


title: Yogi Berra

text: All was apparently forgotten when the Yankees rode a September surge to return to the World Series, but the team lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, after which Berra was fired. Houk, who was general manager at the time, later said the decision to fire Berra was made in late August and that the incident with Linz had nothing to do with it. Although he didn't elaborate, Houk said that he and the rest of the Yankee brain trust did not feel Berra was ready to manage. Players, however, said the incident actually solidified his managerial authority and helped him lead them to the Series.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was immediately signed by the crosstown New York Mets as a coach. He also put in four cameo appearances as a catcher early in the season. His last at-bat came on May 9, 1965, just three days shy of his 40th birthday. Berra stayed with the Mets as a coach under Stengel, Wes Westrum, and Gil Hodges for the next seven seasons, including their 1969 World Series Championship season. He then became the team's manager in 1972, following Hodges' unexpected death in spring training.


title: Yogi Berra

text: The following season looked like a disappointment at first. Injuries plagued the Mets throughout the season. Midway through the 1973 season, the Mets were stuck in last place but in a very tight divisional race. In July, when a reporter asked Yogi if the season was over, he replied, "It ain't over 'til it's over."


title: Yogi Berra

text: As the Mets' key players came back to the lineup, a late surge allowed them to win the NL East despite an 82–79 record, making it the only time from 1970 through 1980 that the NL East was not won by either their rival Philadelphia Phillies or the Pittsburgh Pirates. When the Mets faced the 99-win Cincinnati Reds in the 1973 National League Championship Series, a memorable fight erupted between Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose in the top of the fifth inning of Game Three. After the incident and the ensuing bench-clearing brawl had subsided, fans began throwing objects at Rose when he returned to his position in left field in the bottom half of the inning. Sparky Anderson pulled Rose and his Reds off the field until order was restored. When National League president Chub Feeney threatened the Mets with a forfeit, Berra walked out to left field with Willie Mays, Tom Seaver, Rusty Staub, and Cleon Jones in order to plead with the fans to desist. Yogi's Mets went on to defeat the highly favored "Big Red Machine" in five games to capture the NL pennant. It was Berra's second as a manager, one in each league. The Mets fell to the Oakland Athletics in the 1973 World Series, but they went the distance in a close-fought seven-game series.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra's tenure as Mets manager ended with his firing on August 5, 1975. He had a record of 298 wins and 302 losses, which included the 1973 postseason. In 1976, he rejoined the Yankees as a coach. The team won its first of three consecutive AL titles, as well as the 1977 World Series and 1978 World Series, and (as had been the case throughout his playing days) Berra's reputation as a lucky charm was reinforced. Casey Stengel once said of his catcher, "He'd fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch." Berra was named Yankee manager before the 1984 season. Berra agreed to stay in the job for 1985 after receiving assurances that he would not be terminated, but the impatient Steinbrenner reneged, firing Berra anyway after the 16th game of the season. Moreover, instead of firing him personally, Steinbrenner dispatched Clyde King to deliver the news for him. The incident caused a rift between Berra and Steinbrenner that was not mended for almost 15 years.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra joined the Houston Astros as bench coach in 1985, where he again made it to the NLCS in 1986. The Astros lost the series in six games to the Mets. Berra remained a coach in Houston for three more years, retiring after the 1989 season. He finished his managerial career with a regular-season record of 484–444 and a playoff record of 9–10.


title: Yogi Berra

text: After George Steinbrenner ventured to Berra's home in New Jersey to apologize in person for having mishandled Berra's firing as Yankee manager, Berra ended his 14-year estrangement from the Yankee organization in 1999 and worked in spring-training camp with catcher Jorge Posada.


title: Yogi Berra

text: During World War II, Berra served in the Navy as machine gunner participating in the D-Day invasion and earned a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Unit Citation, two battle stars and a European Theatre of Operations ribbon.


title: Yogi Berra

text: The No. 8 was retired in 1972 by the Yankees, jointly honoring Berra and Bill Dickey, his predecessor as the Yankees' star catcher.


title: Yogi Berra

text: On August 22, 1988, Berra and Dickey were honored with plaques to be hung in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. Berra's plaque calls him "A legendary Yankee" and cites his most frequent quote, "It ain't over till it's over". However, the honor was not enough to shake Berra's conviction that Steinbrenner had broken their personal agreement; Berra did not set foot in the stadium for another decade, until Steinbrenner publicly apologized to Berra.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In 1996, Berra received an honorary doctorate from Montclair State University, which also named its own campus stadium Yogi Berra Stadium, opened in 1998, in his honor. The stadium is also used by the New Jersey Jackals, an independent minor league baseball team that has also paid homage to Berra by never issuing his jersey number, 8, to anyone.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In 1998, Berra appeared at No. 40 on "The Sporting News" list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and fan balloting elected him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. At the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, Berra had the honor of being the last of the 49 Hall of Famers in attendance to be announced. The hometown favorite received the loudest standing ovation of the group.


title: Yogi Berra

text: On July 18, 1999, Berra was honored with "Yogi Berra Day" at Yankee Stadium. Don Larsen threw the ceremonial first pitch to Berra to honor the perfect game of the 1956 World Series. The celebration marked the return of Berra to the stadium, after the end of his 14-year feud with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. The feud had started in 1985 when Steinbrenner, having promised Berra the job of Yankees' manager for the entire season, fired him after just 16 games. Berra then vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium as long as Steinbrenner owned the team. On that day, Yankees pitcher David Cone threw a perfect game against the Montreal Expos, only the 16th time it had ever been done in Major League history.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In 2005, Berra received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 2008, Berra was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In 1998, the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center and Yogi Berra Stadium (home of the Montclair State University baseball team and formerly home to the New Jersey Jackals) opened on the campus of Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. The museum is the home of various artifacts, including the mitt with which Yogi caught the only perfect game in World Series history, several autographed and "game-used" items, and nine of Yogi's championship rings.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was involved with the project and frequently visited the museum for signings, discussions, and other events. It was his intention to teach children important values such as sportsmanship and dedication on and off the baseball diamond.


title: Yogi Berra

text: On October 8, 2014, a break-in and theft occurred at the museum, and several of Berra's World Series rings and other memorabilia were stolen.


title: Yogi Berra

text: On November 24, 2015, Berra was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House attended by members of Berra's family, who accepted the award on his behalf. At the ceremony, the President said: "Today we celebrate some extraordinary people. Innovators, artists and leaders who contribute to America's strength as a nation." Celebrating Berra's military service and remarkable baseball career, Obama used one of Berra's famous 'Yogiisms', saying, "One thing we know for sure: If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."


title: Yogi Berra

text: On July 1, 2021, the United States Postal Service officially issued its Yogi Berra commemorative stamp outside of Berra's museum. Berra is only the 30th baseball player to have his picture on a stamp, and he is the first player to appear on a USPS stamp in nine years. Berra is also the first player since Lou Gehrig in 1989 to receive an issuance all his own, where a great majority of those stamps have been part of multiplayer “issuances.”


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra and former teammate Phil Rizzuto were partners in a bowling alley venture in Clifton, New Jersey, originally called Rizzuto-Berra Lanes. The two eventually sold their stakes in the alley to new owners, who changed its name to Astro Bowl before selling the property to a developer, who closed the bowling alley in 1999 and converted it into retail space.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Yogi Berra's Fitness & Racquetball Club in Fairfield, NJ was popular back in the 1980s during the Racquetball craze


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was also involved in causes related to his Italian American heritage. He was a longtime supporter of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) and helped fund raise for the Foundation. He was inducted into the Italian American Hall of Fame in 2004.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Based on his style of speaking, Yogi was named "Wisest Fool of the Past 50 Years" by "The Economist" magazine in January 2005.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In the 2007 television miniseries "The Bronx is Burning", Berra was portrayed by actor Joe Grifasi. In the HBO sports docudrama "61*", Berra was portrayed by actor Paul Borghese, and Hank Steinberg's script included more than one of Berra's famous "Yogi-isms". In 2009, Berra appeared in the documentary film "A Time for Champions", recounting his childhood memories of soccer in his native St. Louis.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Yogi and his wife Carmen were played by real-life newly married actors Peter Scolari and Tracey Shayne in the 2013 Broadway play "Bronx Bombers".


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra married Carmen Short on January 26, 1949. They had three sons and were longtime residents of Montclair, New Jersey, until Carmen's declining health caused them to move into a nearby assisted living facility. Berra's sons also played professional sports: Dale Berra played shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees (managed by Yogi in 1984–85), and Houston Astros; Tim Berra played pro football for the Baltimore Colts in the 1974 NFL season; and Larry Berra played for three minor league teams in the New York Mets organization. Carmen Berra died on March 6, 2014, of complications from a stroke, at age 85; the couple had recently celebrated their 65th anniversary. Following Carmen's death, the house in Montclair was listed for sale at $888,000, a reference to Yogi's uniform number.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra died in his sleep at the age of 90 of natural causes in West Caldwell, New Jersey, on September 22, 2015.


title: Yogi Berra

text: The Yankees added a number "8" patch to their uniforms in honor of Berra, and the Empire State Building was lit with vertical blue and white Yankee "pinstripes" on September 23. New York City lowered all flags in the city to half-staff for a day in tribute. A moment of silence was held before the September 23 games of the Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, Mets, Nationals, Tigers, Pirates, and his hometown St. Louis Cardinals, as well as the ALPB's Long Island Ducks. The Yogi Berra Museum held a tribute on October 4.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra's funeral services were held on September 29, and were broadcast by the YES Network. His ashes were interred next to his wife Carmen at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, New Jersey. Berra's longtime friend, Joe Garagiola Sr., who lived directly across the street from Berra when they were young, died six months later on March 23, 2016. Berra's Yankee teammate Don Larsen, who pitched the only perfect game in World Series history and was the only surviving member of the 1956 game at the time of Berra's death, died on January 1, 2020.


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was known for his impromptu pithy comments, malapropisms, and seemingly unintentional witticisms, known as "Yogi-isms". These often took the form of either an apparent tautology or a contradiction, but often with underlying humor and wisdom. Allen Barra has described them as "distilled bits of wisdom which, like good country songs and old John Wayne movies, get to the truth in a hurry."


title: Yogi Berra

text: Berra was often incorrectly credited with the saying, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings," which was first attributed to Texas Tech University sports information director Ralph Carpenter in 1976. When asked about the quote in 1998, Berra told a "New York Times" reporter, "That’s one of the things that I said that I never said."


title: Yogi Berra

text: In the 1950s, Berra hired Frank Scott as his agent for off-the-field appearances and endorsements. Scott was the first sports agent to focus on an athlete's off-the-field earnings. During and long after his playing career, Berra appeared in advertisements for products and companies including Yoo-Hoo, Visa, Pringles, Stove Top stuffing, Aflac, Camel cigarettes, Ballantine Beer, Kraft Italian salad dressing, Prest-O-Lite batteries, Wheaties, Shelby bicycles, Diamond Chemicals, Spencer Chemicals, AMF Bowling, Miller Lite, Kinney Shoes, Pepsi, Jockey underwear, wristwatches, orange juice, foot spray and cat food.


title: Yogi Berra

text: The name of the cartoon character Yogi Bear, which first appeared in 1958, was similar enough to Berra's name that he considered suing Hanna-Barbera, but Hanna-Barbera claimed that the similarity of the names was just a coincidence. Berra's obituary by the "Associated Press" initially said that Yogi Bear had died.


title: Yogi Berra

text: A 1999 biographical documentary about Berra titled "Yogi Berra: Deja Vu All Over Again" was aired on PBS.


title: Yogi Berra

text: In April 2019, actor Nick Basta signed an option for film rights to make a feature film about Berra. That same month, filmmaker Peter Sobiloff signed an option for rights to make a documentary about Berra.


title: The Omen

text: The Omen is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens (in his film debut), Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, and Leo McKern. The film's plot follows Damien Thorn, a young child replaced at birth by his father, unbeknownst to his wife, after their biological child dies shortly after birth. As a series of mysterious events and violent deaths occur around the family and Damien enters childhood, they come to learn he is in fact the prophesied Antichrist.


title: The Omen

text: Released theatrically by 20th Century Fox in June 1976, "The Omen" received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing over $60 million at the U.S. box office and becoming one of the highest-grossing films of 1976. The film earned two Oscar nominations, winning Best Original Score for Jerry Goldsmith, his only Oscar win. A scene from the film appeared at number 16 on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments". The film spawned a franchise, starting with "", released two years later, followed by a third installment, "", in 1981, and "" in 1991. A remake was released in 2006.


title: The Omen

text: American diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife Kathy are living in Rome, where she gives birth to a boy who dies. Hospital chaplain Father Spiletto persuades Robert to secretly adopt a baby whose mother just died in childbirth. Robert does not tell Kathy the child is not their own. They name him Damien.