title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The PFJ seeks to exploit Brian's celebrity status by having him minister to a thronging crowd of followers demanding miracle cures. Brian sneaks out the back, only to be captured by the Romans and is sentenced to crucifixion. In celebration of Passover, a crowd has assembled outside the palace of Pilate, who offers to pardon a prisoner of their choice. The crowd shouts out names containing the letter "r", mocking Pilate's rhotacistic speech impediment. Eventually, Judith appears in the crowd and calls for the release of Brian, which the crowd echoes, and Pilate agrees to "welease Bwian".


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: His order is eventually relayed to the guards, but in a scene that parodies the climax of the film "Spartacus", various crucified people all claim to be "Brian" so they can be freed and the wrong man is released. Other opportunities for a reprieve for Brian are denied as the PFJ and then Judith praise his martyrdom, while his mother expresses regret for having raised him. Hope is renewed when a crack suicide squad from the "Judean People's Front" charges and prompts the Roman soldiers to flee; however, the squad commits mass suicide as a form of political protest. Condemned to a slow and painful death, Brian finds his spirits lifted by his fellow sufferers, who cheerfully sing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Several characters remained unnamed during the film but do have names that are used in the soundtrack album track listing and elsewhere. There is no mention in the film that Eric Idle's ever-cheerful joker is called "Mr Cheeky", or that the Roman guard played by Michael Palin is named "Nisus Wettus".


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Spike Milligan plays a prophet, ignored because his acolytes are chasing after Brian. By coincidence Milligan was visiting his old World War II battlefields in Tunisia where the film was being made. The Pythons were alerted to this and he was included in the scene being filmed that morning. He left in the afternoon before he could be included in any of the close-up or publicity shots for the film.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: There are various stories about the origins of "Life of Brian". Shortly after the release of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975), Eric Idle flippantly suggested that the title of the Pythons' forthcoming feature would be "Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory" (a play on the UK title for the 1970 American film "Patton"). This was after he had become frustrated at repeatedly being asked what it would be called, despite the troupe not having given the matter of a third film any consideration. However, they shared a distrust of organised religion, and, after witnessing the critically acclaimed "Holy Grail"s enormous financial turnover, confirming an appetite among the fans for more cinematic endeavours, they began to seriously consider a film lampooning the New Testament era in the same way that "Holy Grail" had lampooned Arthurian legend. All they needed was an idea for a plot. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, while promoting "Holy Grail" in Amsterdam, had come up with a sketch in which Jesus' cross is falling apart because of the idiotic carpenters who built it and he angrily tells them how to do it correctly. However, after an early brainstorming stage, and despite being non-believers, they agreed that Jesus was "definitely a good guy" and found nothing to mock in his actual teachings: "He's not particularly funny, what he's saying isn't mockable, it's very decent stuff", said Idle later. After settling on the name Brian for their new protagonist, one idea considered was that of "the 13th disciple". The focus eventually shifted to a separate individual born at a similar time and location who would be mistaken for the Messiah, but had no desire to be followed as such.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The first draft of the screenplay, provisionally titled "The Gospel According to St. Brian", was ready by Christmas 1976. The final pre-production draft was ready in January 1978, following "a concentrated two-week writing and water-skiing period in Barbados". The film would not have been made without Python fan Beatle George Harrison, who set up HandMade Films to help fund it at a cost of £3 million. Harrison put up the money for it as he "wanted to see the movie"—later described by Terry Jones as the "world's most expensive cinema ticket."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The original backers—EMI Films and, particularly, Bernard Delfont—had been scared off at the last minute by the subject matter. The very last words in the film are: "I said to him, 'Bernie, they'll never make their money back on this one'", teasing Delfont for his lack of faith in the project. Terry Gilliam later said, "They pulled out on the Thursday. The crew was supposed to be leaving on the Saturday. Disastrous. It was because they read the script ... finally." As a reward for his help, Harrison appears in a cameo appearance as Mr. Papadopoulos, "owner of the Mount", who briefly shakes hands with Brian in a crowd scene (at 1:08:50 in the film). His one word of dialogue (a cheery but out of place Scouse "'ullo") had to be dubbed in later by Michael Palin.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Terry Jones was solely responsible for directing, having amicably agreed with Gilliam (who co-directed "Holy Grail") to do so, with Gilliam concentrating on the look of the film. "Holy Grail"s production had often been stilted by their differences behind the camera. Gilliam again contributed two animated sequences (one being the opening credits) and took charge of set design. However, this did not put an absolute end to their feuding. On the DVD commentary, Gilliam expresses pride in one set in particular, the main hall of Pilate's fortress, which had been designed so that it looked like an ancient synagogue that the Romans had converted by dumping their structural artefacts (such as marble floors and columns) on top. He reveals his consternation at Jones for not paying enough attention to it in the cinematography. Gilliam also worked on the matte paintings, useful in particular for the very first shot of the three wise men against a star-scape and in giving the illusion of the whole of the outside of the fortress being covered in graffiti. Perhaps the most significant contribution from Gilliam was the scene in which Brian accidentally leaps off a high building and lands inside a starship about to engage in an interstellar war. This was done "in camera" using a hand-built model starship and miniature pyrotechnics. Gilliam recounted in an interview: "Well, we didn't know what to do with Brian. He got himself to the top of the tower and we had to rescue him somehow, so I said, 'OK, spaceship for that.' That was purely it."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The film was shot on location in Monastir, Tunisia, which allowed the production to reuse sets from Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977). The Tunisian shoot was documented by Iain Johnstone for his BBC film "The Pythons". Many locals were employed as extras on "Life of Brian". Director Jones noted, "They were all very knowing because they'd all worked for Franco Zeffirelli on "Jesus of Nazareth", so I had these elderly Tunisians telling me, 'Well, Mr Zeffirelli wouldn't have done it like that, you know.'" Further location shooting also took place in Tunisia, at Sousse (Jerusalem outer walls and gateway), Carthage (Roman theatre) and Matmata (Sermon on the Mount and Crucifixion).


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Graham Chapman, suffering from alcoholism, was so determined to play the lead role – at one point coveted by Cleese – that he dried out in time for filming, so much so that he also acted as the on-set doctor.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Following shooting between 16 September and 12 November 1978, a two-hour rough cut of the film was put together for its first private showing in January 1979. Over the next few months "Life of Brian" was re-edited and re-screened a number of times for different preview audiences, losing a number of entire filmed sequences.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: A number of scenes were cut during the editing process. Five deleted scenes, a total of 13 minutes, including the controversial "Otto", were first made available in 1997 on the Criterion Collection Laserdisc. An unknown amount of raw footage was destroyed in 1998 by the company that bought Handmade Films. However, a number of them (of varying quality) were shown the following year on the Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK. The scenes shown included three shepherds discussing sheep and completely missing the arrival of the angel heralding Jesus's birth, which would have been at the very start of the film; a segment showing the attempted kidnap of Pilate's wife (a large woman played by John Case) whose escape results in a fistfight; a scene introducing hardline Zionist Otto, leader of the Judean People's Front (played by Eric Idle) and his men who practise a suicide run in the courtyard; and a brief scene in which Judith releases some birds into the air in an attempt to summon help. The shepherds' scene has badly distorted sound, and the kidnap scene has poor colour quality. The same scenes that were on the Criterion laserdisc can now be found on the Criterion Collection DVD.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The most controversial cuts were the scenes involving Otto, initially a recurring character, who had a thin Adolf Hitler moustache and spoke with a German accent, shouting accusations of "racial impurity" at Judeans who were conceived (as Brian was) when their mothers were raped by Roman centurions, as well as other Nazi phrases. The logo of the Judean People's Front, designed by Terry Gilliam, was a Star of David with a small line added to each point so it resembled a swastika, most familiar in the West as the symbol of the anti-Semitic Nazi movement. The rest of this faction also all had the same thin moustaches, and wore a spike on their helmets, similar to those on Imperial German helmets. The official reason for the cutting was that Otto's dialogue slowed down the narrative. However, Gilliam, writing in "The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons", said he thought it should have stayed, saying "Listen, we've alienated the Christians, let's get the Jews now." Idle himself was said to have been uncomfortable with the character; "It's essentially a pretty savage attack on rabid Zionism, suggesting it's rather akin to Nazism, which is a bit strong to take, but certainly a point of view." Michael Palin's personal journal entries from the period when various edits of "Brian" were being test-screened consistently reference the Pythons' and filmmakers' concerns that the Otto scenes were slowing the story down and thus were top of the list to be chopped from the final cut of the film. However, Oxford Brookes University historian David Nash says the removal of the scene represented "a form of self-censorship" and the Otto sequence "which involved a character representative of extreme forms of Zionism" was cut "in the interests of smoothing the way for the film's distribution in America."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The only scene with Otto that remains in the film is during the crucifixion sequence. Otto arrives with his "crack suicide squad", sending the Roman soldiers fleeing in terror. Instead of doing anything useful, they "attack" by committing mass suicide in front of the cross ("Zat showed 'em, huh?" says the dying Otto, to which Brian despondently replies "You silly sods!"), ending Brian's hope of rescue (they do however show some signs of life during the famous rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" when they are seen waving their toes in unison in time to the music). Terry Jones once mentioned that the only reason this excerpt was not cut too was due to continuity reasons, as their dead bodies were very prominently placed throughout the rest of the scene. He acknowledged that some of the humour of this sole remaining contribution was lost through the earlier edits, but felt they were necessary to the overall pacing.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Otto's scenes, and those with Pilate's wife, were cut from the film after the script had gone to the publishers, and so they can be found in the published version of the script. Also present is a scene where, after Brian has led the Fifth Legion to the headquarters of the People's Front of Judea, Reg (John Cleese) says "You cunt!! You stupid, bird-brained, flat-headed..." The profanity was overdubbed to "you klutz" before the film was released. Cleese approved of this editing as he felt the reaction to the profanity would "get in the way of the comedy."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: An early listing of the sequence of sketches reprinted in "Monty Python: The Case Against" by Robert Hewison reveals that the film was to have begun with a set of sketches at an English public school. Much of this material was first printed in the "Monty Python's The Life of Brian / Monty Python Scrapbook" that accompanied the original script publication of "The Life of Brian" and then subsequently reused. The song "All Things Dull and Ugly" and the parody scripture reading "Martyrdom of St. Victor" were performed on "Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album" (1980). The idea of a violent rugby match between school masters and small boys was filmed in "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" (1983). A sketch about a boy who dies at school appeared on the unreleased "The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album" (1981).


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: An album was also released by Monty Python in 1979 in conjunction with the film. In addition to the "Brian Song" and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", it contains scenes from the film with brief linking sections performed by Eric Idle and Graham Chapman. The album opens with a brief rendition of "Hava Nagila" on Scottish bagpipes. A CD version was released in 1997.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: An album of the songs sung in "Monty Python's Life of Brian" was released on the Disky label. "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was later re-released with great success, after being sung by British football fans. Its popularity became truly evident in 1982 during the Falklands War when sailors aboard the destroyer HMS "Sheffield", severely damaged in an Argentinean Exocet missile attack on 4 May, started singing it while awaiting rescue. Many people have come to see the song as a life-affirming ode to optimism. One of its more famous renditions was by the dignitaries of Manchester's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, just after they were awarded to Sydney. Idle later performed the song as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" is also featured in Eric Idle's "Spamalot", a Broadway musical based upon "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and was sung by the rest of the Monty Python group at Graham Chapman's memorial service and at the "Monty Python Live At Aspen" special. The song is a staple at Iron Maiden concerts, where the recording is played after the final encore.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: For the original British and Australian releases, a spoof travelogue narrated by John Cleese, "Away From It All", was shown before the film itself. It consisted mostly of stock travelogue footage and featured arch comments from Cleese. For instance, a shot of Bulgarian girls in ceremonial dresses was accompanied by the comment "Hard to believe, isn't it, that these simple happy folk are dedicated to the destruction of Western Civilisation as we know it!", Communist Bulgaria being a member of the Warsaw Pact at the time. Not only was this a spoof of travelogues "per se", it was a protest against the then common practice in Britain of showing cheaply made banal short features before a main feature.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: "Life of Brian" opened on 17 August 1979 in five North American theatres and grossed US$140,034 ($28,007 per screen) in its opening weekend. Its total gross was $19,398,164. It was the highest grossing British film in North America that year. Released on 8 November 1979 in the UK, the film was the fourth highest-grossing film in Britain in 1979. In London, it opened at the Plaza cinema and grossed £40,470 in its opening week.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: On 30 April 2004, "Life of Brian" was re-released on five North American screens to "cash in" (as Terry Jones put it) on the box office success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". It grossed $26,376 ($5,275 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ran until October 2004, playing at 28 screens at its widest point, eventually grossing $646,124 during its re-release. By comparison, a re-release of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" had earned $1.8 million three years earlier. A DVD of the film was also released that year.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Reviews from critics were mostly positive on the film's release. Movie historian Leonard Maltin reported that "This will probably offend every creed and denomination equally, but it shouldn't. The funniest and most sustained feature from Britain's bad boys." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called the film "the foulest-spoken biblical epic ever made, as well as the best-humored—a nonstop orgy of assaults, not on anyone's virtue, but on the funny bone. It makes no difference that some of the routines fall flat because there are always others coming along immediately after that succeed." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing, "What's endearing about the Pythons is their good cheer, their irreverence, their willingness to allow comic situations to develop through a gradual accumulation of small insanities." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film three and a half stars, calling it "a gentle but very funny parody of the life of Jesus, as well as of biblical movies." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" declared, "Even those of us who find Monty Python too hit-and-miss and gory must admit that its latest effort has numerous moments of hilarity." Clyde Jeavons of "The Monthly Film Bulletin" wrote that the script was "occasionally over-raucous and crude," but found the second half of the film "cumulatively hilarious," with "a splendidly tasteless finale, which even Mel Brooks might envy." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" had a negative opinion of the film, writing that it was "a cruel fiction to foster the delusion that 'Brian' is bristling with blasphemous nifties and throbbing with impious wit. If only it were! One might find it easier to keep from nodding off."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Over time, "Life of Brian" has regularly been cited as a significant contender for the title "greatest comedy film of all time", and has been named as such in polls conducted by "Total Film" magazine in 2000, the British TV network Channel 4 where it topped the poll in the 50 Greatest Comedy Films, and "The Guardian" in 2007. Rotten Tomatoes lists it as one of the best reviewed comedies, with a 96% approval rating from 67 published reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. Its critical consensus reads, "One of the more cutting-edge films of the 1970s, this religious farce from the classic comedy troupe is as poignant as it is funny and satirical."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In 1999 the BFI declared "Life of Brian" to be the 28th best British film of all time. It was the seventh highest ranking comedy on this list (four of the better placed efforts were classic Ealing Films). Another Channel 4 poll in 2001 named it the 23rd greatest film of all time (the only comedy that came higher was Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot", which was ranked 5th). A 2011 poll by "Time Out" magazine ranked it as the third greatest comedy film ever made, behind "Airplane!" and "This is Spinal Tap". In 2016, "Empire" magazine ranked "Life of Brian" 2nd in their list of the 100 best British films, with only David Lean’s "Lawrence of Arabia" ranking higher.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Various polls have voted the line, "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!" (spoken by Brian's mother Mandy to the crowd assembled outside her house), to be the funniest in film history. Other famous lines from the film have featured in polls, such as, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" and "I'm Brian and so's my wife".


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Richard Webster comments in "A Brief History of Blasphemy" (1990) that "internalised censorship played a significant role in the handling" of "Monty Python's Life of Brian". In his view, "As a satire on religion, this film might well be considered a rather slight production. As blasphemy it was, even in its original version, extremely mild. Yet the film was surrounded from its inception by intense anxiety, in some quarters of the Establishment, about the offence it might cause. As a result it gained a certificate for general release only after some cuts had been made. Perhaps more importantly still, the film was shunned by the BBC and ITV, who declined to show it for fear of offending Christians in the UK. Once again a blasphemy was restrained – or its circulation effectively curtailed – not by the force of law but by the internalisation of this law." On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils – some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film. A member of Harrogate council, one of those that banned the film, revealed during a television interview that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by the Nationwide Festival of Light, a grouping with an evangelical Christian base, of which they knew nothing.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In New York (the film's release in the US preceded British distribution), screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns ("Nuns with banners!" observed Michael Palin). It was also banned for eight years in Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as "The film so funny that it was banned in Norway"). During the film's theatrical run in Finland, a text explaining that the film was a parody of Hollywood historical epics was added to the opening credits.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In the UK, Mary Whitehouse, and other traditionalist Christians, pamphleteered and picketed locations where the local cinema was screening the film, a campaign that was felt to have boosted publicity. Leaflets arguing against the film's representation of the New Testament (for example, suggesting that the Wise Men would not have approached the wrong stable as they do in the opening of the film) were documented in Robert Hewison's book "Monty Python: The Case Against".


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: One of the most controversial scenes was the film's ending: Brian's crucifixion. Many Christian protesters said that it was mocking Jesus' suffering by turning it into a "Jolly Boys Outing" (such as when Mr Cheeky turns to Brian and says: "See, not so bad once you're up!"), capped by Brian's fellow sufferers suddenly bursting into song. This is reinforced by the fact that several characters throughout the film claim crucifixion is not as bad as it seems. For example, when Brian asks his cellmate in prison what will happen to him, he replies: "Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion". In another example, Matthias, an old man who works with the People's Front of Judea, dismisses crucifixion as "a doddle" and says being stabbed would be worse.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The director, Terry Jones, issued the following response to this criticism: "Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly." The Pythons also pointed out that crucifixion was a standard form of execution in ancient times and not just one especially reserved for Jesus.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Shortly after the film was released, Cleese and Palin engaged in a debate on the BBC2 discussion programme "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" with Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark, who put forward arguments against the film. Muggeridge and Stockwood, it was later claimed, had arrived 15 minutes late to see a screening of the picture prior to the debate, missing the establishing scenes demonstrating that Brian and Jesus were two different characters, and hence contended that it was a send-up of Christ himself. Both Pythons later felt that there had been a strange role reversal in the manner of the debate, with two young upstart comedians attempting to make serious, well-researched points, while the Establishment figures engaged in cheap jibes and point scoring. They also expressed disappointment in Muggeridge, whom all in Python had previously respected as a satirist (he had recently converted to Christianity after meeting Mother Teresa and experiencing what he described as a miracle). Cleese stated that his reputation had "plummeted" in his eyes, while Palin commented, "He was just being Muggeridge, preferring to have a very strong contrary opinion as opposed to none at all." Muggeridge's verdict on the film was that it was "Such a tenth-rate film that it couldn't possibly destroy anyone's genuine faith." In a 2013 interview on BBC Radio 4, Cleese stated that having recently watched the discussion again he "was astonished, first of all, at how stupid [the two members of the Church] were, and how boring the debate became". He added: "I think the sad thing was that there was absolutely no attempt at a proper discussion – no attempt to find any common ground."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The Pythons unanimously deny that they were ever out to destroy people's faith. On the DVD audio commentary, they contend that the film is heretical because it lampoons the practices of modern organised religion, but that it does not blasphemously lampoon the God that Christians and Jews worship. When Jesus does appear in the film (on the Mount, speaking the Beatitudes), he is played straight (by actor Kenneth Colley) and portrayed with respect. The music and lighting make it clear that there is a genuine aura around him. The comedy begins when members of the crowd mishear his statements of peace, love and tolerance ("I think he said, 'blessed are the cheese makers'"). Importantly, he is distinct from the character of Brian, which is also evident in the scene where an annoying and ungrateful ex-leper pesters Brian for money, while moaning that since Jesus cured him, he has lost his source of income in the begging trade (referring to Jesus as a "bloody do-gooder").


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: James Crossley, however, has argued that the film makes the distinction between Jesus and the character of Brian to make a contrast between the traditional Christ of both faith and cinema and the historical figure of Jesus in critical scholarship and how critical scholars have argued that ideas later got attributed to Jesus by his followers. Crossley points out that the film uses the character of Brian to address a number of potentially controversial scholarly theories about Jesus, such as the Messianic Secret, the Jewishness of Jesus, Jesus the revolutionary, and having a single mother.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Not all the Pythons agree on the definition of the movie's tone. There was a brief exchange that occurred when the surviving members reunited in Aspen, Colorado, in 1998. In the section where "Life of Brian" is discussed, the following dialogue ensued:


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In a later interview, Jones said the film "isn't blasphemous because it doesn’t touch on belief at all. It is heretical, because it touches on dogma and the interpretation of belief, rather than belief itself."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The film continues to cause controversy; in February 2007, the Church of St Thomas the Martyr in Newcastle upon Tyne held a public screening in the church itself, with song-sheets, organ accompaniment, stewards in costume and false beards for female members of the audience (alluding to an early scene where a group of women disguise themselves as men so that they are able to take part in a stoning). Although the screening was a sell-out, some Christian groups, notably the conservative Christian Voice, were highly critical of the decision to allow the screening to go ahead. Stephen Green, the head of Christian Voice, insisted that "You don't promote Christ to the community by taking the mick out of him." The Reverend Jonathan Adams, one of the church's clergy, defended his taste in comedy, saying that it did not mock Jesus, and that it raised important issues about the hypocrisy and stupidity that can affect religion. Again on the film's DVD commentary, Cleese also spoke up for religious people who have come forward and congratulated him and his colleagues on the film's highlighting of double standards among purported followers of their own faith.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Some bans continued into the 21st century. In 2008, Torbay Council finally permitted the film to be shown after it won an online vote for the English Riviera International Comedy Film Festival. In 2009, it was announced that a thirty-year-old ban of the film in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth had finally been lifted, and the subsequent showing was attended by Terry Jones and Michael Palin alongside mayor Sue Jones-Davies (who portrayed Judith Iscariot in the film). However, before the showing, an Aberystwyth University student discovered that a ban had only been discussed by the council and in fact that it had been shown (or scheduled to be shown) at a cinema in the town in 1981. In 2013, a German official in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia considered the film to be possibly offensive to Christians and hence subject to a local regulation prohibiting its public screening on Good Friday, despite protests by local atheists.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The film pokes fun at revolutionary groups and 1970s British left-wing politics. According to Roger Wilmut, "What the film does do is place modern stereotypes in a historical setting, which enables it to indulge in a number of sharp digs, particularly at trade unionists and guerilla organisations". The groups in the film all oppose the Roman occupation of Judea, but fall into the familiar pattern of intense competition among factions that appears, to an outsider, to be over ideological distinctions so small as to be invisible, thus portraying the phenomenon of the narcissism of small differences. Such disunity indeed fatally beleaguered real-life Judean resistance against Roman rule. Michael Palin says that the various separatist movements were modelled on "modern resistance groups, all with obscure acronyms which they can never remember and their conflicting agendas".


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The People's Front of Judea, composed of the Pythons' characters, harangue their "rivals" with cries of "splitters" and stand vehemently opposed to the Judean People's Front, the Judean People's Popular Front, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the Popular Front of Judea (the last composed of a single old man, mocking the size of real revolutionary Trotskyist factions). The infighting among revolutionary organisations is demonstrated most dramatically when the PFJ attempts to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife, but encounters agents of the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the two factions begin a violent brawl over which of them conceived of the plan first. When Brian exhorts them to cease their fighting to struggle "against the common enemy," the revolutionaries stop and cry in unison, "the Judean People's Front!" However, they soon resume their fighting and, with two Roman legionaries watching bemusedly, continue until Brian is left the only survivor, at which point he is captured.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Other scenes have the freedom fighters wasting time in debate, with one of the debated items being that they should not waste their time debating so much. There is also a famous scene in which Reg gives a revolutionary speech asking, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" at which point the listeners outline all forms of positive aspects of the Roman occupation such as sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace, followed by "what have the Romans ever done for us except sanitation, medicine, education...". Python biographer George Perry notes, "The People's Liberation Front of Judea conducts its meetings as though they have been convened by a group of shop stewards". This joke is the reverse of a similar conversation recorded in the Babylonian Talmud; some authors have even suggested the joke is based on the Talmudic text.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The depictions of Jesus in two short scenes at the start of the film are strongly based on Christian iconography. The resistance fighters leave the Sermon on the Mount, which was a literal recital, angry because Jesus was too pacifistic for them. ("Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo…") In addition to the respectful depiction of Jesus, the film does not state that there is no God or that Jesus is not the son of God. The appearance of a leper, who says he was healed by Jesus, is in line with the Gospels and their reports about Jesus performing miracles.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Any direct reference to Jesus disappears after the introductory scenes, yet his life story partially acts as a framework and subtext for the story of Brian. Brian being a bastard of a Roman centurion could refer to the polemic legend that Jesus was the son of the Roman soldier Panthera. Disguised as a prophet, Brian talks about "the lilies on the field" and states more clearly, "Don't pass judgment on other people or else you might get judged yourself": Brian incoherently repeats statements he heard from Jesus.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Another significant figure in the film who is named in the Gospels is Pontius Pilate, who is humorously given rhotacism. Although there is a hint to Barabbas prior to the crucifixion, no character in "Life of Brian" bears any resemblances to Judas or Caiaphas. An anti-Semitic interpretation of the story is therefore excluded, according to scholars. The crucifixion scene, a central part of Christian iconography, is viewed from a historical context within the narrative style of the film. It depicts historically accurate enactment of a routinely done mass crucifixion.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: The intended subject of the satire was not Jesus and his teachings but religious dogmatism, according to film theorists and statements from Monty Python. This is made clear in the beginning of the film during the Sermon on the Mount. Not only do the poor acoustics make it more difficult to hear what Jesus says, but the audience fails to interpret what was said correctly and sensibly. When Jesus said, "blessed are the peacemakers", the audience understands the phonetically similar word "Cheesemakers" and in turn interpret it as a metaphor and beatification of those who produce dairy products.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: "Life of Brian" satirises, in the words of David Hume, the "strong propensity of mankind to [believe in] the extraordinary and the marvellous". When Brian cuts his sermon short and turns away from the crowd, they mistake his behaviour as not wanting to share the secret to eternal life and follow him everywhere. In their need to submit to an authority, the crowd declares him first a prophet and eventually a messiah. The faithful gather beneath Brian's window en masse to receive God's blessing. This is when Brian utters the main message of the film "you don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves!" Monty Python saw this central message of the satire confirmed with the protests of practising Christians after the film was released.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: According to Terry Jones, "Life of Brian" "is not blasphemy but heresy", because Brian contested the authority of the Church whereas the belief in God remained untouched. He goes on to mention that "Christ [is] saying all of these wonderful things about people living together in peace and love, and then for the next two thousand years people are putting each other to death in His name because they can't agree on how He said it, or in what order He said it." The dispute among the followers about the correct interpretation of a sandal, which Brian lost, is in the words of Terry Jones the "history of the Church in three minutes." Kevin Shilbrack shares the view that you can enjoy the movie and still be religious.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: For the most part, lost in the religious controversy was the film's mockery of factional dogmatism among left-wing parties. According to John Cleese, an almost unmanageable number of left-wing organisations and parties was formed back then in the United Kingdom. He said that it had been so important to each of them to have one pure doctrine that they would rather fight each other than their political opponent. In the film, rather than presenting a common front as their organisational names should imply, the leader of the People's Front of Judea makes it clear that their hate for the Judean Peoples's Front is greater than their hate for the Romans. They are so caught up in constant debates that the "rather looney bunch of revolutionaries" indirectly accept the occupying forces as well as their execution methods as a fate they all have to endure. So, in the end, even though they have ample opportunity to rescue Brian, they instead leave Brian on the cross, thanking him for his sacrifice.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Hardly mentioned in the discussion was the sideswipe at the women's movement, which started to draw a lot of attention in the 1970s. In accordance with the language of political activists, resistance fighter Stan wants to exercise "his right as a man" to be a woman. The group accepts him from that moment on as Loretta, because the right to give birth was not theirs to take. Also as a result from that, the term sibling replaces the terms brother or sister.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: One of the most commented-upon scenes in the film is when Brian tells his followers that they are all individuals and don’t need to follow anybody. According to Edward Slowik, this is a rare moment in which Monty Python puts a philosophical concept into words so openly and directly. "Life of Brian" accurately depicts the existentialist view that everybody needs to give meaning to their own life.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Brian can thus be called an existentialist following the tradition of Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre. He is honest to himself and others and lives as authentic a life as he can. However, Brian is too naïve to be called a hero based on the ideas of Albert Camus. For Camus, the search for the meaning of one's own life takes place in a deeply meaningless and abstruse world. The "absurd hero" rebels against this meaninglessness and at the same time holds on to their goals, although they know their fight leaves no impact in the long run. Contrary to that, Brian isn’t able to recognize the meaninglessness of his own situation and therefore can’t triumph over it.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In "Monty Python and Philosophy", Kevin Shilbrack states that the fundamental view of the film is that the world is absurd, and every life needs to be lived without a greater meaning. He points out that the second-last verse of the song the film finishes on, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", expresses this message clearly:


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Shilbrack concludes that the finale shows that the executions had no purpose since the deaths were meaningless and no better world was waiting for them. On this note, some people would claim that the film presents a nihilistic world view which contradicts any basis of religion. However, "Life of Brian" offers humour to counterbalance the nihilism, Shilbrack states in his text. He comments that "religion and humour are compatible with each other and you should laugh about the absurdity since you can't fight it."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Spin-offs include a script-book "The Life of Brian of Nazareth", which was printed back-to-back with "MONTYPYTHONSCRAPBOOK" as a single book. The printing of this book also caused problems, due to rarely used laws in the United Kingdom against blasphemy, dictating what can and cannot be written about religion. The publisher refused to print both halves of the book, and original prints were by two companies.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Julian Doyle, the film's editor, wrote "The Life of Brian/Jesus", a book which not only describes the filmmaking and editing process but argues that it is the most accurate Biblical film ever made. In October 2008, a memoir by Kim "Howard" Johnson titled "Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday: My Life with Brian" was released. Johnson became friendly with the Pythons during the filming of "Life of Brian" and his notes and memories of the behind-the-scenes filming and make-up.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: With the success of Eric Idle's musical retelling of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", called "Spamalot", Idle announced that he would be giving "Life of Brian" a similar treatment. The oratorio, called "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)", was commissioned to be part of the festival called Luminato in Toronto in June 2007, and was written/scored by Idle and John Du Prez, who also worked with Idle on "Spamalot". "Not the Messiah" is a spoof of Handel's "Messiah". It runs approximately 50 minutes, and was conducted at its world premiere by Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian, who is Idle's cousin. "Not the Messiah" received its US premiere at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York. Oundjian and Idle joined forces once again for a double performance of the oratorio in July 2007.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In October 2011, BBC Four premiered the made-for-television comedy film "Holy Flying Circus", written by Tony Roche and directed by Owen Harris. The "Pythonesque" film explores the events surrounding the 1979 television debate on talk show "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" between John Cleese and Michael Palin and Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, then Bishop of Southwark.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: In a "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch, a bishop who has directed a scandalous film called "The Life of Christ" is hauled over the coals by a representative of the "Church of Python", claiming that the film is an attack on "Our Lord, John Cleese" and on the members of Python, who, in the sketch, are the objects of Britain's true religious faith. This was a parody of the infamous "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" programme, broadcast a week previously. The bishop (played by Rowan Atkinson) claims that the reaction to the film has surprised him, as he "didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition."


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Radio host John Williams of Chicago's WGN 720 AM has used "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" in a segment of his Friday shows. The segment is used to highlight good events from the past week in listeners' lives and what has made them smile. In the 1997 film "As Good as It Gets", the misanthropic character played by Jack Nicholson sings "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" as evidence of the character's change in attitude.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: A BBC history series "What the Romans Did for Us", written and presented by Adam Hart-Davis and broadcast in 2000, takes its title from Cleese's rhetorical question "What have the Romans ever done for us?" in one of the film's scenes. (Cleese himself parodied this line in a 1986 BBC advert defending the Television Licence Fee: "What has the BBC ever given us?").


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his Prime Minister's Questions of 3 May 2006 made a shorthand reference to the types of political groups, "Judean People's Front" or "People's Front of Judea", lampooned in "Life of Brian". This was in response to a question from the Labour MP David Clelland, asking "What has the Labour government ever done for us?" – itself a parody of John Cleese's "What have the Romans ever done for us?"


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: On New Year's Day 2007, and again on New Year's Eve, UK television station Channel 4 dedicated an entire evening to the Monty Python phenomenon, during which an hour-long documentary was broadcast called "The Secret Life of Brian" about the making of "The Life of Brian" and the controversy that was caused by its release. The Pythons featured in the documentary and reflected upon the events that surrounded the film. This was followed by a screening of the film itself. The documentary (in a slightly extended form) was one of the special features on the 2007 DVD re-release – the "Immaculate Edition", also the first Python release on Blu-ray.


title: Monty Python's Life of Brian

text: Most recently, in June 2014 King's College London hosted an academic conference on the film, in which internationally renowned Biblical scholars and historians discussed the film and its reception, looking both at how the Pythons had made use of scholarship and texts, and how the film can be used creatively within modern scholarship on the Historical Jesus. In a panel discussion, including Terry Jones and theologian Richard Burridge, John Cleese described the event as "the most interesting thing to come out of Monty Python". The papers from the conference have gone on to prompt the publication of a book, edited by Joan E. Taylor, the conference organiser, "Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and His Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian", published by Bloomsbury in 2015.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Dawn Therese Brancheau ( LoVerde, April 16, 1969 – February 24, 2010) was an American senior animal trainer at SeaWorld. She worked with orcas at SeaWorld Orlando for fifteen years, including a leading role in revamping the "Shamu" show, and was SeaWorld's poster girl. She was killed by an orca, Tilikum. Tilikum was also involved in the deaths of two other people: Keltie Byrne and Daniel P. Dukes.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Brancheau was born Dawn Therese LoVerde in Cedar Lake, Indiana, and was the youngest of six children. She set her heart on becoming a "Shamu" trainer during a family vacation to Orlando. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with degrees in psychology and animal behavior. Away from work, she volunteered at a local animal shelter, looked after two chocolate Labradors, and kept a variety of stray ducks, chickens, rabbits, and small birds at her home.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Brancheau spent two years working with dolphins at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey before beginning her career at SeaWorld Orlando in 1994, initially working with otters and sea lions. In 1996, the same year she married Scott Brancheau, a SeaWorld stunt water skier, she started working with orcas.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: In 2000, she appeared on NBC affiliate WESH and talked about staying physically fit in order to deal with the intense rigor of working with orcas. She ran marathons, cycled, and lifted weights to stay in good shape. In 2006, her decade of work with orcas was profiled, including her leadership role in a two- to three-year revamp of the "Shamu" show. Brancheau acknowledged the dangers of working in close proximity to orcas. As a senior trainer, she appeared in various SeaWorld public performances for many years. The Shamu show's interaction of animal trainers with orcas was regarded as SeaWorld's star attraction.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: She was featured on SeaWorld billboards throughout Orlando. Judge and later Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a dissenting judge in a legal case involving her death (see below), stated that "To be fearless, courageous, tough – to perform a sport or activity at the highest levels of human capacity, even in the face of known physical risk – is among the greatest forms of personal achievement for many who take part in these activities."


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: On February 24, 2010, Brancheau performed a 'Dine with Shamu' show with Tilikum, the largest orca at SeaWorld Orlando. In this setting, guests ate at an open-air restaurant while watching the performance poolside as the orca performed and was fed. As part of the end-of-show routine, she was at the edge of the pool, rubbing Tilikum's head. She was lying with her face next to Tilikum's on a slide-out, which is a platform submerged about a foot into the water. She was pulled into the water by her left arm. The incident was caught on film. Some witnesses reported seeing Tilikum grab Brancheau by the ponytail or shoulder. The orca's move seems to have been very quick, pulling her underwater and drowning her. At least a dozen patrons witnessed Brancheau in the water with Tilikum. Employees used nets and threw food in the water in an attempt to distract him. Moving from pool to pool in the complex, they eventually directed Tilikum to a smaller, medical pool, where it would be easier to calm him. After approximately 45 minutes, Tilikum released Brancheau's body.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: The autopsy report said that Brancheau died from drowning and blunt force trauma. Her spinal cord was severed, and she had sustained fractures to her jawbone, ribs, and a cervical vertebra. Her scalp was completely torn off from her head, and her left elbow and left knee had been dislocated.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: No SeaWorld trainer entered a pool to perform a show with an orca following Brancheau's death. Immediately afterwards, SeaWorld disallowed trainers from being in the water with any orca. This internal, voluntary prohibition was similar to what had happened after some other injuries to animal trainers. Each time, the temporary pause was then lifted by SeaWorld. However, on this occasion, the ban was solidified by an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) intervention. This led SeaWorld to repeatedly seek the lifting of various aspects of OSHA's citations and rulings until 2014, when it accepted that further attempts to overturn OSHA were not feasible.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Brancheau and Alexis Martínez are the two SeaWorld trainers killed by an orca. Brancheau was the third fatality associated with Tilikum and the fourth by a captive orca. Since orcas were first placed in captivity in the 1960s, there have been more than 40 documented safety incidents, with dozens of trainers being seriously injured by various orcas. After a 2006 attack, an OSHA investigation in 2007 concluded that, "The continuing factors to the incident, in the simplest of terms, is that swimming with captive orcas is inherently dangerous, and if someone hasn't been killed already, it is only a matter of time before it does happen." SeaWorld successfully challenged the report, which OSHA agreed to withdraw.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: On Christmas Eve, 24 December 2009, two months before Brancheau's death, another SeaWorld-owned orca, Keto, killed a trainer, Alexis Martínez, at Loro Parque's "Orca Ocean" in the Canary Islands. Four SeaWorld orcas had been delivered by wide-body cargo plane in February 2006, and SeaWorld staff trained a group of Loro Parque trainers in San Antonio and Orlando. In September 2006, Brancheau had worked temporarily at Loro Parque and reportedly enjoyed working with Martínez. SeaWorld discontinued water work at its three parks for about a week immediately after Martínez's death.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: On August 23, 2010, SeaWorld was fined US$75,000 by OSHA for three safety violations, one directly related to Brancheau's death. OSHA maintained that SeaWorld "willfully" endangered its employees and stated that the company "(shows) Plain indifference to, or intentional disregard for, employee safety and health." SeaWorld issued a statement that called OSHA's findings "unfounded". SeaWorld challenged the OSHA fine and the safety report in legal proceedings, stating that "OSHA's allegations in this citation are unsupported by any evidence or precedent and reflect a fundamental lack of understanding of the safety requirements associated with marine mammal care." At a preliminary hearing in 2011, one of these citations was withdrawn by OSHA.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Subsequently, in late May 2012, Judge Ken S. Welsch formally sided with OSHA over SeaWorld's orca safety practices. Welsch was sharply critical of SeaWorld's assertion that it was unaware that working with orcas posed a hazard to employees. Welsch stated it is "implausible" and "difficult to reconcile" with comments repeatedly made by management and with the litany of trainer incidents and injuries that have occurred over the years. Welsch did, however, agree that the fine classification was too severe and had it downgraded – from "willful" (total of $75,000 for the 2 citations) to "serious" (total of $12,000) – stating that the company had emphasized trainer safety, even if the safety procedures weren't effective.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: The court made clear that while SeaWorld's expert, "Mr Andrews concludes his report by stating, 'My expert opinion is that SeaWorld can safely allow trainers to closely interact with killer whales, including waterwork, with the administrative and engineering controls that existed prior to February 24, 2010' (Exh. C-15, p. 10)," the court found otherwise: "As noted in the section addressing the recognized hazard, SeaWorld's own incident reports demonstrate that its safety program, either due to misplaced faith in operant conditioning or due to human error in implementing operant conditioning, exposes its trainers to the risks of death or serious physical injury." The court amplified this, aligning itself with the OSHA expert witness: "Dr. Duffus stated, '[T]he training program that SeaWorld uses is influential. It does work. My point is that it does not work all the time' (Tr. 911). The court agrees with Dr. Duffus. SeaWorld's training program is highly detailed, well-communicated, and intensive. Yet it cannot remove the element of unpredictability inherent in working with killer whales."


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Welsch made it clear that his ruling only applies "to the work trainers do during shows and not at other times, such as during medical procedures or 'relationship-building' sessions... As a custodian SeaWorld has an ethical duty to provide for the whales' needs... husbandry activities require a certain amount of contact between the trainers and whales... unlike performances, which can successfully continue without the trainers in the water." OSHA did state that it would accept other means of protection as long as it provided equal or greater safety as the physical barriers. SeaWorld looked at rising pool floors and "spare air" systems in an attempt to get their staff back in the water during shows. Given the court rulings, even after 2010, although water work during shows stopped, SeaWorld trainers still entered the water with orcas during "safety desensitization training" and for other care.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: SeaWorld filed a series of appeals, seeking to return to water performances. In 2012, a special Labor Department commission declined to hear the case. Since the "Shamu" show's interaction of animal trainers with orcas was seen as having been SeaWorld's star attraction, SeaWorld contended that it was fundamental to its business. In April 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a "petition for review", with later Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh being the sole judge to side with SeaWorld. In 2015, SeaWorld was cited again, in San Diego, for not adequately protecting orca trainers.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Although Brancheau's widower, Scott Brancheau, hired a Chicago law firm that specializes in wrongful-death litigation, he has not taken any legal action against SeaWorld.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Brancheau's death is a focus of the documentary "Blackfish", which criticizes keeping orcas in captivity, and her death awakened a national conversation about the issue. The director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, argued that the claim that the orca had targeted Brancheau because she had worn her hair in a long ponytail was conjecture and that "there had to be more to this story".


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Her family has said they are grateful that the film has brought attention to the issue of animal welfare. However, they also added that ""Blackfish" is not Dawn's story" and that "Since Dawn's death in 2010, the media has focused mainly on the whales. A human life was lost that day, and it feels as though some believe her death was just a footnote."


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Brancheau's death has been seen as a factor in starting a trajectory of recalibration for SeaWorld. In addition to the impact of OSHA-imposed safety-based abatements of previous work practices to prevent further similar events, Cowperthwaite began working on "Blackfish" in 2010 following Brancheau's death, initially having questions about SeaWorld's "ponytail hypothesis". Cowperthwaite's background research suggested to her that there were problems with keeping captive orcas; SeaWorld disagreed, characterizing the film as propaganda.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: After its release in 2013, the film awakened a national dialogue about the issue. SeaWorld struggled with the effect of "Blackfish" on public perception, and there were some cancellations by music performers who had planned to hold shows at SeaWorld. SeaWorld transitioned to being a publicly traded company in 2013.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Lawmakers in California and the US House of Representatives proposed legislation to phase out orca captivity, and the California Coastal Commission moved in 2015 to ban orca breeding. In March of 2016, SeaWorld announced it was discontinuing its program of breeding captive orcas and was partnering with the Humane Society of the United States to work against commercial whaling and seal hunts, shark finning, and ocean pollution and increase its focus on rescue operations.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: In 2011, Florida passed Statute 406.136, which provides for confidentiality of media obtained by public agencies that depicts or records the killing of a person. The law was partly a response to the circumstances of Brancheau's death.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: Local government investigators and OSHA had obtained SeaWorld's video surveillance footage, which captured her death, as well as photographs, which showed the effects of the attack. News organizations tried to obtain these media items as records in public custody, but her family expressed privacy considerations and sought to limit "voyeuristic gawking".


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: On behalf of the family, Mills argued in court that disclosure of media by state agencies is equivalent to dissemination, based on the Nikki Catsouras photographs case, in which retrospective attempts to limit public access have not been fully successful. The confidentiality considerations turn on issues that resemble those in the case of the murder of Meredith Emerson in Georgia; the laws that Georgia and Florida enacted in response to these situations are similar.


title: Dawn Brancheau

text: The Dawn Brancheau Foundation was created by her family in Brancheau's honor. The foundation is "dedicated to improving the lives of children and animals in need, inspiring others to follow their dreams, and promoting the importance of community service".


title: Omar Bradley

text: Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893April 8, 1981) was a senior officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army. Bradley was the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the U.S. military's policy-making in the Korean War.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Born in Randolph County, Missouri, Bradley worked as a boilermaker before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from the academy in 1915 alongside Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of "the class the stars fell on." During World War I, Bradley guarded copper mines in Montana. After the war, Bradley taught at West Point and served in other roles before taking a position at the War Department under General George Marshall. In 1941, Bradley became commander of the United States Army Infantry School.


title: Omar Bradley

text: After the U.S. entrance into World War II, Bradley oversaw the transformation of the 82nd Infantry Division into the first American airborne division. He received his first front-line command in Operation Torch, serving under General George S. Patton in North Africa. After Patton was reassigned, Bradley commanded II Corps in the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Sicily. He commanded the First United States Army during the Invasion of Normandy. After the breakout from Normandy, he took command of the Twelfth United States Army Group, which ultimately comprised forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a single field commander.


title: Omar Bradley

text: After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration. He was appointed as Chief of Staff of the United States Army in 1948 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949. In 1950, Bradley was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, becoming the last of the nine individuals promoted to five-star rank in the United States Armed Forces. He was the senior military commander at the start of the Korean War, and supported President Harry S. Truman's wartime policy of containment. He was instrumental in persuading Truman to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur in 1951 after MacArthur resisted administration attempts to scale back the war's strategic objectives. Bradley left active duty in 1953 (although remaining on "active retirement" for the next 27 years). He continued to serve in public and business roles until his death in 1981 at age 88.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Omar Nelson Bradley, the son of schoolteacher John Smith Bradley (1868–1908) and his wife Mary Elizabeth (née Hubbard) (1875–1931), was born into poverty in rural Randolph County, Missouri, near Moberly. Bradley was named after Omar D. Gray, a local newspaper editor admired by his father, and a local physician, Dr. James Nelson. He was of British ancestry, his ancestors having emigrated from Great Britain to Kentucky in the mid-1700s. He attended at least eight country schools where his father taught. The elder Bradley never earned more than $40 a month in his lifetime, while he taught school and sharecropped, the latter with the aid of all the family. They never owned a wagon, horse, or a mule. When Omar was 15, his father died. The youth credited his father with passing on to him his love of books, baseball and shooting.


title: Omar Bradley

text: His mother moved with him to Moberly, where she remarried. Bradley graduated from Moberly High School in 1910. He was an outstanding student and athlete who was chosen captain of both the baseball and track teams.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley was working as a 17-cents-an-hour boilermaker at the Wabash Railroad when he was encouraged by his Sunday school teacher at Central Christian Church in Moberly to take the entrance examination for the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. Bradley had been saving his money to enter the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he intended to study law. He finished second in the West Point placement exams, held at Jefferson Barracks Military Post in St. Louis, Missouri. The first-place winner was unable to accept the Congressional appointment, however, and the nomination was passed to Bradley in August 1911.


title: Omar Bradley

text: While Bradley was attending the academy, his devotion to sports prevented him from excelling academically; but he still ranked 44th in a class of 164. He was a baseball star and often played on semi-pro teams for no remuneration (to ensure his eligibility as an amateur to represent the academy). He was considered one of the most outstanding college players in the nation during his junior and senior seasons at West Point, noted as both a power hitter and an outfielder, with one of the best arms in his day. He rejected multiple offers to play professional baseball, choosing to pursue his Army career.


title: Omar Bradley

text: While stationed at West Point as an instructor, in 1923 Bradley became a Freemason. He became a member of the West Point Lodge #877, Highland Falls, New York and continued with them until his death.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley married Mary Quayle, who had grown up across the street from him in Moberly. Her father, the town's popular police chief, had died when she was young. The pair attended Central Christian Church and Moberly High School together. On the cover of the 1910 Moberly High School yearbook, "The Salutar," they were shown across from each other, although they did not date during those years. His picture bore the description "calculative" and hers "linguistic." She earned a college degree in education.


title: Omar Bradley

text: At West Point, Bradley played three years of varsity baseball including the 1914 team. Every player on that team who remained in the army ultimately became a general. Bradley graduated from West Point in 1915 as part of a class that produced many future generals, and which military historians have called "the class the stars fell on". Bradley's Cullum Number is 5356. There were ultimately 59 general officers in that graduating class, among whom Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower attained the rank of General of the Army. Eisenhower was elected in 1952 in a landslide victory as 34th President of the United States. Among the numerous others who became generals were Joseph T. McNarney, Henry Aurand, James Van Fleet, Stafford LeRoy Irwin, John W. Leonard, Joseph May Swing, Paul J. Mueller, Charles W. Ryder, Leland Hobbs, Vernon Prichard, John B. Wogan, Roscoe B. Woodruff, John French Conklin, Walter W. Hess, and Edwin A. Zundel.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Infantry Branch of the United States Army and was first assigned to the 14th Infantry Regiment. He served on the Mexico–United States border in 1915, defending it from incursions due to the Mexican civil war. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917 (see the American entry into World War I), he was promoted to captain and sent to guard the Butte, Montana copper mines, considered of strategic importance. Bradley, who was assigned to command the second battalion of the 14th Infantry, joined the 19th Division in August 1918, which was scheduled for European deployment, but the influenza pandemic and the armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918, that fall intervened.


title: Omar Bradley

text: From September 1919 until September 1920, Bradley served as assistant professor of military science at South Dakota State College (now University) in Brookings, South Dakota.


title: Omar Bradley

text: During the difficult period between the wars, he taught and studied. From 1920 to 1924, Bradley taught mathematics at West Point. He was promoted to major in 1924 and took the advanced infantry course at Fort Benning, Georgia. After brief duty in Hawaii, Bradley was selected to study at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1928–29. Upon graduating, he served as an instructor in tactics at the U.S. Army Infantry School. While Bradley was serving in this assignment, the school's assistant commandant, Lieutenant Colonel George C. Marshall, described Bradley as "quiet, unassuming, capable, with sound common sense. Absolute dependability. Give him a job and forget it."


title: Omar Bradley

text: From 1929, Bradley taught again at West Point, studying at the U.S. Army War College in 1934. Bradley was promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 26, 1936 and worked at the War Department; after 1938 he was directly reporting to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Marshall.


title: Omar Bradley

text: On February 20, 1941, Bradley was promoted to the (wartime) temporary rank of brigadier general (bypassing the rank of colonel.) (This rank was made permanent by the Army in September 1943). The temporary rank was conferred to allow him to command the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia (he was among the first from his class to reach even a temporary rank of general officer; first was his West Point classmate Luis Esteves, who was promoted Brigadier general in October 1940).


title: Omar Bradley

text: Almost a year later, on February 15, 1942, over two months after the American entry into World War II, Bradley was made a temporary major general (a rank made permanent in September 1944) and soon took command of the 82nd Infantry Division (soon to be redesignated as the 82nd Airborne Division) before succeeding Major General James Garesche Ord as commander of the 28th Infantry Division in June.


title: Omar Bradley

text: The Louisiana Maneuvers were a series of U.S. Army exercises held around Northern and Western-Central Louisiana, including Fort Polk, Camp Claiborne and Camp Livingston, in 1940 and 1941. The exercises, which involved some 400,000 troops, were designed to evaluate U.S. training, logistics, doctrine, and commanders. Overall, headquarters were in the Bentley Hotel in Alexandria.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Many Army officers present at the maneuvers later rose to very senior roles in World War II, including Bradley, Mark Clark, Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Krueger, Lesley J. McNair and George Patton.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Lieutenant Colonel Bradley was assigned to General Headquarters during the Louisiana Maneuvers but as a courier and observer in the field, he gained invaluable experience for the future. Colonel Bradley assisted in the planning of the maneuvers, and kept the General Staff in Washington, D.C. abreast of the training that was occurring during the Louisiana Maneuvers.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley later said that Louisianans welcomed the soldiers with open arms. Some soldiers even slept in some of the residents' houses. Bradley said it was so crowded in those houses sometimes when the soldiers were sleeping, there would hardly be any walking room. Bradley also said a few of the troops were disrespectful towards the residents' land and crops, and would tear down crops for extra food. However, for the most part, residents and soldiers established good relations.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley's personal experiences in the war are documented in his award-winning book "A Soldier's Story," published by Henry Holt & Co. in 1951. It was re-released by The Modern Library in 1999. The book is based on an extensive diary maintained by his aide de camp, Chester B. Hansen, who ghost wrote the book using that diary. Hansen's diary is maintained by the U. S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle Barracks, PA.


title: Omar Bradley

text: On March 25, 1942, Bradley, recently promoted to major general, assumed command of the newly activated 82nd Infantry Division. Bradley oversaw the division's transformation into the first American airborne division and took parachute training. In August the division was re-designated as the 82nd Airborne Division and Bradley relinquished command to Major General Matthew Ridgway, who had been his assistant division commander (ADC).


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley then took command of the 28th Infantry Division, which was a National Guard division with soldiers mostly from the state of Pennsylvania.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley did not receive a front-line command until early 1943, after Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. He had been given VIII Corps after being succeeded by Lloyd D. Brown as commander of the 28th Division, but instead was sent to North Africa to be Eisenhower's front-line troubleshooter. At Bradley's suggestion, II Corps, which had just suffered a great defeat at the Kasserine Pass, was overhauled from top to bottom, and Eisenhower installed George S. Patton as corps commander in March 1943. Patton requested Bradley as his deputy, but Bradley retained the right to represent Eisenhower as well.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley succeeded Patton as commander of II Corps in April and directed it in the final Tunisian battles of April and May. Bradley was promoted to Brevet Lieutenant General on June 2, 1943 and continued to command II Corps in the Allied invasion of Sicily (codenamed Operation Husky).


title: Omar Bradley

text: In October 1943 Bradley moved to London as commander in chief of the American ground forces preparing to invade France in 1944. For D-Day, Bradley was chosen to command the US First Army, which, alongside the British Second Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, made up the 21st Army Group, commanded by General Sir Bernard Montgomery.


title: Omar Bradley

text: On June 10, 1944, four days after the initial Normandy landings, Bradley and his staff debarked to establish a headquarters ashore. During Operation Overlord, he commanded three corps directed at the two American invasion targets, Utah Beach and Omaha Beach. During July he inspected the modifications made by Curtis G. Culin to Sherman tanks, that led to the Rhino tank. Later in July, he planned Operation Cobra, the beginning of the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. Operation Cobra called for the use of strategic bombers using huge bomb loads to attack German defensive lines. After several postponements due to weather, the operation began on July 25, 1944, with a short, very intensive bombardment with lighter explosives, designed so as not to create more rubble and craters that would slow Allied progress. Bradley was horrified when 77 planes bombed short and dropped bombs on their own troops, including Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair:


title: Omar Bradley

text: However, the bombing was successful in knocking out the enemy communication system, rendering German troops confused and ineffective, and opened the way for the ground offensive by attacking infantry. Bradley sent in three infantry divisions—the 9th, 4th and 30th—to move in close behind the bombing. The infantry succeeded in cracking the German defenses, opening the way for advances by armored forces commanded by Patton to sweep around the German lines.


title: Omar Bradley

text: As the build-up continued in Normandy, the Third Army was formed under Patton, Bradley's former commander, while Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, whom Bradley had succeeded as Commandant of the Infantry School, succeeded Bradley in command of the First Army; together, they made up Bradley's new command, the 12th Army Group. By August, the 12th Army Group had swollen to over 900,000 men and ultimately consisted of four field armies. It was the largest group of American soldiers to ever serve under one field commander.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Hitler's refusal to allow his army to flee the rapidly advancing Allied pincer movement created an opportunity to trap an entire German Army Group in northern France. After the German attempt to split the US armies at Mortain (Operation Lüttich), Bradley's Army Group and XV Corps became the southern pincer in forming the "Falaise Pocket", trapping the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army in Normandy. The northern pincer was formed of Canadian forces, part of British General Sir Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group. On August 13, 1944, concerned that American troops would clash with Canadian forces advancing from the north-west, Bradley overrode Patton's orders for a further push north towards Falaise, while ordering XV Corps to "concentrate for operations in another direction". Any American troops in the vicinity of Argentan were ordered to withdraw. This order halted the southern pincer movement of General Haislip's XV Corps. Though Patton protested the order, he obeyed it, leaving an exit—a "trap with a gap"—for the remaining German forces. Around 20,000–50,000 German troops (leaving almost all of their heavy material) escaped through the gap, avoiding encirclement and almost certain destruction. They would be reorganized and rearmed in time to slow the Allied advance into the Netherlands and Germany. Most of the blame for this outcome has been placed on Bradley. Bradley had incorrectly assumed, based on Ultra decoding transcripts, that most of the Germans had already escaped encirclement, and he feared a German counterattack as well as possible friendly fire casualties. Though admitting that a mistake had been made, Bradley placed the blame on General Montgomery for moving the British and Commonwealth troops too slowly, though the latter were in direct contact with a large number of SS Panzer, paratroopers, and other elite German forces.


title: Omar Bradley

text: The American forces reached the "Siegfried Line" or "Westwall" in late September. The success of the advance had taken the Allied high command by surprise. They had expected the German "Wehrmacht" to make stands on the natural defensive lines provided by the French rivers, and had not prepared the logistics for the much deeper advance of the Allied armies, so fuel ran short.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Eisenhower faced a decision on strategy. Bradley favored an advance into the Saarland, or possibly a two-thrust assault on both the Saarland and the Ruhr Area. Montgomery argued for a narrow thrust across the Lower Rhine, preferably with all Allied ground forces under his personal command as they had been in the early months of the Normandy campaign, into the open country beyond and then to the northern flank into the Ruhr, thus avoiding the Siegfried Line. Although Montgomery was not permitted to launch an offensive on the scale he had wanted, George Marshall and Hap Arnold were eager to use the First Allied Airborne Army to cross the Rhine, so Eisenhower agreed to Operation Market Garden. Bradley opposed the operation, and bitterly protested to Eisenhower the priority of supplies given to Montgomery, but Eisenhower, mindful of British public opinion regarding damage from V-1 missile launches in the north, refused to make any changes.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley's Army Group now covered a very wide front in hilly country, from the Netherlands to Lorraine. Despite having the largest concentration of Allied army forces, Bradley faced difficulties in prosecuting a successful broad-front offensive in difficult country with a skilled enemy. General Bradley and his First Army commander, General Courtney Hodges, eventually decided to attack through a corridor known as the Aachen Gap towards the German township of Schmidt. The only nearby military objectives were the Roer River flood control dams, but these were not mentioned in contemporary plans and documents. Bradley and Hodges' original objective may have been to outflank German forces and prevent them from reinforcing their units further north in the Battle of Aachen. After the war, Bradley would cite the Roer dams as the objective. Since the Germans held the dams, they could also unleash millions of gallons of water into the path of advance. The campaign's confused objectives, combined with poor intelligence, resulted in the costly series of battles known as the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, which cost some 33,000 American casualties. At the end of the fighting in the Hurtgen, German forces remained in control of the Roer dams in what has been described as "the most ineptly fought series of battles of the war in the west." Further south, Patton's Third Army, which had been advancing with great speed, was faced with last priority (behind the U.S. First and Ninth Armies) for supplies, gasoline and ammunition. As a result, the Third Army lost momentum as German resistance stiffened around the extensive defenses surrounding the city of Metz. While Bradley focused on these two campaigns, the Germans were in the process of assembling troops and materiel for a surprise winter offensive.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley's command took the initial brunt of what would become the Battle of the Bulge. For logistical and command reasons, General Eisenhower decided to place Bradley's First and Ninth Armies under the temporary command of Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group on the northern flank of the Bulge. Bradley was incensed, and began shouting at Eisenhower: "By God, Ike, I cannot be responsible to the American people if you do this. I resign." Eisenhower turned red, took a breath and replied evenly "Brad, I—not you—am responsible to the American people. Your resignation therefore means absolutely nothing." Bradley paused, made one more protest, then fell silent as Eisenhower concluded "Well, Brad, those are my orders."


title: Omar Bradley

text: At least one historian has attributed Eisenhower's support for Bradley's subsequent promotion to (temporary) four-star general (March 1945, not made permanent until January 1949) to, in part, a desire to compensate him for the way in which he had been sidelined during the Battle of the Bulge. Others point out that both Secretary of War Stimson and General Eisenhower had desired to reward General Patton with a fourth star for his string of accomplishments in 1944, but that Eisenhower could not promote Patton over Bradley, Devers, and other senior commanders without upsetting the chain of command (as Bradley commanded these people in the theater). A more likely explanation is that as Bradley commanded an Army Group and was the immediate subordinate of Eisenhower, who was promoted to five star rank in December 1944, it was only appropriate that he should hold the next lower rank.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley used the advantage gained in March 1945—after Eisenhower authorized a difficult but successful Allied offensive (on a broad front with British Operation Veritable to the north and American Operation Grenade to the south) in February 1945—to break the German defenses and cross the Rhine into the industrial heartland of the Ruhr. Aggressive pursuit of the disintegrating German troops by the 9th Armored Division resulted in the capture of a bridge across the Rhine River at Remagen. Bradley quickly exploited the crossing, forming the southern arm of an enormous pincer movement encircling the German forces in the Ruhr from the north and south. Over 300,000 prisoners were taken. American forces then met up with the Soviet forces near the Elbe River in mid-April. By V-E Day, the 12th Army Group was a force of four armies (First, Third, Ninth, and Fifteenth) that numbered over 1.3 million men.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Unlike some of the more colorful generals of World War II, Bradley was polite and courteous in his public appearances. A reticent man, Bradley was first favorably brought to public attention by war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who was urged by General Eisenhower to "go and discover Bradley". Pyle subsequently wrote several dispatches in which he referred to Bradley as the "GI's general", a title that would stay with Bradley throughout his remaining career. Will Lang Jr. of "Life" magazine said "The thing I most admire about Omar Bradley is his gentleness. He was never known to issue an order to anybody of any rank without saying 'Please' first."


title: Omar Bradley

text: While the public at large never forgot the image created by newspaper correspondents, a different view of Bradley was offered by combat historian S. L. A. Marshall, who knew both Bradley and George Patton, and had interviewed officers and men under their commands. Marshall, who was also a critic of George S. Patton, noted that Bradley's "common man" image "was played up by Ernie Pyle...The GIs were not impressed with him. They scarcely knew him. He's not a flamboyant figure and he didn't get out much to troops. And the idea that he was idolized by the average soldier is just rot."


title: Omar Bradley

text: While Bradley retained his reputation as the "GI's general", he was criticized by some of his contemporaries for other aspects of his leadership style, sometimes described as "managerial" in nature. British General Bernard Montgomery's assessment of Bradley was that he was "dull, conscientious, dependable, and loyal". He had a habit of peremptorily relieving senior commanders who he felt were too independent, or whose command style did not agree with his own, such as the colorful and aggressive General Terry Allen, commander of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division (who was relocated to a different command because Bradley felt that his continued command of the division was making it unmanageably elitist, a decision with which Eisenhower concurred). While Patton is often viewed today as the prototype of the intolerant, impulsive commander, Bradley actually sacked far more generals and senior commanders during World War II, whereas Patton relieved only one general from his command—Orlando Ward—for cause during the entire war (and only after giving General Ward two warnings). When required, Bradley could be a hard disciplinarian; he recommended the death sentence for several soldiers while he served as the commander of the First Army.


title: Omar Bradley

text: One controversy of Bradley's leadership involved the lack of use of specialized tanks (Hobart's Funnies) in the Normandy invasion. After the war Chester Wilmot quoted correspondence with the developer of the tanks, Major General Percy Hobart, to the effect that the failure to use such tanks was a major contributing factor to the losses at Omaha Beach, and that Bradley had deferred the decision whether to use the tanks to his staff who had not taken up the offer, other than in respect of the DD (swimming) tanks. However a later memo from the 21st Army Group is on record as relaying two separate requests from the First Army, one dealing with the DD tanks and "Porpoises" (towed waterproof trailers), the other with a variety of other Funnies. The second list gives not only items of specific interest with requested numbers, but items known to be available that were not of interest. The requested items were modified Shermans, and tank attachments compatible with Shermans. Noted as not of interest were Funnies that required Churchill or Valentine tanks, or for which alternatives were available from the US. Of the six requested types of Funnies, the Sherman flamethrower version of the Churchill Crocodile is known to have been difficult to produce, and the Centipede never seems to have been used in combat. Richard Anderson considers that the press of time prevented the production of the other four items in numbers beyond the Commonwealth's requirements. Given the heavier surf and the topography of Omaha Beach, it is unlikely that the funnies would have been as useful there as they were on the Commonwealth beaches. The British had agreed to provide British-crewed Funnies to operate with the American forces but were unable to train the crews and deliver the vehicles in time.


title: Omar Bradley

text: President Truman appointed Bradley to head the Veterans Administration for two years after the war. He served from August 15, 1945, to November 30, 1947 and is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping veterans receive their educational benefits under the G. I. Bill of Rights. Bradley's influence on the VA is credited with helping shape it into the agency it is today. He was a regular visitor to Capitol Hill and lobbied on behalf of veterans' benefits in testimony before various congressional veteran affairs committees. Due to his numerous contributions to the Veterans Administration, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs' primary conference room at the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs is named in Bradley's honor.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley became the Army Chief of Staff in 1948. After assuming command, Bradley found a U.S. military establishment badly in need of reorganization, equipment, and training. As Bradley himself put it, "the Army of 1948 could not fight its way out of a paper bag."


title: Omar Bradley

text: On August 11, 1949, President Harry S. Truman appointed Bradley the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After his initial 1948 plan to expand the Army and modernize its equipment was rejected by the Truman Administration, Bradley reacted to the increasingly severe postwar defense department budget cutbacks imposed by Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson by publicly supporting Johnson's decisions, going so far as to tell Congress that he would be doing a "disservice to the nation" if he asked for a larger military force. Bradley also suggested that official Navy protests of Secretary Johnson's canceling the supercarrier were due to improper personal or political, even mutinous motives, calling Navy admirals "fancy dans who won't hit the line with all they have on every play unless they can call the signals", and who were in "open rebellion against the civilian control."


title: Omar Bradley

text: In his second memoir, Bradley would later state that not arguing more forcefully in 1948 and 1949 for a sufficient defense budget "was a mistake... perhaps the greatest mistake I made in my postwar years in Washington."


title: Omar Bradley

text: On September 22, 1950, he was promoted to the rank of General of the Army, the fifth—and last—person to achieve that rank. That same year, Bradley was made the first Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. He remained on the committee until August 1953, when he left active duty. During his service, Bradley visited the White House over 300 times and was frequently featured on the cover of "Time" magazine.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In 1950 Bradley was elected as an honorary member of the New York Society of the Cincinnati in recognition of his outstanding service to his country.


title: Omar Bradley

text: As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bradley was the senior military officer at the outset of the Korean War. When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, Bradley was faced with re-organizing and deploying an American military force that was a shadow of its World War II counterpart. The impact of the Truman administration's defense budget cutbacks were now keenly felt, as poorly equipped American troops, lacking sufficient tanks, anti-tank weapons, or artillery were driven down the Korean peninsula to Pusan in a series of costly rearguard actions. In a postwar analysis of the unpreparedness of U.S. Army forces deployed to Korea during the summer and fall of 1950, Army Major General Floyd L. Parks stated that "Many who never lived to tell the tale had to fight the full range of ground warfare from offensive to delaying action, unit by unit, man by man...[T]hat we were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat...does not relieve us from the blame of having placed our own flesh and blood in such a predicament."


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley was the chief military policy maker during the Korean War, and supported Truman's original plan of 'rolling back' Communist aggression by conquering all of North Korea. When Chinese Communists entered North Korea in late 1950 and again drove back American forces, Bradley agreed that rollback had to be dropped in favor of a strategy of "containment" of North Korea. The containment strategy was subsequently adopted by the Truman administration for North Korea, and applied to communist expansion worldwide. Never an admirer of General Douglas MacArthur, Bradley was instrumental in convincing Truman to dismiss MacArthur as the overall commander in the Korean theatre after MacArthur resisted administration attempts to scale back strategic objectives in the Korean War.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In his testimony to the U.S. Congress, Bradley strongly rebuked MacArthur for his support of victory at all costs in the Korean War. Soon after Truman relieved MacArthur of command in April 1951, Bradley said in Congressional testimony, "Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley left active military service in August 1953, but remained on active duty by virtue of his rank of General of the Army. He chaired the Commission on Veterans' Pensions, commonly known as the "Bradley Commission", in 1955–1956. In January 1956, Bradley became one of the founding members of the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, later the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In retirement, Bradley held a number of positions in commercial life, including Chairman of the Board of the Bulova Watch Company from 1958 to 1973. He frequently visited Moberly, Missouri, which he described as his hometown and his favorite city in the world. He was a member of the Moberly Rotary Club, regularly played near-handicap golf at the Moberly Country Club course, and had a "Bradley pew" at Central Christian Church.


title: Omar Bradley

text: His memoirs, "A Soldier's Story" (ghostwritten by aide-de-camp Chester B. Hansen who kept a daily diary for him during the war), was published in 1951. Bradley started work on his autobiography "A General's Life: An Autobiography" (1983) before his death; it was coauthored with Clay Blair, who completed it posthumously. In this work, Bradley criticized British Field Marshal Montgomery's 1945 claims to have won the Battle of the Bulge.


title: Omar Bradley

text: On December 1, 1965, Bradley's wife, Mary, died of leukemia. He met Esther Dora "Kitty" Buhler and married her on September 12, 1966; they were married until his death.


title: Omar Bradley

text: As a horse racing fan, Bradley spent much of his leisure time at racetracks in California. He was often invited to present the trophies to the winners. He was a lifetime sports fan, especially of college football. He was the 1948 Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses and attended several subsequent Rose Bowl games. (He was driven in his black limousine through Pasadena; it had a personalized California license plate "ONB" and a red plate with 5 gold stars. He frequently was given a police motorcycle escort to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.) He also was prominent at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, and the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana in later years.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In 1967–1968 Bradley served as a member of President Lyndon Johnson's Wise Men, a high-level advisory group considering policy for the Vietnam War. Bradley was a hawk and recommended against withdrawal.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Following the death of Dwight D. Eisenhower in March 1969, Bradley was the only surviving 5-star officer in the US Armed Forces.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In 1970, Bradley served as a consultant for the film "Patton." Screenwriters Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North wrote most of the film based on Bradley's memoir, "A Soldier's Story," and the biography, "Patton: Ordeal and Triumph," by Ladislas Farago. The screenwriters did not have access to General Patton's diaries nor did they interview his family. They relied upon observations by Bradley and other military contemporaries when attempting to reconstruct Patton's thoughts and motives.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In a review of the film "Patton", S.L.A. Marshall, who knew both Patton and Bradley, stated that "The Bradley name gets heavy billing on a picture of [a] comrade that, while not caricature, is the likeness of a victorious, glory-seeking buffoon...Patton in the flesh was an enigma. He so stays in the film...Napoleon once said that the art of the general is not strategy but knowing how to mold human nature...Maybe that is all producer Frank McCarthy and Gen. Bradley, his chief advisor, are trying to say." Though each recognized that he owed part of his success to the other, it was known that Bradley disliked Patton both personally and professionally, but in the film they are portrayed as friendly.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley attended the 30th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy, France on June 6, 1974, participating in various parades.


title: Omar Bradley

text: On January 10, 1977, Bradley was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.


title: Omar Bradley

text: In 1978, Bradley received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member General Jimmy Doolittle.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley was the keynote speaker at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France on June 6, 1979, for the 35th anniversary of D-Day. While seated in a wheelchair, he performed an open ranks inspection of the U.S. representative army unit, the 84th Army Band from VII Corps HQ, Stuttgart, West Germany.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Bradley lived during his last years in Texas at a special residence on the grounds of the William Beaumont Army Medical Center, part of the complex which supports Fort Bliss.


title: Omar Bradley

text: One of Bradley's last public appearances was as the guest of honor at the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981.


title: Omar Bradley

text: Omar Bradley died on April 8, 1981, in New York City of a cardiac arrhythmia, a few minutes after receiving an award from the National Institute of Social Sciences. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, next to his two wives.


title: Omar Bradley

text: General Bradley served on active duty continuously from August 1, 1911, until his death on April 8, 1981 – a total of 69 years, 8 months and 7 days. His was the longest active duty career in the history of the United States Armed Forces.