title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnake fangs are connected by venom ducts to large venom glands near the outer edge of the upper jaw, towards the rear of the head. When the rattlesnake bites, muscles on the sides of the venom glands contract to squeeze the venom through the ducts and into the fangs. When the fangs are not in use, they remain folded against the palate.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes are born with fully functioning fangs and venom, and are capable of killing prey at birth. Adult rattlesnakes shed their fangs every 6–10 weeks. At least three pairs of replacement fangs lie behind the functional pair.


title: Rattlesnake

text: The venom is hemotoxic, destroying tissue, causing necrosis and coagulopathy (disrupted blood clotting). In the U.S., the tiger rattlesnake ("C. tigris") and some varieties of the Mojave rattlesnake ("C. scutulatus") also have a presynaptic neurotoxic venom component known as Mojave type A toxin, which can cause severe paralysis. Although it has a comparatively low venom yield, the venom toxicity of "C. tigris" is considered to be among the highest of all rattlesnake venoms, and among the highest of all snakes in the Western Hemisphere based on studies conducted on laboratory mice. "C. scutulatus" is also widely regarded as producing one of the most toxic snake venoms in the Americas, based on studies in laboratory mice.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnake venom is a mixture of five to fifteen enzymes, various metal ions, biogenic amines, lipids, free amino acids, proteins, and polypeptides. It contains components evolved to immobilize and disable the prey, as well as digestive enzymes, which break down tissue to prepare for later ingestion. The venom is very stable, and retains its toxicity for many years in storage.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Older snakes possess more potent venom, and larger snakes are frequently capable of storing larger volumes of it.


title: Rattlesnake

text: The rattle serves as a warning for predators of the rattlesnake. The rattle is composed of a series of hollow, interlocked segments made of keratin, which are created by modifying the scales that cover the tip of the tail. The contraction of special "shaker" muscles in the tail causes these segments to vibrate against one another, thus making the rattling noise (which is amplified because the segments are hollow) in a behavior known as tail vibration. The muscles which cause rattling are some of the fastest known, firing 50 times per second on average, sustainable for a duration up to three hours.


title: Rattlesnake

text: In 2016, Allf et al published a paper proposing behavioral plasticity as the mechanism by which the rattling system evolved in rattlesnakes. In the case of rattlesnakes, Allf et al proposed that tail vibration in response to predator threat could be the precursor for the rattling system in rattlesnakes, an example of behavioral plasticity. To investigate this hypothesis, the researchers analyzed tail vibration and relatedness to rattlesnakes among snakes in the families Viperidae and Colubridae. Their results demonstrated that the more closely related a species was to rattlesnakes, the more similar that species was to rattlesnakes in both duration and rate of tail vibration. These results strongly support the hypothesis that tail vibration preceded the rattling system as a behavior and allowed for the rattle to be selected for once developed. Even a small, underdeveloped rattle early in the evolution of the rattling system could have been advantageous if tail vibration was an ancestral behavior.


title: Rattlesnake

text: At birth, a "prebutton" is present at the tip of the snake's tail; it is replaced by the "button" several days later when the first skin is shed. However, no sound can be made by the rattle until a second segment is added when the skin is shed again. A new rattle segment is added each time the snake sheds its skin, and the snake may shed its skin several times a year, depending on food supply and growth rate.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes travel with their rattles held up to protect them from damage, but in spite of this precaution, their day-to-day activities in the wild still cause them to regularly break off end segments. Because of this, the number of rattles on its tail is not related to the age of a rattlesnake.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Compared to females, males have thicker and longer tails (because they contain the inverted hemipenes). Also, the tails of males taper gradually from the body, whereas the tails of females narrow abruptly at the vent.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes, like other members of the Squamata order, have a circulatory system that is powered by a three-chambered heart composed of two atria and one ventricle. The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from veins coming from the systemic circuit. The left atrium receives oxygenated blood from the lungs in the pulmonary circuit and pumps it to the ventricle and through the systemic circuit via capillaries and arteries.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnake skin has a set of overlapping scales that cover the entire body, providing protection from a variety of threats, including dehydration and physical trauma. The typical rattlesnake, genus "Crotalus", has the top of its head covered with small scales, except, with a few species, a few crowded plates directly over the snout. The skin of snakes is highly sensitive to contact, tension, and pressure; they are capable of feeling pain.


title: Rattlesnake

text: An important function of the skin is the sensation of changes in air temperature, which can guide the snakes towards warm basking/shelter locations. All snakes are ectotherms. To maintain a stable body temperature, they exchange heat with their external environments. Snakes often move into open, sunny areas to absorb heat from the sun and warmed earth, a behavior known as basking. Nerves in the skin regulate the flow of blood into the veins near the surface.


title: Rattlesnake

text: The skin of rattlesnakes is intricately patterned in a manner that camouflages them from their predators. Rattlesnakes do not generally have bright or showy colors (reds, yellows, blues, etc.), instead relying on subtle earth tones that resemble the surrounding environment.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Creases in the epidermal tissue connect the scales of rattlesnakes. When ingesting large prey, these creases can unfold, allowing the skin to expand to envelop a much greater volume. The skin appears to tightly stretch to accommodate the meal, but in reality, the skin is simply smoothing out from its creased state and is not under very high tension.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Most rattlesnake species mate during the summer or fall, while some species mate only in the spring, or during both the spring and fall.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Females secrete small amounts of sex pheromones, which leave a trail the males follow using their tongues and Jacobson's organs as guides. Once a receptive female has been located, the male often spends several days following her around (a behavior not common outside of the mating season), frequently touching and rubbing her in an attempt to stimulate her.


title: Rattlesnake

text: The males of some species, such as timber rattlesnakes ("C. horridus"), fight each other during the mating season, in competition over females. These fights, known as "combat dances", consist of the two males intertwining the anterior portion of their bodies, often with their heads and necks held vertically. The larger males usually end up driving the smaller males away.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Although many kinds of snakes and other reptiles are oviparous (lay eggs), rattlesnakes are ovoviviparous (give birth to live young after carrying eggs inside). The female produces the ova ("eggs") in her ovaries, after which they pass through her body cavity and into one of her two oviducts. The ova are arranged in a continuous chain in a coiled section of the oviduct, known as the "tuba". Male rattlesnakes have sexual organs known as hemipenes, located in the base of the tail. The hemipenis is retracted inside of the body when mating is not occurring. The hemipenis is similar to the human penis. Females can store semen for months in internal recesses known as spermathecae, which permits them to mate during the fall, but not fertilize the ova until the following spring. The Arizona black rattlesnake ("C. oreganus cerberus"), has been observed to exhibit complex social behavior reminiscent of that in mammals. Females often remain with their young in nests for several weeks, and mothers have been observed co-operatively parenting their broods.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes generally take several years to mature, and females usually reproduce only once every three years.


title: Rattlesnake

text: In the colder winter months, some rattlesnake species enter a period of brumation, which is dormancy similar to hibernation.


title: Rattlesnake

text: They often gather together for brumation in large numbers (sometimes over 1,000 snakes), huddling together inside underground "rattlesnake dens" or hibernacula. They regularly share their winter burrows with a wide variety of other species (such as turtles, small mammals, invertebrates, and other types of snakes).


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes often return to the same den, year after year, sometimes traveling several miles to get there. How the rattlesnakes find their way back to the dens each year is unknown, but may involve a combination of pheromone trails and visual cues (e.g., topography, celestial navigation, and solar orientation).


title: Rattlesnake

text: Species with long periods of brumation tend to have much lower reproductive rates than those with shorter brumation periods or those that do not brumate at all. Female timber rattlesnakes in high peaks in the Appalachian Mountains of New England reproduce every three years on average; the lance-headed rattlesnake ("C. polystictus"), native to the warm climate of Mexico, reproduces annually.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Like most other snakes, rattlesnakes aestivate during very hot or dry periods, which is why they are rarely seen during the hottest and driest months of summer.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes tend to avoid developed areas, preferring undisturbed, natural habitats. Rapid habitat destruction by humans, mass killings during events such as rattlesnake round-ups, and deliberate extermination campaigns all pose threats to rattlesnake populations in many areas. Several species, such as the timber rattlesnake, massasauga, and canebrake rattlesnake, are listed as threatened or endangered in many U.S. states.


title: Rattlesnake

text: In more heavily populated and trafficked areas, reports have been increasing of rattlesnakes that do not rattle. This phenomenon is commonly attributed to selective pressure by humans, who often kill the snakes when they are discovered. Nonrattling snakes are more likely to go unnoticed, so survive to reproduce offspring that, like themselves, are less likely to rattle.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes are the leading cause of snakebite injuries in North America and a significant cause in Central and South America.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes tend to avoid wide-open spaces where they cannot hide from predators, and generally avoid humans if they are aware of their approach. Rattlesnakes rarely bite unless they feel threatened or provoked. A majority of victims (about 72%) are males. Around half of bites occur in cases where the victim saw the snake, yet made no effort to move away.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Harassing or attacking a rattlesnake, illegal in some jurisdictions, puts one at much higher risk of a bite. Rattlesnakes seek to avoid humans and other predators or large herbivores that themselves pose lethal danger. Dogs, often much more aggressive than humans, are much more likely to experience a snakebite, and are more likely to die of a rattlesnake bite. Dogs can be vaccinated against rattlesnake bites.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Caution is advised even when snakes are believed to be dead; rattlesnake heads can sense, flick the tongue, and inflict venomous bites reflexively for up to an hour after being severed from the body.


title: Rattlesnake

text: An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year, with about five deaths. The most important factor in survival following a severe envenomation is the time elapsed between the bite and treatment. Most deaths occur between 6 and 48 hours after the bite. If antivenom treatment is given within two hours of the bite, the probability of recovery is greater than 99%.


title: Rattlesnake

text: When a bite occurs, the amount of venom injected is under voluntary control by the snake. The amount released depends on a variety of factors, including the condition of the snake (e.g., having long, healthy fangs and a full venom sack) and its temperament (an angry, hungry snake that has just been stepped on vs. a satiated snake that was merely surprised by walking near it). About 20% of bites result in no envenomation at all. A lack of burning pain and edema away from the fang marks after one hour suggests either no or minimal envenomation occurred. A lack of edema or erythema in the area of the bite after eight hours indicates a lack of envenomation for most rattlesnake bites.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Common symptoms include swelling, severe pain, tingling, weakness, anxiety, nausea and vomiting, hemorrhaging, perspiration, and (rarely) heart failure. Local pain following envenomation is often intense, increasing with the ensuing edema. Children generally experience more severe symptoms because they receive a larger amount of venom per unit of body mass.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Antivenom, or antivenin, is commonly used to treat the effects of local and systemic pit viper envenomations. The first step in the production of crotaline antivenom is collecting ("milking") the venom of a live rattlesnake—usually from the western diamondback ("Crotalus atrox"), eastern diamondback ("Crotalus adamanteus"), South American rattlesnake ("Crotalus durissis terrificus"), or fer-de-lance ("Bothrops atrox"). The extracted venom is then diluted and injected into horses, goats, or sheep, whose immune systems produce antibodies that protect from the toxic effects of the venom. These antibodies accumulate in the blood, which is then extracted and centrifuged to separate the red blood cells. The resulting serum is purified into a lyophilized powder, which is packaged for distribution and later use by human patients.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Because antivenom is derived from animal antibodies, people generally display an allergic response during infusion, known as serum sickness.


title: Rattlesnake

text: In the United States, more than 15,000 domesticated animals are bitten by snakes each year. Rattlesnake envenomations account for 80% of the deadly incidents.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Dogs are most commonly bitten on the front legs and head. Horses generally receive bites on the muzzle, and cattle on their tongues and muzzles. If a domesticated animal is bitten, the hair around the bite should be removed so the wound can be clearly seen. The crotaline Fab antivenom has been shown to be effective in the treatment of canine rattlesnake bites. Symptoms include swelling, slight bleeding, sensitivity, shaking, and anxiety.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Aztec paintings, Central American temples, and the great burial mounds in the Southern United States are frequently adorned with depictions of rattlesnakes, often within the symbols and emblems of the most powerful deities.


title: Rattlesnake

text: The Feathered Serpent of Mesoamerican religion was depicted as having the combined features of the quetzal and rattlesnake. The Ancient Maya considered the rattlesnake to be a "vision serpent" that acted as a conduit to the "otherworld".


title: Rattlesnake

text: Rattlesnakes are a key element in Aztec mythology and were widely represented in Aztec art, including sculptures, jewelry, and architectural elements.


title: Rattlesnake

text: Members of some Christian sects in the Southern United States are regularly bitten while participating in "snake handling" rituals. Snake handling is when people hold venomous snakes, unprotected, as part of a religious service inspired by a literal interpretation of the Bible verses Mark 16:17–18, which reads, "In my name ... They shall take up serpents ..."


title: Rattlesnake

text: Journalist Alistair Cooke claimed that rattlesnake tastes "just like chicken, only tougher". Others have compared the flavor to a wide range of other meats, including veal, frog, tortoise, quail, fish, rabbit, and even canned tuna. Methods of preparation include barbecueing and frying; author Maud Newton, following a recipe by Harry Crews, described the taste, "at least when breaded and fried, like a sinewy, half-starved tilapia."


title: Rattlesnake

text: The rattlesnake became a symbolic animal for the Colonials during the Revolutionary War period, and is depicted prominently on the Gadsden Flag. It continues to be used as a symbol by the United States military, and political movements within the United States.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is a conurbated metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas encompassing 11 counties and anchored by the major cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. It is the economic and cultural hub of North Texas. Residents of the area also refer to it as DFW (airport code), or the Metroplex. The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area's population was 7,637,387 according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 census, making it the most populous metropolitan area in both Texas and the Southern United States, the fourth-largest in the U.S., and the tenth-largest in the Americas. In 2016, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex had the highest annual population growth in the United States.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The metropolitan region's economy, also referred to as Silicon Prairie, is primarily based on banking, commerce, insurance, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, medical research, transportation and logistics. As of 2022, Dallas–Fort Worth is home to 23 Fortune 500 companies, the 4th-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the United States behind New York City (62), Chicago (35), and Houston (24). In 2016, the metropolitan economy surpassed Houston to become the fourth-largest in the U.S. The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex boasted a GDP of just over $620.6 billion in 2020. If the Metroplex were a sovereign state, it would have the twentieth largest economy in the world as of 2019. In 2015, the conurbated metropolitan area would rank the ninth-largest economy if it were a U.S. state. In 2020, Dallas–Fort Worth was recognized as the 36th best metropolitan area for STEM professionals in the U.S.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex comprises the highest concentration of colleges and universities in Texas. The UT Southwestern Medical Center is home to six Nobel Laureates and was ranked No. 1 in the world among healthcare institutions in biomedical sciences. The Metroplex is also the second most popular metropolis for megachurches in Texas (trailing the Greater Houston metropolitan area), ranked the largest Christian metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., and has one of the largest LGBT communities in Texas since 2005.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: A portmanteau of "metropolis" and "complex", the term "metroplex" is credited to Harve Chapman, an executive vice president with Dallas-based Tracy-Locke, one of three advertising agencies that worked with the North Texas Commission (NTC) on strategies to market the region. The NTC copyrighted the term "Southwest Metroplex" in 1972 as a replacement for the previously-ubiquitous "North Texas", which studies had shown lacked identifiability outside the state. In fact, only 38 percent of a survey group identified Dallas and Fort Worth as part of "North Texas", with the Texas Panhandle also a perceived correct answer, being the northernmost region of Texas.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The United States Census Bureau determined the Metroplex encompasses of total area; is land, and is covered by water. The conurbated metropolitan area is larger in area than the U.S. states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined, and larger than New Jersey. If the metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would rank the 162nd largest state by total area after Lebanon. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget combines the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex with the Sherman–Denison metropolitan area and seven micropolitan statistical areas to form the Dallas–Fort Worth TX–OK combined statistical area.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex overlooks mostly prairie land with a few rolling hills dotted by man-made lakes cut by streams, creeks and rivers surrounded by forested land. The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex is situated in the Texas blackland prairies region, so named for its fertile black soil found especially in the rural areas of Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Hunt, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Many areas of Denton, Johnson, Parker, Tarrant, and Wise counties are located in the Fort Worth region of North Texas, which has less fertile and more rocky soil than that of the Texas blackland prairie; most of the rural land on the Fort Worth Prairie is ranch land. A large onshore natural gas field, the Barnett Shale, lies underneath this area; Denton, Tarrant and Wise counties feature many natural gas wells. Continuing land use change results in scattered crop fields surrounded by residential or commercial development. South of Dallas and Fort Worth is a line of rugged hills that goes north to south about that looks similar to the Texas Hill Country to the south.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area is formed by a combination of two separate metropolitan statistical divisions. The Dallas–Plano–Irving MDA and Fort Worth–Arlington–Grapevine MDA come together to form one full metropolitan area or conurbation.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: It is also continental, characterized by a relatively wide annual temperature range for the latitude. The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex is located at the lower end of Tornado Alley, and can experience extreme weather.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: In the Metroplex, summers are very hot and humid, although low humidity characteristics of desert locations can appear at any time of the year. July and August are typically the hottest months, with an average high of and an average low of . Heat indices regularly surpass at the height of summer. The all-time record high is , set on June 26 and 27, 1980 during the Heat Wave of 1980 at nearby Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Winters in the area are cool to mild, with occasional cold spells. The average date of first frost is November 12, and the average date of last frost is March 12. January is typically the coldest month, with an average daytime high of and an average nighttime low of . The normal daily average temperature in January is but sharp swings in temperature can occur, as strong cold fronts known as "Blue Northers" pass through the Metroplex, forcing daytime highs below the mark for several days at a time and often between days with high temperatures above . Snow accumulation is seen in the city in about 70% of winter seasons, and snowfall generally occurs 1–2 days out of the year for a seasonal average of . Some areas in the region, however, receive more than that, while other areas receive negligible snowfall or none at all. The all-time record low temperature within the city is , set on January 18, 1930, however the temperature at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport reached on February 16, 2021, during Winter Storm Uri.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The following are cities and towns categorized based on the latest population estimates from the North Central Texas Council of Governments (as of January 1, 2018). No population estimates are released for census-designated places (CDPs), which are marked with an asterisk (*). These places are categorized based on their 2010 census population.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: At the 2020 U.S. census 7,637,387 people lived in the area, up from 6,371,773 in 2010, and 2,974,805 in 1970. In 2020, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex's racial composition was 42% non-Hispanic white, 16% Black or African American, 8% Asian, 14% two or more races, and 29% Hispanic or Latino American of any race. According to information gathered from the North Texas Commission, the Metroplex's racial and ethnic makeup was 46% non-Hispanic white, 15% Black or African American, 7% Asian American, and 3% from other races in 2017. Ethnically, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 29% of the metropolitan population. From 2010 to 2017, Hispanics and Latinos increased an estimated 38.9% followed by Blacks and African Americans.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: In 2015, an estimated 101,588 foreign-born residents moved to the Metroplex. Of the immigrant population, 44.1% were from Latin America, 35.8% Asia, 7.1% Europe, and 13.1% Africa. In 2010, 77,702 foreign nationals immigrated; approximately 50.6% came from Latin America, 33.0% from Asia, 7.3% Europe, and 9.1% Africa. During the 2020 American Community Survey, an estimated 18.5% of its population were foreign-born, with 56% from Latin America, 30% Asia, 8% Africa, 4% Europe, and 1% elsewhere from North America.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The median household income in Dallas–Fort Worth was higher than the state average in 2017, and its unemployment and poverty rate was lower. The median income for males was $51,498 and $44,207 for females. In 2019, the per capita income of DFW was $72,265. In 2010, the median income for a household in the metropolitan area was $48,062, and the median income for a family was $55,263. Males had a median income of $39,581 versus $27,446 for females. The per capita income for the Metroplex altogether was $21,839.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex's religious population are predominantly Christian and the largest metro area that identify with the religion in the United States (78%). Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches are prominent in many cities and towns in the metropolitan region. The Methodist and Baptist communities anchor two of the area's major private universities (Southern Methodist University and Dallas Baptist University). Non-Christian faiths including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and contemporary paganism collectively form a little over 4% of the religious population.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth, TX–OK combined statistical area is made up of 20 counties in North Central Texas and one county in South Central Oklahoma. The statistical area includes two metropolitan areas and seven micropolitan areas. The CSA definition encompasses of area, of which is land and is water. The population density was 485 people per square mile according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: At the 2000 U.S. census, there were 5,487,956 people, 2,006,665 households, and 1,392,540 families residing within the CSA. The racial makeup of the CSA was 70.41% white, 13.34% African American, 0.59% Native American, 3.58% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 9.62% from other races, and 2.39% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 20.83% of the population. The median income for a household in the CSA was $43,836, and the median income for a family was $50,898. Males had a median income of $37,002 versus $25,553 for females. The per capita income for the CSA was $20,460.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: At the 2020 census, the DFW CSA had a population of 8,121,108 (though a July 1, 2015 estimate placed the population at 7,504,362). In 2018 it had an estimated 7,994,963 residents. The American Community Survey determined 18% of the population was foreign-born. The median household income was $67,589 and the per capita income was $34,455. An estimated 11.5% lived below the poverty line. The median age of the DFW CSA was 35.3.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth are the two central cities of the Metroplex, with Arlington being a third economically important city; it is a center for sporting events, tourism and manufacturing. Most other incorporated cities in the Metroplex are "bedroom communities" serving largely as residential and small-business centers, though there are several key employers in these regions. Due to the large number of smaller, less well-known cities, Metroplex residents commonly divide the region roughly in half along Texas Interstate 35, which runs north–south, splitting into two 'branches' (I-35E in Dallas and I-35W in Fort Worth) through the Metroplex. They refer to places as being on the "Dallas side" or the "Fort Worth side", or in "the Arlington area", which is almost directly south of the airport; cities in the Arlington area form the Mid-Cities. It is nominally between the two major east–west interstates in the region (I-20, passing to the south of both downtowns, and I-30, connecting Dallas and Fort Worth city centers).


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Business management and operations play a central role in the area's economy. Dallas and its suburbs have the third-largest concentration of corporate headquarters in the United States. Moreover, it is the only metro area in the country home to three of the top-ten largest Fortune 500 companies by revenue. The area continues to draw corporate relocation from across the nation, and especially from California. From late 2018 to early 2019, both McKesson and Charles Schwab announced they would be relocating from San Francisco to the DFW area. Later in 2019, San Francisco-based Uber announced a massive corporate expansion just east of downtown Dallas.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Banking and finance play a key role in the area's economy. DFW recently surpassed Chicago to become the second-largest financial services hub in the nation, eclipsed only by New York. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Liberty Mutual, Goldman Sachs, State Farm, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, and Fidelity Investments maintain significant operations in the area. The Metroplex also contains the largest Information Technology industry base in the state (often referred to as Silicon Prairie or the Telecom Corridor, especially when referring to US-75 through Richardson, Plano and Allen just north of Dallas itself). This area has a large number of corporate IT projects and the presence of numerous electronics, computing and telecommunication firms such as Microsoft, Texas Instruments, HP Enterprise Services, Dell Services, Samsung, Nokia, Cisco, Fujitsu, i2, Frontier, Alcatel, Ericsson, CA, Google, and Verizon. AT&T, the largest telecommunications company in the world, is headquartered at the Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas. ExxonMobil and McKesson, respectively the 2nd and 7th largest Fortune 500 companies by revenue, are headquartered in Irving, Texas. Fluor, the largest engineering & construction company in the Fortune 500, is also headquartered in Irving. In October 2016, Jacobs Engineering, a Fortune 500 company and one of the world's largest engineering companies, relocated from Pasadena, California to Dallas. Toyota USA, in 2016, relocated its corporate headquarters to Plano, Texas. Southwest Airlines is headquartered in Dallas. The airline has more than 53,000 employees as of October 2016 and operates more than 3,900 departures a day during peak travel season.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: On the other side of the Metroplex, the Texas farming and ranching industry is based in Fort Worth, though the area's economy is diverse. American Airlines, the largest airline in the world, recently completed their new $350M corporate HQ complex in Fort Worth. American Airlines is the largest employer in the Metroplex. Several major defense manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter Textron, and Raytheon, maintain significant operations in the Metroplex, primarily on the "Fort Worth side." They are concentrated along State Highway 170 near I-35W, commonly called the "Alliance Corridor" due to its proximity to the Fort Worth Alliance regional airport.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Changes in house prices for the Metroplex are publicly tracked on a regular basis using the Case–Shiller index; the statistic is published by Standard & Poor's and is also a component of S&P's 20-city composite index of the value of the U.S. residential real estate market.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Metroplex is one of the 13 U.S. metropolitan areas that has a team in each of the four major professional sports leagues. Major professional sports first came to the area in 1952, when the Dallas Texans competed in the National Football League for one season. In 1960, major professional sports returned when the Dallas Cowboys began competing in the National Football League and the Dallas Texans began competing in the American Football League. The Dallas Texans later relocated to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. In 1972, Major League Baseball's Washington Senators moved to Arlington to become the Texas Rangers, named after the statewide law enforcement agency. The National Basketball Association expanded into North Texas in 1980 when the Dallas Mavericks were added to the league. The fourth sport was added in 1993 when the Minnesota North Stars of the National Hockey League moved to Dallas, becoming the Dallas Stars.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Major League Soccer team FC Dallas is based in Frisco, and the Dallas Wings of the WNBA play in Arlington. The area is also home to many minor-league professional teams, and four colleges that compete in NCAA Division I athletics. Two NASCAR Cup Series races are hosted annually at Texas Motor Speedway, the All-Star Race and the AAA Texas 500, and two PGA Tour events are held annually in the Metroplex, the AT&T Byron Nelson and the Colonial National Invitation Tournament. The Metroplex has hosted many premiere sports events on both an annual and one-time basis.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The headquarters for both the Big 12 and American Athletic Conference are located in Irving, Conference USA headquarters are in Dallas and the Southland Conference headquarters are in Frisco.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Note: Venues are listed with their current names, not necessarily those in use when an event took place.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Republican Party has historically been dominant in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, including in presidential elections, although recently since 2016, Democrats have been making inroads in the suburbs. The DFW Area is considered a bellwether polity in recent history. Factors causing this shift include an influx of Democratic-voting younger professionals and families from Democratic states, as well as a more diverse population (with increasing numbers of African-Americans along with recent immigrants and their children). Democratic voters dominate a majority of areas in the large cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, and Arlington (especially areas east of Interstate 35W). Republicans dominate North Dallas, western Fort Worth, along with most suburbs and exurbs of the Metroplex.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth have their own newspapers, "The Dallas Morning News" and the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram", respectively. Historically, the two papers had readership primarily in their own counties. As the two cities' suburbs have grown together in recent years (and especially since the demise of the "Dallas Times Herald" in 1991), many sites sell both papers. This pattern of crossover has been repeated in other print media, radio, and television.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Since the 1970s all of the television stations and most of the FM radio stations have chosen to transmit from Cedar Hill so as to serve the entire market, and are programmed likewise. There has been a rise in "80–90 move-ins", whereby stations have been moved from distant markets, in some cases as far away as Oklahoma, and relicensed to anonymous small towns in the Metroplex to serve as additional DFW stations. According to "RadioTime," the market had 38 AM stations, 58 FM stations (many of them class Cs), and 18 full-power television stations. Per another study the area has a total of 62 FM stations and 40 AM stations as of 2020.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Dallas–Fort Worth is the fifth-largest television market in the United States, behind only New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Two of the Metroplex's AM radio stations, 820 WBAP and 1080 KRLD, are 50,000-watt stations with coverage of much of the North American continent and beyond during nighttime hours. The South Asian population (Indian Sub-continent) has increased considerably in the DFW metroplex. They have the FM 104.9 radio channel and 700 AM radio. Recently Sony TV, a subsidiary of Sony TV Asia, launched its FTA (free to Air OTA) channel on 44.2 station in DFW. It was one of the two locations they chose in the United States, the other being New York City, where there is also a large South Asian demographic.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The following are full-powered stations serving the Dallas–Fort Worth television market. Network owned-and-operated stations are highlighted in bold.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (IATA airport code: DFW), located between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, is the largest and busiest airport in the State of Texas. At of total land area, DFW is also the second-largest airport in the country and the sixth-largest in the world. It is the third-busiest airport in the world in terms of aircraft movements and the world's seventh-busiest by passenger traffic, transporting 62.9 million passengers in FY 2014. Based in Fort Worth, American Airlines' headquarters are adjacent to DFW. Recently having regained the title as the largest airline in the world in terms of both passengers transported and fleet size, American is a predominant leader in domestic routes and operations.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas Love Field Airport (IATA airport code: DAL) is located in northwest Dallas. Based in Dallas, Southwest Airlines is headquartered next to Love Field.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: The Dallas–Fort Worth area has thousands of lane-miles of freeways and interstates. The Metroplex has the second-largest number of freeway-miles per capita in the nation, behind only the Kansas City metropolitan area. As in most major metropolitan areas in Texas, most interstates and freeways have access or frontage roads where most of the businesses are located; these access roads have slip ramps allowing traffic to transition between the freeway and access road. North–south interstates include I-35 and I-45. East–west routes include I-30 and I-20. I-35 splits into I-35E and I-35W from Denton to Hillsboro: I-35W goes through Fort Worth while I-35E goes through Dallas. (This is one of only two examples of an interstate splitting off into branches and then rejoining as one; the other such split is in Minneapolis-St. Paul where I-35E goes into St. Paul and I-35W goes through Minneapolis.) I-30 connects Dallas and Fort Worth, and I-45 connects Dallas to Houston. The "multiple-of-5" numbers used for the interstate designations are notable, as these numbers were designed to be used for major multi-state arteries of the U.S. Interstate Highway System. The North Texas region is the terminus for two of them, and I-45 is located only within Texas.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: HOV lanes exist along I-35E, I-30, I-635, US 67, and US 75. I-20 bypasses both Dallas and Fort Worth to the south while its loop, I-820, goes around Fort Worth. I-635 splits to the north of I-20 and loops around east and north Dallas, ending at SH 121 north of DFW Airport. I-35E, Loop 12, and Spur 408 ultimately connect to I-20 southwest of Dallas, completing the west bypass loop around Dallas. A large number of construction projects are planned or are already underway in the region to alleviate congestion. Due largely to funding issues, many of the new projects involve building new tollways or adding tolled express lanes to existing highways, which are managed by the North Texas Tollway Authority. It was originally established to manage the Dallas North Tollway and oversees several other toll projects in the area.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Public transit options continue to expand significantly throughout the Metroplex. However, it is limited in several outlying and rural suburbs. Dallas County and portions of Collin and Rockwall counties have bus service and light rail operated by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), covering thirteen member cities. DART's rail network currently sprawls for 93 miles throughout the area. The Red Line extends north to Plano and southwest to Westmoreland Road. The Blue Line reaches from Rowlett in the northeast to the University of North Texas at Dallas campus near I-20 in the south. The 28-mile Green Line, which opened in December 2010, connects Carrollton in the northwest through downtown Dallas to Pleasant Grove in the southeast. The Orange Line, which completed expansion in 2014, parallels the Red Line from Plano to downtown Dallas and the Green Line from downtown Dallas to Northwest Hwy before extending through the Las Colinas area of Irving to reach DFW International Airport.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Denton County has bus service limited to Denton, Highland Village, and Lewisville (with commuter service to downtown Dallas) provided by the Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA). The A-train, a diesel commuter rail line, parallels I-35E to connect Denton, Highland Village, Lewisville, and Carrollton. Several smaller towns along this line, Corinth, Shady Shores, and Lake Dallas, voted to abstain from DCTA and do not have stations. There is an across-the-platform transfer in Carrollton to the DART Green Line. A-Train service began June 20, 2011.


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: Tarrant County has bus services operated by Trinity Metro (formerly the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, popularly known as 'The T'), available only in Fort Worth. It additionally operates TEXRail commuter rail, which serves to connect downtown Fort Worth with DFW Airport and the DART Orange Line. The diesel commuter train that serves Fort Worth and its eastern suburbs is operated as the Trinity Railway Express; it connects downtown Fort Worth to downtown Dallas, where it links to the DART light rail system. A station near its midpoint, Centerport, also serves DFW Airport via a free airport shuttle bus. The TRE is jointly owned by FWTA and DART. Amtrak serves two stations in the Metroplex—Dallas Union Station and Fort Worth Central Station. Both are served by the "Texas Eagle" route, which operates daily between Chicago and San Antonio (continuing on to Los Angeles three days a week), though only Fort Worth is served by the Fort Worth-Oklahoma City "Heartland Flyer".


title: Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex

text: As of 2016 the Taiwanese airline EVA Air operates a shuttle bus service from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston to Richardson, so that Dallas-based customers may fly on its services to and from Houston.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (formerly known as AD Skyraider) is an American single-seat attack aircraft in service from 1946 to the early 1980s. The Skyraider had an unusually long career, remaining in front-line service well into the Jet Age (when most piston-engine attack or fighter aircraft were replaced by Jet aircraft); thus becoming known by some as an "anachronism". The aircraft was nicknamed "Spad", after the French World War I fighter.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: It was operated by the United States Navy (USN), the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and the United States Air Force (USAF), and also saw service with the British Royal Navy, the French Air Force, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF), and others. It remained in U.S. service until the early 1970s.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The jet powered A-10 Thunderbolt II was based on specifications for a modernized Skyraider with a heavy payload and good endurance.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The piston-engined, propeller-driven Skyraider was designed during World War II to meet United States Navy requirements for a carrier-based, single-seat, long-range, high performance dive/torpedo bomber, to follow on from earlier aircraft such as the Douglas SBD Dauntless, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver and the Grumman TBF Avenger. Designed by Ed Heinemann of the Douglas Aircraft Company, prototypes were ordered on 6 July 1944 as the "XBT2D-1". The XBT2D-1 made its first flight on 18 March 1945, and the USN began evaluation of the aircraft at the Naval Air Test Center (NATC) in April 1945. In December 1946, after a designation change to "AD-1", delivery of the first production aircraft to a fleet squadron was made to VA-19A.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The AD-1 was built at Douglas's El Segundo plant in Southern California. In his memoir "The Lonely Sky", test pilot Bill Bridgeman described the routine yet sometimes hazardous work of certifying AD-1s fresh off the assembly line at a rate of two aircraft per day for delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1949 and 1950.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The low-wing monoplane design started with a Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial engine which was later upgraded several times. The aircraft had distinctive large straight wings with seven hardpoints apiece. The Skyraider had excellent maneuverability at low speed, and carried a large amount of ordnance over a considerable combat radius. It had a long loiter time for its size, compared to much heavier subsonic or supersonic jets. The aircraft was optimized for ground attack and was armored against ground fire in key locations, unlike faster fighters adapted to carry bombs, such as the Vought F4U Corsair or North American P-51 Mustang, which were retired by U.S. forces before the 1960s.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: Shortly after Heinemann began designing the XBT2D-1, a study was issued showing that for every of weight reduction, the takeoff run was decreased by , the combat radius increased by and the rate-of-climb increased by . Heinemann immediately had his design engineers begin a program for finding weight savings on the XBT2D-1 design, no matter how small. Simplifying the fuel system resulted in a reduction of ; by eliminating an internal bomb bay and hanging external stores from the wings or fuselage; by using a fuselage dive brake; and by using an older tailwheel design. In the end, Heinemann and his design engineers achieved more than of weight reduction on the original XBT2D-1 design.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Navy AD series was initially painted in ANA 623 glossy sea blue, but during the 1950s, following the Korean War, the color scheme was changed to light gull grey and white (Fed Std 595 27875). Initially using the gray and white Navy scheme, by 1967 the USAF began to paint its Skyraiders in a camouflaged pattern using two shades of green, and one of tan.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: Used by the US Navy over Korea and Vietnam, the A-1 was a primary close air support aircraft for the USAF and RVNAF during the Vietnam War. The A-1 was famous for being able to take hits and keep flying thanks to armor plating around the cockpit area for pilot protection. It was replaced beginning in the mid-1960s by the Grumman A-6 Intruder as the Navy's primary medium-attack plane in supercarrier-based air wings; however Skyraiders continued to operate from the smaller Essex-class aircraft carriers.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Skyraider went through seven versions, starting with the "AD-1", then "AD-2" and "AD-3" with various minor improvements, then the "AD-4" with a more powerful "R-3350-26WA" engine. The "AD-5" was significantly widened, allowing two crew to sit side-by-side (this was not the first multiple-crew variant, the "AD-1Q" being a two-seater and the "AD-3N" a three-seater); it also came in a four-seat night-attack version, the "AD-5N". The "AD-6" was an improved AD-4B with improved low-level bombing equipment, and the final production version "AD-7" was upgraded to an "R-3350-26WB" engine.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: For service in Vietnam, USAF Skyraiders were fitted with the Stanley Yankee extraction system, which acted in a similar manner to an ejection seat, though with twin rockets extracting the pilot from the cockpit.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: In addition to serving during Korea and Vietnam as an attack aircraft, the Skyraider was modified to serve as a carrier-based airborne early warning aircraft, replacing the Grumman TBM-3W Avenger. It fulfilled this function in the USN and Royal Navy, being replaced by the Grumman E-1 Tracer and Fairey Gannet, respectively, in those services.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: Skyraider production ended in 1957 with a total of 3,180 having been built. In 1962, the existing Skyraiders were redesignated "A-1D" through "A-1J" and later used by both the USAF and the Navy in the Vietnam War.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Skyraider was produced too late for use in World War II, but became the backbone of United States Navy aircraft carrier and United States Marine Corps strike aircraft sorties in the Korean War (1950–1953), with the first ADs going into action from with VA-55 on 3 July 1950. Its weapons load and 10-hour flying time far surpassed the jets that were available at the time. On 2 May 1951, Skyraiders made the only aerial torpedo attack of the war, hitting the Hwacheon Dam, then controlled by North Korea.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: On 16 June 1953, a USMC AD-4 from VMC-1 piloted by Major George H. Linnemeier and CWO Vernon S. Kramer shot down a Soviet-built Polikarpov Po-2 biplane, the only documented Skyraider air victory of the war. AD-3N and -4N aircraft carrying bombs and flares, flew night-attack sorties, and radar-equipped ADs carried out radar-jamming missions from carriers and land bases.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: During the Korean War, AD Skyraiders were flown by only the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, and were normally painted in dark navy blue. It was called the "Blue Plane" by enemy troops. Marine Corps Skyraiders suffered heavy losses when used in low-level close-support missions. To allow low-level operations to continue without unacceptable losses, a package of additional armor was fitted, consisting of thick external aluminum armor plates fitted to the underside and sides of the aircraft's fuselage. The armor package weighed a total of and had little effect on performance or handling. A total of 128 Navy and Marine AD Skyraiders were lost in the Korean War – 101 in combat and 27 to operational causes. Most operational losses were due to the tremendous power of the AD: ADs that were "waved-off" during carrier recovery operations were prone to performing a fatal torque roll into the sea or the deck of the aircraft carrier if the pilot mistakenly gave the AD too much throttle. The torque of the engine was so great that it would cause the aircraft to rotate about the propeller and slam into the sea or the carrier.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: On 26 July 1954, two Douglas Skyraiders from the aircraft carriers and shot down two Chinese PLAAF Lavochkin fighters off the coast of Hainan Island while searching for survivors after the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 Skymaster airliner three days previously.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: As American involvement in the Vietnam War began, the A-1 Skyraider was still the medium attack aircraft in many carrier air wings, although it was planned to be replaced by the A-6A Intruder as part of the general switch to jet aircraft. Skyraiders from and participated in the first U.S. Navy strikes against North Vietnam on 5 August 1964 as part of Operation Pierce Arrow in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, striking against fuel depots at Vinh, with one Skyraider from "Ticonderoga" damaged by anti-aircraft fire, and a second from "Constellation" shot down, killing its pilot, Lieutenant Richard Sather.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: During the war, U.S. Navy Skyraiders used their cannon to shoot down two Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 jet fighters. The first, on 20 June 1965 by Lieutenant Clinton B. Johnson and LTJG Charles W. Hartman III of VA-25, was the first gun kill of the Vietnam War. The other was on 9 October 1966 by LTJG William T. Patton of VA-176.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: As they were released from U.S. Navy service, Skyraiders were introduced into the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF). Skyraiders were also used by the U.S. Air Force, specifically Special Operations elements of the Tactical Air Command, for search and rescue air cover. They were also used by the USAF to perform one of the Skyraider's most famous roles — the "Sandy" helicopter escort on combat rescues. On 10 March 1966, USAF Major Bernard F. Fisher flew an A-1E mission and was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing Major "Jump" Myers at A Shau Special Forces Camp. USAF Colonel William A. Jones III piloted an A-1H on 1 September 1968 mission for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. In that mission, despite damage to his aircraft and suffering serious burns, he returned to his base and reported the position of a downed U.S. airman.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: After November 1972, all A-1s in U.S. service in Southeast Asia were transferred to the RVNAF. The Skyraider in Vietnam pioneered the concept of tough, survivable aircraft with long loiter times and large ordnance loads. The USAF lost 201 Skyraiders to all causes in Southeast Asia, while the Navy lost 65 to all causes. Of the 266 lost A-1s, five were shot down by Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs), and three were shot down in air-to-air combat; two by VPAF MiG-17s.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: On 5 August 1964, the first A-1E Skyraider was shot down during Operation Pierce Arrow. The pilot, Lt. (jg) Richard Sather, was the first Navy pilot killed in the war. On the night of 29 August 1964, the second A-1E Skyraider was shot down and the pilot killed near Bien Hoa Air Base; it was flown by Capt. Richard D. Goss from the 1st Air Commando Squadron, 34th Tactical Group. The third A-1 was shot down on 31 March 1965 piloted by Lt. (jg) Gerald W. McKinley from the on a bombing run over North Vietnam. He was reported missing, presumed dead.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text:
While on his first mission, Navy pilot Lt. (jg) Dieter Dengler took damage to his A-1H over Vietnam on 1 February 1966, and crash-landed in Laos.
Col. Oscar Mauterer ejected from his A-1 after taking heavy enemy fire while providing cover for a damaged friendly aircraft on February 15, 1966. Radio reports confirmed Mauterer had a good chute, but was captured by enemy forces. Mauterer is still POW/MIA status.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The next A-1 was shot down on 29 April 1966, and Pilot Capt. Grant N. Tabor, was lost on 19 April 1967; both were from the 602 Air Commando Squadron. A Skyraider from Navy Squadron VA-25 on a ferry flight from Naval Air Station Cubi Point (Philippines) to was lost to two Chinese MiG-17s on 14 February 1968: Lieutenant (j.g.) Joseph P. Dunn, USN flew too close to the Chinese island of Hainan and was intercepted. Lieutenant Dunn's A-1H Skyraider 134499 (Canasta 404) was the last Navy A-1 lost in the war. He was observed to survive the ejection and deploy his raft, but was never found. Initially listed as missing in action, he is now listed as killed in action and posthumously promoted to the rank of Commander. Shortly thereafter, A-1 Skyraider naval squadrons transitioned to the A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II or Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The U.S. Air Force used the naval A-1 Skyraider for the first time in Vietnam. As the Vietnam War progressed, USAF A-1s were painted in camouflage, while USN A-1 Skyraiders were gray/white in color in contrast to the Korean War, when A-1s were painted dark blue.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: In October 1965, to highlight the dropping of the six millionth pound of ordnance, Commander Clarence J. Stoddard of VA-25, flying an A-1H, dropped a special, one-time-only object in addition to his other munitions – a toilet.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The A-1 Skyraider was the close air support workhorse of the RVNAF for much of the Vietnam War. The U.S. Navy began to transfer some of its Skyraiders to the RVNAF in September 1960, replacing the RVNAF's older Grumman F8F Bearcats. By 1962 the RVNAF had 22 of the aircraft in its inventory, and by 1968 an additional 131 aircraft had been received. Initially Navy aviators and crews were responsible for training their South Vietnamese counterparts on the aircraft, but over time responsibility was gradually transferred to the USAF.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The initial trainees were selected from among RVNAF Bearcat pilots who had accumulated 800 to 1200 hours flying time. They were trained at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, and then sent to NAS Lemoore, California for further training. Navy pilots and crews in Vietnam checked out the Skyraiders that were being transferred to the RVNAF, and conducted courses for RVNAF ground crews.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: Over the course of the war, the RVNAF acquired a total of 308 Skyraiders, and was operating six A-1 squadrons by the end of 1965. These were reduced during the period of Vietnamization from 1968 to 1972, as the U.S. began to supply the South Vietnamese with more modern close air support aircraft, such as the A-37 Dragonfly and Northrop F-5, and at the beginning of 1968, only three of its squadrons were flying A-1s.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: As the U.S. ended its direct involvement in the war, it transferred the remainder of its Skyraiders to the South Vietnamese, and by 1973, all remaining Skyraiders in U.S. inventories had been turned over to the RVNAF. Unlike their American counterparts, whose combat tours were generally limited to 12 months, individual South Vietnamese Skyraider pilots ran up many thousands of combat hours in the A-1, and many senior RVNAF pilots were extremely skilled in the operation of the aircraft.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Royal Navy acquired 50 AD-4W early warning aircraft in 1951 through the Military Assistance Program. All Skyraider AEW.1s were operated by 849 Naval Air Squadron, which provided four-plane detachments for the British carriers. Flights from and took part in the Suez Crisis in 1956. 778 Naval Air Squadron was responsible for the training of the Skyraider crews at RNAS Culdrose until July 1952.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: In 1960, the Fairey Gannet AEW.3 replaced the Skyraiders, using the AN/APS-20 radar of the Douglas aircraft. The last British Skyraiders were retired in 1962. In the late 1960s, the AN/APS-20 radars from the Skyraiders were installed in Avro Shackleton AEW.2s of the Royal Air Force which were finally retired in 1991.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: Fourteen ex-British AEW.1 Skyraiders were sold to Sweden to be used by Svensk Flygtjänst AB between 1962 and 1976. All military equipment was removed and the aircraft were used as target tugs supporting the Swedish Armed Forces.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The French Air Force bought 20 ex-USN AD-4s as well as 88 ex-USN AD-4Ns and five ex-USN AD-4NAs with the former three-seaters modified as single-seat aircraft with removal of the radar equipment and the two operator stations from the rear fuselage. The AD-4N/NAs were initially acquired in 1956 to replace aging Republic P-47 Thunderbolts in Algeria.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Skyraiders were first ordered in 1956 and the first was handed over to the French Air Force on 6 February 1958 after being overhauled and fitted with some French equipment by Sud-Aviation. The aircraft were used until the end of the Algerian war. The aircraft were used by the 20e "Escadre de Chasse" (EC 1/20 "Aures Nementcha", EC 2/20 "Ouarsenis" and EC 3/20 "Oranie") and EC 21 in the close air support role armed with rockets, bombs and napalm.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The Skyraiders had only a short career in Algeria, but they nonetheless proved to be the most successful of all the ad hoc counter-insurgency aircraft deployed by the French. The Skyraider remained in limited French service until the 1970s. They were heavily involved in the civil war in Chad, at first with the "Armée de l'Air", and later with a nominally independent Chadian Air Force staffed by French mercenaries. The aircraft also operated under the French flag in Djibouti and on the island of Madagascar. When France at last relinquished the Skyraiders it passed the survivors on to allied states, including Gabon, Chad, Cambodia and the Central African Republic. (Several aircraft from Gabon and Chad were recovered by French warbird enthusiasts and entered on the French civil register.)


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The French frequently used the aft station to carry maintenance personnel, spare parts and supplies to forward bases. In Chad they even used the aft station for a "bombardier" and his "special stores" – empty beer bottles – as these were considered as non-lethal weapons, thus not breaking the government-imposed rules of engagement, during operations against Libyan-supported rebels in the late 1960s and early 1970s.


title: Douglas A-1 Skyraider

text: The A-1 Skyraider received various nicknames including: "Spad" and "Super Spad" (derived from the aircraft's AD designation, its relative longevity in service and an allusion to the "Spad" aircraft of World War I), "Able Dog" (phonetic AD), "the Destroyer", "Hobo" (radio call sign of the US Air Force's 1st Air Commando/1st Special Operations Squadron), "Firefly" (a call sign of the 602nd ACS/SOS), "Zorro" (the call sign of the 22nd SOS), "The Big Gun", "Old Faithful", "Old Miscellaneous", "Fat Face" (AD-5/A-1E version, side-by-side seating), "Guppy" (AD-5W version), "Q-Bird" or "Queer Bird" (AD-1Q/AD-5Q versions), "Flying Dumptruck" (A-1E), "Sandy" (the 602nd ACS/SOS call sign for Combat Search And Rescue helicopter escort), and "Crazy Water Buffalo" (South Vietnamese nickname).


title: Polly Walker

text: Polly Alexandra Walker (born 19 May 1966) is an English actress. She has starred in the films "Enchanted April" (1991), "Patriot Games" (1992), "Sliver" (1993), "Restoration" (1995), "The Gambler" (1997), and "Savage Messiah" (2002). In 2006, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her role in the drama series "Rome" (2005–2007). She is also known for her roles in BBC One dramas "Prisoners’ Wives" (2012–2013), "Line of Duty" (2016, 2019) and Netflix Original period drama "Bridgerton" (2020).


title: Polly Walker

text: Church of England Primary School in Warrington and Bush Davies School of Ballet and Performing Arts in East Grinstead until joining Ballet Rambert School at 16. She had to abandon dancing after a leg injury at the age of 18. She then decided to become an actress. She attended Drama Centre London before working at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she played small roles for six months before getting cast in small roles on television.


title: Polly Walker

text: Walker landed the title role in the television series "Lorna Doone" before making her feature debut in "Shogun Mayeda" (aka "Journey of Honor") (1991). In that same year she appeared in "Les Equilibristes" and in Mike Newell's "Enchanted April", in which she played an aristocrat eager to escape the attentions of her persistent male admirers. Walker first gained international attention in 1992 as a single-minded English member of an Irish terrorist group in Phillip Noyce's "Patriot Games". In 2003 she had a starring role in the BBC drama series "State of Play".


title: Polly Walker

text: Between 2005 and 2007, Walker played Atia of the Julii in both seasons of the HBO–BBC2 television series "Rome". Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination in 2005 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama. She next played the sinister Catherine Braithwaite in "Deus Ex Machina", a two-episode story of the BBC television "cold case" crime series "Waking the Dead", which also aired in January 2007. In May 2007, she appeared as Lady Bess Sedgwick in ITV's "Marple": "At Bertram's Hotel", and then played sugar heiress Ellis Samuels in the CBS television drama "Cane", which premiered 25 September 2007.


title: Polly Walker

text: In May 2008, Walker was cast as Sister Clarice Willow, headmistress of a private religious school, in Syfy's "Battlestar Galactica" prequel series "Caprica". In 2011 she guest starred as Ranna Seneschal, leader of the underground city of Praxis, on "Sanctuary".


title: Polly Walker

text: In 2012, she starred in BBC's crime drama "Prisoners' Wives" as crime wife Francesca Miller. She returned to the role in 2013 for the second series.


title: Polly Walker

text: In 2020, she appeared as Lady Lunete, the Queen Regent and mother to Uther Pendragon, a recurring character for 5 episodes in the Netflix series, "Cursed". Since December 2020, Walker has starred in the Netflix series "Bridgerton" as Lady Featherington.


title: Polly Walker

text: On 23 October 2008, Walker married the former actor Laurence Penry-Jones (brother of Rupert Penry-Jones) with whom she lived in the United States for several years. In 2015, they returned to London.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (January 31, 1902 – December 12, 1968) was an American actress. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead also appeared in several prominent films including an award-winning performance in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (1944). She also had a brief but successful career on radio and made appearances on television. In all, Bankhead amassed nearly 300 film, stage, television and radio roles during her career. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1981.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead was a member of the Bankhead and Brockman family, a prominent Alabama political family. Her grandfather and her uncle were U.S. senators, and her father was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Bankhead's support of liberal causes, including the budding civil rights movement, brought her into public conflict with her family and southern contemporaries, who championed white supremacy and racial segregation. She also supported foster children and helped families escape the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Bankhead struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction; she reportedly smoked 120 cigarettes a day and talked openly about her vices. She also openly had a series of relationships with both men and women.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902, in Huntsville, Alabama, to William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia "Ada" Bankhead (née Sledge); her great-great-grandfather, James Bankhead (1738–1799) was born in Ulster, Ireland and settled in South Carolina. "Tallu" was named after her paternal grandmother, who in turn was named after Tallulah Falls, Georgia. Her father hailed from the Bankhead-and-Brockman political family, active in the Democratic Party of the South in general and of Alabama in particular. Her father was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940. She was the niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II and granddaughter of Senator John H. Bankhead. Her mother, Adelaide "Ada" Eugenia, was a native of Como, Mississippi, and was engaged to another man when she met William Bankhead on a trip to Huntsville to buy her wedding dress. The two fell in love at first sight and were married on January 31, 1900, in Memphis, Tennessee. Their first child, Evelyn Eugenia (January 24, 1901 – May 11, 1979), was born two months prematurely and had some vision difficulties.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: The following year, Tallulah was born on her parents' second wedding anniversary, on the second floor of what is now known as the Isaac Schiffman Building. A marker was erected to commemorate the site, and in 1980 the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Three weeks after Bankhead's birth, her mother died of blood poisoning (sepsis) on February 23, 1902. Coincidentally, her maternal grandmother had died giving birth to her mother. On her deathbed, Ada told her sister-in-law to "take care of Eugenia, Tallulah will always be able to take care of herself". Bankhead was baptized next to her mother's coffin.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: William B. Bankhead, devastated by his wife's death, descended into bouts of depression and alcoholism. Consequently, Tallulah and her sister Eugenia were mostly reared by their paternal grandmother, Tallulah James Brockman Bankhead, at the family estate called "Sunset" in Jasper, Alabama. As a child, Bankhead was described as "extremely homely" and overweight, while her sister was slim and prettier. As a result, she did everything in her efforts to gain attention, and constantly sought her father's approval. After watching a performance at a circus, she taught herself how to cartwheel, and frequently cartwheeled about the house, sang, and recited literature that she had memorized. She was prone to throwing tantrums, rolling around the floor, and holding her breath until she was blue in the face. Her grandmother often threw a bucket of water on her to halt these outbursts.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead's famously husky voice (which she described as "mezzo-basso") was the result of chronic bronchitis due to childhood illness. She was described as a performer and an exhibitionist from the beginning, discovering at an early age that theatrics gained her the attention she desired. Finding she had a gift for mimicry, she entertained her classmates by imitating the schoolteachers. Bankhead claimed that her "first performance" was witnessed by none other than the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur. Her Aunt Marie gave the famous brothers a party at her home near Montgomery, Alabama, in which the guests were asked to entertain. "I won the prize for the top performance, with an imitation of my kindergarten teacher", Bankhead wrote. "The judges? Orville and Wilbur Wright." Bankhead also found she had a prodigious memory for literature, memorizing poems and plays and reciting them dramatically.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Tallulah and Eugenia's grandmother and aunt were beginning to find the girls difficult to handle. Their father William, who was working from their Huntsville home as a lawyer, proposed enrolling the girls in a convent school (although he was a Methodist and her mother an Episcopalian). In 1912, both girls were enrolled in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattanville, New York when Eugenia was 11 and Tallulah was 10. As William's political career brought him to Washington, the girls were enrolled in a series of different schools, each one a step closer to Washington, D.C. When Bankhead was 15, her aunt encouraged her to take more pride in her appearance, suggesting that she go on a diet to improve her confidence. Bankhead quickly matured into a southern belle. The girls were not really tamed by the schools, however, as both Eugenia and Tallulah went on to have a lot of relationships and affairs during their lives. Eugenia was more of an old romantic as she got married at 16 and ended up marrying seven times to six different men during her life, while Tallulah was a stronger and even more rebellious personality, who sought a career in acting, was into lust in her relationships even more than love, and showed no particular interest in marrying, although she did marry actor John Emery in 1937, a marriage which ended in divorce in 1941.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead was also childhood friends with American socialite, later novelist, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the wife of American author and expatriate F. Scott Fitzgerald.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: At 15, Bankhead submitted her photo to "Picture Play", which was conducting a contest and awarding a trip to New York plus a movie part to 12 winners based on their photographs. However, she forgot to send in her name or address with the picture. Bankhead learned that she was one of the winners while browsing the magazine at her local drugstore. Her photo in the magazine was captioned "Who is She?", urging the mystery girl to contact the paper at once. Congressman William Bankhead sent in a letter to the magazine with her duplicate photo.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Arriving in New York, Bankhead discovered that her contest win was fleeting: she was paid $75 for three weeks' work on "Who Loved Him Best" and had only a minor part, but she quickly found her niche in New York City. She soon moved into the Algonquin Hotel, a hotspot for the artistic and literary elite of the era, where she quickly charmed her way into the famed Algonquin Round Table of the hotel bar. She was dubbed one of the "Four Riders of the Algonquin", consisting of Bankhead, Estelle Winwood, Eva Le Gallienne, and Blyth Daly. Three of the four were non-heterosexual: Bankhead and Daly were bisexuals, and Le Gallienne was a lesbian. Bankhead's father had warned her to avoid alcohol and men when she got to New York; Bankhead later quipped "He didn't say anything about women and cocaine." The Algonquin's wild parties introduced Bankhead to cocaine and marijuana, of which she later remarked "Cocaine isn't habit-forming and I know because I've been taking it for years." Bankhead did abstain from drinking, keeping half of her promise to her father. At the Algonquin, Bankhead befriended actress Estelle Winwood. She also met Ethel Barrymore, who attempted to persuade her to change her name to Barbara. Bankhead declined, and "Vanity Fair" later wrote "she's the only actress on both sides of the Atlantic to be recognized by her first name only."


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1919, after roles in three other silent films, "When Men Betray" (1918), "Thirty a Week" (1918), and "The Trap" (1919), Bankhead made her stage debut in "The Squab Farm" at the Bijou Theatre in New York. She soon realized her place was on stage rather than screen, and had roles in "39 East" (1919), "Footloose" (1919), "Nice People" (1921), "Everyday" (1921), "Danger" (1922), "Her Temporary Husband" (1922), and "The Exciters" (1922). Though her acting was praised, the plays were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Bankhead had been in New York for five years, but had yet to score a significant hit. Restless, Bankhead moved to London.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1923 she made her debut on the London stage at Wyndham's Theatre. She appeared in over a dozen plays in London over the next eight years, most famously in "The Dancers" and at the Lyric as Jerry Lamar in Avery Hopwood's "The Gold Diggers". Her fame as an actress was ensured in 1924 when she played Amy in Sidney Howard's "They Knew What They Wanted". The show won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: While in London, Bankhead bought herself a Bentley, which she loved to drive. She was not very competent with directions and constantly found herself lost in the London streets. She would telephone a taxi-cab and pay the driver to drive to her destination while she followed behind in her car. During her eight years on the London stage and touring across Great Britain's theatres, Bankhead earned a reputation for making the most out of inferior material. For example, in her autobiography, Bankhead described the opening night of a play called "Conchita":


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In the second act. ... I came on carrying a monkey. ... On opening night, the monkey went berserk. ... (he) snatched my black wig from my head, leaped from my arms and scampered down to the footlights. There he paused, peered out at the audience, then waved my wig over his head. ... The audience had been giggling at the absurd plot even before this simian had at me. Now it became hysterical. What did Tallulah do in this crisis? I turned a cartwheel! The audience roared. ... After the monkey business I was afraid they might boo me. Instead I received an ovation.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead returned to the United States in 1931, but Hollywood success eluded her in her first four films of the 1930s. She rented a home at 1712 Stanley Street in Hollywood (now 1712 North Stanley Avenue) and began hosting parties that were said to "have no boundaries". Bankhead's first film was "Tarnished Lady" (1931), directed by George Cukor, and the pair became fast friends. Bankhead behaved herself on the set and filming went smoothly, but she found film-making to be very boring and did not have the patience for it. After over eight years of living in Great Britain and touring on their theatrical stages, she did not like living in Hollywood; when she met producer Irving Thalberg, she asked him "How do you get laid in this dreadful place?" Thalberg retorted "I'm sure you'll have no problem. Ask anyone." Although Bankhead was not very interested in making films, the opportunity to make $50,000 per film was too good to pass up. Her 1932 movie "Devil and the Deep" is notable for the presence of three major co-stars, with Bankhead receiving top billing over Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, and Cary Grant; it is the only film with Cooper and Grant as the film's leading men although they share no scenes together. She later said "Dahling, the main reason I accepted [the part] was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper!" Later in 1932, Bankhead starred opposite Robert Montgomery in "Faithless".


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Returning to Broadway, Bankhead worked steadily in a series of middling plays which were, ironically, later turned into highly successful Hollywood films starring other actresses. 1933's "Forsaking All Others" by Edward Barry Roberts and Frank Morgan Cavett—a romantic comedy-drama in which three friends sustain a love triangle lasting several years—was a modest success for Bankhead, running 110 performances, but the 1934 film version with Joan Crawford was one of that year's bigger financial and critical successes. Similarly, Bankhead's next two short-lived plays, "Jezebel" by Owen Davis and "Dark Victory" by George Brewer Jr. and Bertram Bloch, were both transformed into high-profile, prestigious film vehicles for Bette Davis.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: But Bankhead persevered, even through ill health. In 1933, while performing in "Jezebel", Bankhead nearly died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy due to gonorrhea, which she claimed she had contracted from either Gary Cooper or George Raft. Weighing only when she left the hospital, she vowed to continue her lifestyle, stoically saying to her doctor "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead continued to play in various Broadway performances over the next few years, gaining excellent notices for her portrayal of Elizabeth in a revival of Somerset Maugham's "The Circle". However, when she appeared in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" with her then-husband John Emery, the "New York Evening Post" critic John Mason Brown memorably carped "Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra – and sank."


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: From 1936 to 1938, David O. Selznick, producer of "Gone with the Wind" (1939) called Bankhead the "first choice among established stars" to play Scarlett O'Hara in the upcoming film. Although her 1938 screen test for the role in black-and-white was superb, she photographed poorly in Technicolor. Selznick also reportedly believed that at age 36, she was too old to play Scarlett, who is 16 at the beginning of the film (the role eventually went to Vivien Leigh). Selznick sent Kay Brown to Bankhead to discuss the possibility of Bankhead playing brothel owner Belle Watling in the film, which she turned down.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Her brilliant portrayal of the cold and ruthless, yet fiery Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" (1939) won her "Variety" magazine's award for Best Actress of the Year. Bankhead as Regina was lauded as "one of the most electrifying performances in American theater history". During the run, she was featured on the cover of "Life". Bankhead and playwright Hellman, both formidable women, feuded over the Soviet Union's invasion of Finland. Bankhead (a strong critic of communism from the mid 1930s onwards) was said to want a portion of one performance's proceeds to go to Finnish relief, and Hellman (a communist who had defended the Moscow Trials of 1936, and was a member of the Communist Party USA in 1938–40) objected strenuously, and the two women did not speak for the next quarter of a century, eventually reconciling in late 1963. Nevertheless, Bankhead called the character of Regina in Hellman's play "the best role I ever had in the theater".


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead earned another "Variety" award and the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Performance by an Actress followed her role in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth", in which Bankhead played Sabina, the housekeeper and temptress, opposite Fredric March and Florence Eldridge (husband and wife offstage). About her work in Wilder's classic, the "New York Sun" wrote: "Her portrayal of Sabina has comedy and passion. How she contrives both, almost at the same time, is a mystery to mere man." She also clashed with Elia Kazan on "The Skin of Our Teeth" and during rehearsals of "Clash by Night" she called the producer, Billy Rose a "loathsome bully" who retorted, "How could anyone bully Niagara Falls?"


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1944, Alfred Hitchcock cast her as cynical journalist Constance Porter in her most successful film, both critically and commercially, "Lifeboat". Her superbly multifaceted performance was acknowledged as her best on film and won her the New York Film Critics Circle award. A beaming Bankhead accepted her New York trophy and exclaimed: "Dahlings, I was wonderful!"


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives", taking it on tour and then to Broadway for the better part of two years. The play's run made Bankhead a fortune. From that time, Bankhead could command 10% of the gross and was billed larger than any other actor in the cast, although she usually granted equal billing to Estelle Winwood, a frequent co-star and close friend from the 1920s through Bankhead's lifetime.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1950, in an effort to cut into the rating leads of "The Jack Benny Program" and "The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show", which had jumped from NBC radio to CBS radio the previous season, NBC spent millions over the two seasons of "The Big Show" starring "the glamorous, unpredictable" Bankhead as its host, in which she acted not only as mistress of ceremonies, but also performed monologues (often written by Dorothy Parker) and songs. Despite Meredith Willson's Orchestra and Chorus and top guest stars from Broadway, Hollywood, and radio, "The Big Show", which earned rave reviews, failed to do more than dent Jack Benny and Edgar Bergen's ratings. The next season, NBC installed her as one of a half-dozen rotating hosts of NBC's "The All Star Revue" on Saturday nights.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead was director Irving Rapper's first choice for the role of Amanda in the film version of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". Laurette Taylor, who originated the role of Amanda, was an idol of Bankhead's and also an alcoholic, whose brilliant performance in the original Broadway production reversed years of career decline. Rapper called Bankhead's screen test the greatest performance he had ever seen: "I thought she was going to be difficult, but she was like a child, so sweet and lovely. I was absolutely floored by her performance. It's the greatest test I've ever made or seen in my life. I couldn't believe I was seeing such reality. Bankhead was absolutely natural, so moving, so touching without even trying. The crew was stunned, too." But studio head Jack Warner rejected the idea because of his fear of Bankhead's drinking; though she promised not to drink during shooting, he refused to give her the part. The role was given to Gertrude Lawrence instead, whose acting was panned by most critics.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead wrote a bestselling autobiography "Tallulah: My Autobiography". (Harper & Bros., 1952) that was published in 1952. Though Bankhead's career slowed in the mid-1950s, she never faded from the public eye. Her highly public and often scandalous personal life began to undermine her reputation as a terrific actress, leading to criticism she had become a caricature of herself. Although a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, and consumer of sleeping pills, Bankhead continued to perform in the 1950s and 1960s on Broadway, radio, television, and in the occasional film, even as her body got more and more frail from the mid 1950s up until her death in 1968.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1953, Bankhead was enticed into appearing in a stage act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. She was paid a generous $20,000 per week for her appearances, reciting scenes from famous plays, reading poetry and letters that had the audience in stitches—and she even sang a bit. Las Vegas critics bet she would flop but she was a smash, and she came back to the Sands for three years.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Around this time, Bankhead began to attract a passionate and highly loyal following of gay men, some of whom she employed as help when her lifestyle began to take a toll on her, affectionately calling them her "caddies". Though she had long struggled with addiction, her condition now worsened – she began taking dangerous cocktails of drugs to fall asleep, and her maid had to tape her arms down to prevent her from consuming pills during her periods of intermittent wakefulness. In her later years, Bankhead had serious accidents and several psychotic episodes from sleep deprivation and hypnotic drug abuse. Though she always hated being alone, her struggle with loneliness began to lapse into a depression. In 1956, playing the truth game with Tennessee Williams, she confessed, "I'm 54, and I wish always, always, for death. I've always wanted death. Nothing else do I want more."


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead's most popular and perhaps best remembered television appearance was the December 3, 1957, "The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show". Bankhead played herself in the classic episode titled "The Celebrity Next Door". The part was originally slated for Bette Davis, but Davis had to bow out after cracking a vertebra. Lucille Ball was reportedly a fan of Bankhead and did a good impression of her. By the time the episode was filmed, however, both Ball and Desi Arnaz were deeply frustrated by Bankhead's behavior during rehearsals. It took her three hours to "wake up" once she arrived on the set and she often seemed drunk. She also refused to listen to the director and she did not like rehearsing. Ball and Arnaz apparently did not know about Bankhead's antipathy to rehearsals or her ability to memorize a script quickly. After rehearsals, the filming of the episode proceeded without a hitch and Ball congratulated Bankhead on her performance.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In 1956, Bankhead appeared as Blanche DuBois (a character inspired by her) in a revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947). Williams had wanted Bankhead for the original production, but she turned it down. Tennessee Williams himself (they were close friends) called her Blanche "the worst I have seen", accusing her of ruining the role to appease her fans who wanted camp. She agreed with this verdict, and made an effort to conquer the audience which her own legend had drawn about her, giving a performance two weeks later of which he remarked: "I'm not ashamed to say that I shed tears almost all the way through and that when the play was finished I rushed up to her and fell to my knees at her feet. The human drama, the play of a woman's great valor and an artist's truth, her own, far superseded, and even eclipsed, to my eye, the performance of my own play." The director remarked that her performance exceeded those of Jessica Tandy and Vivien Leigh in the role. However, the initial reviews had decided the production's fate, and the producer pulled the plug after 15 performances.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead received a Tony Award nomination for her performance of a bizarre 50-year-old mother in the short-lived Mary Coyle Chase play "Midgie Purvis" (1961). It was a physically demanding role and Bankhead insisted on doing the stunts herself, including sliding down a staircase banister. She received glowing reviews, but the play suffered from numerous rewrites and failed to last beyond a month. Her last theatrical appearance was in "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (1963), a revival of another Williams play, directed by Tony Richardson. She had suffered a severe burn on her right hand from a match exploding while she lit a cigarette, and it was aggravated by the importance of jewelry props in the play. She took heavy painkillers, but these dried her mouth, and most critics thought that Bankhead's line readings were unintelligible. As with "Antony and Cleopatra", the nadir of her career, she only made five performances, and in the same unhappy theater.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Among her last radio appearances was in an episode of the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" with Roy Plomley in 1964. Bankhead, at 62 and audibly suffering from breathing difficulties from emphysema in the interview, frankly spoke of how hopeless she would be on a desert island, admitting that she "couldn't put a key in the door, dahling. I can't do a "thing" for myself." In the interview, host Plomley spoke of Bankhead's glory days as the most celebrated actress of 1920s London. Later he recalled of their interview, "She was a very frail and ailing old lady, and I was shocked to see how old and ill she looked as I helped her out of a taxi. She had come from her hotel wearing a mink coat slung over a pair of lounging pyjamas, and she leaned heavily on my arm as I supported her to the lift. Her eyes were still fine, and there was still beauty in the bone structure of her face beneath the wrinkles and ravages of hard living. Her hands shook, and when she wished to go to the loo she had to ask Monica Chapman to accompany her to help her with her clothing."


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Her last motion picture was in a British horror film, "Fanatic" (1965). "Fanatic" was released in the U.S. as "Die! Die! My Darling!", which she protested, thinking it was exploiting her famous catchphrase, but did not succeed in getting it changed. During the screening she held privately for her friends, she apologized for "looking older than God's wet nurse" (in the film she wore no makeup and dyed her hair grey, and the director used very claustrophobic close-ups to accentuate her age and frailty). She called the B-movie horror flick "a piece of shit", though her performance in it was praised by critics and remains popular as a cult film and with her fans. For her role in "Fanatic", she was paid $50,000. Her last appearances on television came in March 1967 as the villainous Black Widow in the "Batman" TV series, and in the December 17, 1967, episode of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" comedy-variety TV series, in the "Mata Hari" skit. She also appeared in NBC's famous lost "Tonight Show" Beatles interview that aired on May 14, 1968. Sitting behind the interview desk and beside Joe Garagiola, who was substituting for an absent Johnny Carson, she took an active role during the interview, questioning Paul McCartney and John Lennon. George Harrison and Ringo Starr were not present and were in England at the time, as noted during the interview.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead was famous not only as an actress, but also for her many affairs, compelling personality, and witticisms such as, "There is less to this than meets the eye." and "I'm as pure as the driven slush." She was an extrovert, uninhibited, outspoken, and often got naked at private parties. She said that she "lived for the moment".


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead was an avid baseball fan whose favorite team was the New York Giants. This was evident in one of her famous quotes, through which she gave a nod to the arts: "There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. But, darling, I think you'd better put Shakespeare first." Bankhead identified as an Episcopalian despite not being what might then have been called "the typical churchgoing type".


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Like her family, Bankhead was a Democrat, but even more than her father, she broke with many Southerners. She supported civil rights and strongly opposed racism and segregation. In the 1924 United States presidential election, Bankhead voted for Robert La Follette of the Progressive Party, but voted for the Democratic presidential nominee at every U.S. presidential election from 1928 to 1968, travelling back to the United States from the United Kingdom in 1924 and 1928 in order to visit her family and to place her vote in person.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In the 1948 presidential election, Bankhead supported the re-election of Harry S. Truman. At the time, Truman faced opposition not just from the Republican Party, but also from splits to his right and to his left from within the Democratic ranks. Bankhead is credited with having helped Truman immeasurably by belittling his rival, New York's Governor and Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey, as Truman defied predictions by defeating Dewey and winning the election. After Truman was elected, Bankhead was invited to sit with the president during his inauguration on January 20, 1949. While viewing the inauguration parade, she booed the South Carolina float which carried then-governor and segregationist Strom Thurmond, who had recently run against Truman on the Dixiecrat ticket, which had split the Democratic vote by running on a racist pro-segregationist ticket that appealed to most Southern Democrats.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: In Democratic primaries and campaigns of later years, Bankhead supported Estes Kefauver in 1952, Adlai Stevenson II in 1956, John F. Kennedy in 1960, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Bankhead would quickly switch to campaigning for the winning Democratic nominee, such as Adlai Stevenson II in 1952 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968, if her original pick failed to win the nomination. Bankhead was close friends with Truman, Kefauver, and Stevenson.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead married actor John Emery on August 31, 1937, at her father's home in Jasper, Alabama. Bankhead filed for divorce in Reno, Nevada, in May 1941. It was finalized on June 13, 1941. The day her divorce became final, Bankhead told a reporter, "You can definitely quote me as saying there will be no plans for a remarriage."


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Bankhead had no children, but she had four abortions before she had a hysterectomy in 1933, when she was 31. She was the godmother of Brook and Brockman Seawell, children of her lifelong friend, actress Eugenia Rawls and husband Donald Seawell.


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: An interview that Bankhead gave to "Motion Picture" magazine in 1932 generated controversy. In the interview, Bankhead ranted about the state of her life and her views on love, marriage, and children:


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: I'm serious about love. I'm damned serious about it now. ... I haven't had an affair for six months. Six months! Too long. ... If there's anything the matter with me now, it's not Hollywood or Hollywood's state of mind. ... The matter with me is, I WANT A MAN! ... Six months is a long, long while. I WANT A MAN!


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: "Time" ran a story about it, angering Bankhead's family. Bankhead immediately telegraphed her father, vowing never to speak with a magazine reporter again. For these and other offhand remarks, Bankhead was cited in the Hays Committee's "Doom Book", a list of 150 actors and actresses considered "unsuitable for the public" which was presented to the studios. Bankhead was at the top of the list with the heading: "Verbal Moral Turpitude". She publicly called Hays "a little prick".


title: Tallulah Bankhead

text: Following the release of the Kinsey reports, she was quoted as stating, "I found no surprises in the Kinsey report. The good doctor's clinical notes were old hat to me. ... I've had many momentary love affairs. A lot of these impromptu romances have been climaxed in a fashion not generally condoned. I go into them impulsively. I scorn any notion of their permanence. I forget the fever associated with them when a new interest presents itself."