title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In November 1790, the Admiralty despatched the frigate HMS "Pandora" under Captain Edward Edwards to capture the mutineers and return them to England to stand trial. "Pandora" arrived at Tahiti on 23 March 1791 and, within a few days, all fourteen surviving "Bounty" men had either surrendered or been captured. Edwards made no distinction between mutineers and those who claimed they had been detained on "Bounty" unwillingly; all were incarcerated in a specially constructed prison erected on "Pandora"s quarterdeck, dubbed "Pandora's Box". "Pandora" remained at Tahiti for five weeks while Edwards unsuccessfully sought information on "Bounty"s whereabouts. The ship finally sailed on 8 May to search for Christian and "Bounty" among the thousands of southern Pacific islands. Apart from a few spars discovered at Palmerston Island, no traces of the fugitive vessel were found. Edwards continued the search until August, when he turned west and headed for the Dutch East Indies. Ironically, one of the islands "Pandora" sailed to, but did not land at, was Pitcairn Island; had Edwards checked his charts and found that this uncharted island was at the correct latitude but wrong longitude for Pitcairn Island, he could very well had fulfilled his mission by capturing the last nine "Bounty" mutineers. Edwards' search for the remaining mutineers ultimately proved fruitless.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: When passing Vanikoro on 13 August 1791, Edwards observed smoke signals rising from the island. Edwards, single-minded in his search for "Bounty" and convinced that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts, ignored the smoke signals and sailed on. Wahlroos argues that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition, which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time—three years after their ships "Boussole" and "Astrolabe" had foundered. Wahlroos is "virtually certain" that Edwards, whom he characterizes as one of England's most "ruthless", "inhuman", "callous", and "incompetent" naval captains, missed his chance to become "one of the heroes of maritime history" by solving the mystery of the lost expedition.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: On 29 August 1791, "Pandora" ran aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef. The men in "Pandora's Box" were ignored as the regular crew attempted to prevent the ship from foundering. When Edwards gave the order to abandon ship, "Pandora"s armourer began to remove the prisoners' shackles, but the ship sank before he had finished. Heywood and nine other prisoners escaped; four "Bounty" men—George Stewart, Henry Hillbrant, Richard Skinner and John Sumner—drowned, along with 31 of "Pandora" crew. The survivors, including the ten remaining prisoners, then embarked on an open-boat journey that largely followed Bligh's course of two years earlier. The prisoners were mostly kept bound hand and foot until they reached Kupang on 17 September.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: The prisoners were confined for seven weeks, at first in prison and later on a Dutch East India Company ship, before being transported to Cape Town. On 5 April 1792, they embarked for England on a British warship, , and arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June. There they were transferred to the guardship to await trial. The prisoners included the three detained loyalists—Coleman, McIntosh and Norman—to whom Bligh had promised justice; the blind fiddler Michael Byrne (or "Byrn"); Heywood; Morrison; and four active mutineers: Thomas Burkett, John Millward, Thomas Ellison and William Muspratt. Bligh, who had been given command of HMS "Providence" for a second breadfruit expedition, had left England in August 1791 and thus would be absent from the pending court-martial proceedings.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: The court-martial opened on 12 September 1792 on in Portsmouth harbour, with Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, presiding. Heywood's family secured him competent legal advisers; of the other defendants, only Muspratt employed legal counsel. The survivors of Bligh's open-boat journey gave evidence against their former comrades—the testimonies from Thomas Hayward and John Hallett were particularly damaging to Heywood and Morrison, who each maintained their innocence of any mutinous intention and had surrendered voluntarily to "Pandora". The court did not challenge the statements of Coleman, McIntosh, Norman and Byrne, all of whom were acquitted. On 18 September the six remaining defendants were found guilty of mutiny and were sentenced to death by hanging, with recommendations of mercy for Heywood and Morrison "in consideration of various circumstances".


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: On 26 October 1792 Heywood and Morrison received royal pardons from King George III and were released. Muspratt, through his lawyer, won a stay of execution by filing a petition protesting that court-martial rules had prevented his calling Norman and Byrne as witnesses in his defence. He was still awaiting the outcome when Burkett, Ellison and Millward were hanged from the yardarm of in Portsmouth dock on 28 October. Some accounts claim that the condemned trio continued to protest their innocence until the last moment, while others speak of their "manly firmness that ... was the admiration of all". There was some unease expressed in the press—a suspicion that "money had bought the lives of some, and others fell sacrifice to their poverty." A report that Heywood was heir to a large fortune was unfounded; nevertheless, Dening asserts that "in the end it was class or relations or patronage that made the difference." In December Muspratt heard that he was reprieved, and on 11 February 1793 he, too, was pardoned and freed.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Much of the court-martial testimony was critical of Bligh's conduct—by the time of his return to England in August 1793, following his successful conveyance of breadfruit to the West Indies aboard "Providence", professional and public opinion had turned against him. He was snubbed at the Admiralty when he went to present his report, and was left on half pay for nineteen months before receiving his next appointment. In late 1794 the jurist Edward Christian, brother of Fletcher, published his "Appendix" to the court-martial proceedings, which was said by the press to "palliate the behaviour of Christian and the Mutineers, and to criminate Captain Bligh". Bligh's position was further undermined when the loyalist gunner Peckover confirmed that much of what was alleged in the "Appendix" was true.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Bligh commanded HMS "Director" at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797 and HMS "Glatton" in the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801. In 1805 while commanding HMS "Warrior", he was court-martialled for using bad language to his officers and reprimanded. In 1806, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia; after two years a group of army officers arrested and deposed him in the Rum Rebellion. After his return to England, Bligh was promoted to rear-admiral in 1811 and vice-admiral in 1814, but was not offered further naval appointments. He died, aged 63, in December 1817.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Of the pardoned mutineers, Heywood and Morrison returned to naval duty. Heywood acquired the patronage of Hood and, by 1803 at the age of 31, had achieved the rank of captain. After a distinguished career, he died in 1831. Morrison became a master gunner, and was eventually lost in 1807 when HMS "Blenheim" foundered in the Indian Ocean. Muspratt is believed to have worked as a naval steward before his death, in or before 1798. The other principal participants in the court martial—Fryer, Peckover, Coleman, McIntosh and others—generally vanished from the public eye after the closing of the procedures.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: After leaving Tahiti on 22 September 1789, Christian sailed "Bounty" west in search of a safe haven. He then formed the idea of settling on Pitcairn Island, far to the east of Tahiti; the island had been reported in 1767, but its exact location was never verified. After months of searching, Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790, east of its recorded position. This longitudinal error contributed to the mutineers' decision to settle on Pitcairn.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: On arrival the ship was unloaded and stripped of most of its masts and spars, for use on the island. It was set ablaze and destroyed on 23 January, either as an agreed upon precaution against discovery or as an unauthorised act by Quintal—in either case, there was now no means of escape.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: The island proved an ideal haven for the mutineers—uninhabited and virtually inaccessible, with plenty of food, water, and fertile land. For a while, the mutineers and Tahitians existed peaceably. Christian settled down with Isabella; a son, Thursday October Christian, was born, as were other children. Christian's authority as leader gradually diminished, and he became prone to long periods of brooding and introspection.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Gradually, tensions and rivalries arose over the increasing extent to which the Europeans regarded the Tahitians as their property, in particular the women who, according to Alexander, were "passed around from one 'husband' to the other". In September 1793 matters degenerated into extreme violence, when several of the mutineers— possibly including Christian, Williams, Martin, Mills, and Brown—were killed by Tahitians in a series of murders. Both Adams and one of the Tahitian women, Teehuteatuaonoa, later claimed that Christian was killed in this massacre. However, Adams' stories were inconsistent; over the years he also claimed that Christian had died of sickness or suicide. At any rate, Christian's gravesite has never been found. According to Teehuteatuaonoa, Christian was shot and killed from behind while in the act of "clearing away some ground for a garden".


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In-fighting continued thereafter, and by 1794 the six Tahitian men were all dead, killed either by the widows of the murdered mutineers or by each other. Two of the four surviving mutineers, Young and Adams, assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm, which was disrupted by the drunkenness of McCoy and Quintal after the former distilled an alcoholic beverage from a local plant.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Some of the women attempted to leave the island in a makeshift boat but could not launch it successfully. Life continued uneasily until McCoy's suicide in 1798. A year later, after Quintal threatened fresh murder and mayhem, Adams and Young killed him and were able to restore peace.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800, Adams took responsibility for the education and well-being of the nine remaining women and nineteen children. Using the ship's Bible from "Bounty", he taught literacy and Christianity, and kept peace on the island. This was the situation in February 1808, when the American sealer "Topaz" came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn, landed, and discovered the by-then thriving community. Adams gave "Bounty"s Azimuth compass and Marine chronometer to "Topaz"s captain, Mayhew Folger. News of the discovery did not reach Britain until 1810, when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In 1814, two British warships, HMS "Briton" and HMS "Tagus", chanced upon Pitcairn. Among those who greeted them were Thursday October Christian and George Young (Edward Young's son). The captains, Sir Thomas Staines and Philip Pipon, reported that Christian's son displayed "in his benevolent countenance, all the features of an honest English face". On shore they found a population of 46 mainly young islanders led by Adams, upon whom the islanders' welfare was wholly dependent, according to the captains' report. After receiving Staines and Pipon's report, the Admiralty decided to take no action.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In the following years, many ships called at Pitcairn Island and heard Adams' various stories of the foundation of the Pitcairn settlement. Adams died in 1829, honoured as the founder and father of a community that became celebrated over the next century as an exemplar of Victorian morality.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Explorer Luis Marden rediscovered the remains of "Bounty" in January 1957. After spotting remains of the rudder (which had been found in 1933 by Parkin Christian, and is still displayed in the Fiji Museum in Suva), he persuaded his editors and writers to let him dive off Pitcairn Island. After several days of dangerous diving, Marden found the remains of the ship: a rudder pin, nails, a ships boat oarlock, fittings and a "Bounty" anchor that he raised. Later in life, Marden wore cuff links made of nails from "Bounty". He also dived to the wreck of "Pandora" and left a "Bounty" nail with that vessel. Some of the "Bounty"s remains, such as the ballast stones, are still partially visible in the waters of Bounty Bay. The last of "Bounty"s four-pounder cannon was recovered in 1998 by an archaeological team from James Cook University and was sent to the Queensland Museum in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, to be stabilised through lengthy conservation treatment via electrolysis over a period of nearly forty months. The gun was subsequently returned to Pitcairn Island, where it has been placed on display in a new community hall.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Over the years, many recovered "Bounty" artefacts have been sold by islanders as souvenirs; in 1999, the Pitcairn Project was established by a consortium of Australian academic and historical bodies to survey and document all the remaining material, as part of a detailed study of the settlement's development.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Bligh published his journal several months after his return to London. Titled "Narrative of the Mutiny on the Bounty", it was a bestseller. He published an expanded account, "A Voyage to the South Sea", in 1792. Bligh's narrative called the voyage one of "uninterrupted prosperity," and made no mention of personal differences with the crew. The journal was heavily edited by Joseph Banks, who told Bligh: "We shall abridge considerably what you wrote ... to satisfy the public and place you in such a point of view as they shall approve."


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Bligh's narrative was unchallenged until the court-martial of the captured "Bounty" crew members in September 1792. In their testimony, the crew alleged that Bligh had cut their rations and Christian had been "in hell" due to his frequent quarrels with the captain. By contrast, Bligh's journal had claimed that he and Christian were on friendly terms and he believed the lure of Tahiti had caused the mutiny.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: The perception of Bligh as an overbearing tyrant began with Edward Christian's "Appendix" of 1794. The "Appendix" was based on interviews with Fryer, Hayward, Purcell, John Smith, Heywood, Muspratt and Morrison. It argued that the day before the mutiny, Bligh had accused Christian of stealing his coconuts and reduced the crew's yam ration to three quarters of a pound as punishment. This left the crew "greatly discontented ... and their discontent was increased from the consideration that they had plenty of provisions on board, and the captain was his own purser". As purser, it was in Bligh's interest to be frugal so that he could supplement his salary by selling back surplus provisions on his return.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Apart from Bligh's journal, the first published account of the mutiny was that of Sir John Barrow, published in 1831. Barrow was a friend of the Heywood family; his book mitigated Heywood's role while emphasising Bligh's severity. The book also instigated the legend that Christian had not died on Pitcairn, but had somehow returned to England and been recognised by Heywood in Plymouth, around 1808–1809. An account written in 1870 by Heywood's stepdaughter Diana Belcher further exonerated Heywood and Christian and, according to Bligh biographer Caroline Alexander, "cemented ... many falsehoods that had insinuated their way into the narrative".


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: Among historians' attempts to portray Bligh more sympathetically are those of Richard Hough (1972) and Caroline Alexander (2003). Hough depicts ""an unsurpassed foul-weather commander ... I would go through hell and high water with him, but not for one day in the same ship on a calm sea"". Alexander presents Bligh as over-anxious, solicitous of his crew's well-being, and utterly devoted to his task. However, Bligh's reputation as the archetypal bad commander remains: the "Baltimore Sun" reviewer of Alexander's book wrote "poetry routed science and it has held the field ever since".


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In addition to many books and articles about the mutiny, in the 20th century five feature films were produced. The first was a 1916 silent Australian film, subsequently lost. The second, also from Australia, titled "In the Wake of the Bounty" (1933), was the screen debut of Errol Flynn in the role of Christian. The impact of this film was overshadowed by that of the MGM version, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935), based on the popular namesake novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, and starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable as Bligh and Christian, respectively. The film's story was presented, says Dening, as "the classic conflict between tyranny and a just cause"; Laughton's portrayal became in the public mind the definitive Bligh, "a byword for sadistic tyranny".


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: The two subsequent major films, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962) with Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando, and "The Bounty" (1984) with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, largely perpetuated this image of Bligh and that of Christian as tragic hero.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: In 1998, in advance of a BBC documentary film aimed at Bligh's rehabilitation, the respective descendants of Bligh and Christian feuded over their contrary versions of the truth. Dea Birkett, the programme's presenter, suggested that "Christian versus Bligh has come to represent rebellion versus authoritarianism, a life constrained versus a life of freedom, sexual repression versus sexual licence." In 2017, Channel 4 undertook a recreating of the voyage of Bligh featuring the former soldier Ant Middleton.


title: Mutiny on the Bounty

text: A musical "Mutiny!" played at the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End for 16 months from 1985. It was co-written by David Essex based on the novel "Mutiny on the Bounty" and starred Essex as Fletcher Christian. Morecambe and Wise produced a spoof "play what Ernie wrote" called "Monty on the Bonty", starring Arthur Lowe as Captain Bligh.


title: Karen Black

text: Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her work in various studio and independent films in the 1970s, frequently portraying eccentric and offbeat characters, and established herself as a figure of New Hollywood. Her career spanned over 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in both independent and mainstream films. Black received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Golden Globe Awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Karen Black

text: A native of suburban Chicago, Black studied theater at Northwestern University before dropping out and relocating to New York City. She performed on Broadway in 1965 before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's "You're a Big Boy Now" (1966). Black relocated to California and was cast as an LSD-tripping sex worker in Dennis Hopper's road film "Easy Rider" (1969). That led to a lead in the drama "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), in which she played a hopeless waitress, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black made her first major commercial picture with the disaster film "Airport 1975" (1974), and her subsequent appearance as Myrtle Wilson in "The Great Gatsby" (1974) won her a second Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Karen Black

text: Black starred as a glamorous country singer in Robert Altman's ensemble musical drama "Nashville" (1975), also writing and performing two songs for the soundtrack, for which she received a nomination for a Grammy Award. Her portrayal of an aspiring actress in John Schlesinger's drama "The Day of the Locust" (also 1975) earned her a third Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actress. Black subsequently took on four roles in Dan Curtis's anthology horror film "Trilogy of Terror" (1975), followed by Curtis's supernatural horror feature, "Burnt Offerings" (1976). The same year, she starred as a con artist in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, "Family Plot".


title: Karen Black

text: In 1982, Black starred as a trans woman in the Robert Altman-directed Broadway debut of "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean", a role she also reprised in Altman's subsequent film adaptation. She next starred in the comedy "Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" (1983), followed by Tobe Hooper's remake of "Invaders from Mars" (1986). For much of the late 1980s and 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse, independent, and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays. She had a leading role as a villainous mother in Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon. Black continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright before her death from ampullary cancer in 2013.


title: Karen Black

text: Black was born Karen Blanche Ziegler on July 1, 1939, in Park Ridge, Illinois, the daughter of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler, an engineer and businessman. Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She had two siblings: a sister and a brother. Actress Gail Brown was Black's elder sister. Black was of German, Czech, and Norwegian descent. The Zieglers came to the United States from Southern Germany from the area of Neukirch (Rottweil) between the Black Forest and the Swabian Jura.


title: Karen Black

text: Black and her siblings were raised at 224 N. Greenwood Ave in Park Ridge, and often spent time on her uncle's farm near Green Bay, Wisconsin. As a young teenager, she aspired to have a career as a stage actress, seeking out summer stock theater job opportunities. "From the age of 13 I'd rush out during vacations to find work in summer stock," Black recalled. "I started by cleaning toilets and by the time I was 16 I was a prop-girl and in the chorus line singing, and at 17 I got my first real acting, paid job." Black graduated from Maine Township High School East in 1957. After high school, she enrolled at Northwestern University, where she majored in theatre arts, studying under Alvina Krause. Black completed two years of studies before dropping out. She later reflected on her training unfavorably, stating:


title: Karen Black

text: While attending college, at age 19, Black gave birth to a daughter, Diane, from her relationship with Robert Benedetti. Black gave the child up for adoption at birth, though she did reconnect with her in the final years of her life.


title: Karen Black

text: After dropping out of Northwestern University in 1960, Black relocated to New York City to pursue an acting career, residing in a cold water flat in Manhattan. She took odd jobs working as a secretary, a front desk person at a hotel, and at an insurance office, and lived on "thirty dollars a week." Black initially began performing with the Rockefeller Players, a theater troupe in Westwood, New Jersey. She briefly joined at the Actors Studio, but left shortly after enrolling, later commenting: "How can a man who isn't an actor teach you how to act?" This same year, she married her first husband, Charles Black, though the marriage was short-lived and ended within the year. However, she retained his surname, under which she would come to be credited throughout her career.


title: Karen Black

text: Black made her screen debut with a minor role in the independent film "The Prime Time" (1960), which she would later deem "the worst film ever made." Disillusioned by this foray into film, Black returned to work in theater. She worked as an understudy in the Broadway production of "Take Her, She's Mine" in December 1961 under director George Abbott. She made her formal Broadway debut in 1965's "The Playroom", which received favorable reviews and for which she was nominated for a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1966, she returned to film with a leading role in the comedy "You're a Big Boy Now", directed by Francis Ford Coppola, portraying the love interest of a young male student. The film earned Black favorable reviews, and the experience prompted her to relocate to Los Angeles. Beginning in 1967, she appeared in guest roles in several television series, including "The F.B.I.", "Run for Your Life", "The Big Valley", "The Iron Horse", "The Invaders", "Mannix" and "Adam-12".


title: Karen Black

text: Her feature film career expanded in 1969, playing the role of an acid-tripping prostitute opposite Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in the iconic counterculture film "Easy Rider". Black's sequence in the film was cut from 16 hours of footage she filmed with Fonda and Hopper. The following year, Black appeared as Rayette, the waitress girlfriend of Jack Nicholson, in the film "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and earned her her first Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.


title: Karen Black

text: Black had a supporting role as the girlfriend of a heroin addict in "Born to Win" (1971) opposite George Segal and Robert De Niro, followed by a role in Jack Nicholson's directorial debut, "Drive, He Said", as a promiscuous faculty wife; and the Western "A Gunfight", opposite Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash, in which she portrayed a saloon barmaid. Black followed these roles with a part in "Cisco Pike" (1972) opposite Kris Kristofferson and Gene Hackman, and subsequently played a foul-mouthed fashion model in "Portnoy's Complaint" (1972). She had a lead role opposite Christopher Plummer in the Canadian-produced horror film "The Pyx" (1973), playing a prostitute embroiled in a series of occult murders, and later appeared in "The Outfit" (1973) with Robert Duvall. Black had the titular role of Laura in the crime film "Little Laura and Big John" (1973), playing a runaway moll of the Ashley gang, a film which "aped" the success of "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967). In April 1973, Black married actor Robert Burton in Los Angeles, though they divorced the following year in 1974. Shortly after, she appeared in the comedy "Rhinoceros" (1974) with Gene Wilder.


title: Karen Black

text: Black's first major commercial film was the disaster feature "Airport 1975" (1974), in which she played Nancy Pryor, a stewardess forced to fly a plane after a midair collision. She subsequently portrayed an unfaithful wife, Myrtle Wilson, in the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby", a performance that earned her a second Golden Globe Award in the same category. In 1975, she played multiple roles in Dan Curtis's televised anthology film "Trilogy of Terror": The segments, all written by Richard Matheson, were named after the women involved in the plot — a plain college professor seemingly seduced by a handsome cad of a student ("Julie"), a pair of sisters who squabble over their father's inheritance ("Millicent and Therese"), and the unknowing purchaser of a cursed Zuni fetish that comes to life and pursues her relentlessly ("Amelia").


title: Karen Black

text: Black received her third Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her role as an aspiring starlet in 1930s Hollywood in John Schlesinger's tragic drama "The Day of the Locust" (1975). Though the film earned her critical notice, Black recalled the production being profoundly troubled and possibly hindering her career:


title: Karen Black

text: The same year, she starred as a glamorous country singer in Robert Altman's ensemble film "Nashville". In addition to acting in the film, Black also wrote and performed two songs for the soundtrack, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack. On July 4, 1975, Black married actor and screenwriter L. M. Kit Carson, and gave birth to a son, Hunter, on December 26 of that year.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1976, Black appeared as a femme fatale jewel thief Alfred Hitchcock's final film, "Family Plot". The film received mixed reviews, though Roger Ebert commented that Black "does a good job in a role that doesn't give her much to do." She also reunited with director Dan Curtis to star opposite Oliver Reed and Bette Davis in the supernatural horror film "Burnt Offerings", playing the wife of a family living in a haunted house. Released in the fall of 1976, "Burnt Offerings" was deemed in "The New York Times" as an "outstanding terror movie" with "solid actors." Additionally, she had a lead role in the independent crime comedy "Crime and Passion" (1976), co-starring with Omar Sharif.


title: Karen Black

text: In September 1976, Black traveled to Toronto to be a guest star on the popular variety program "The Bobby Vinton Show", which aired across the United States and Canada. Black shared her singing talents performing "Lonely Now", and joined Bobby in a medley of country oldies. She played a dual role in the 1977 made-for-television thriller, "The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver", followed by a minor role in "Capricorn One" (1978) opposite Elliott Gould. In 1979, Black appeared in the controversial drama "In Praise of Older Women", playing a middle-aged woman who has an affair with a 17-year-old boy.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1980, Black separated from husband Carson. This same year, she starred in a made-for-TV movie "". She subsequently starred in the drama "Killing Heat" (1981), based on Doris Lessing's 1950 novel "The Grass Is Singing", which focused on race relations in South Africa in the 1960s; in the film, Black portrayed an urban woman who relocates to a rural farm with her husband. She also appeared as Émilienne d’Alençon in the French film "Chanel Solitaire" (1981), a biographical feature detailing the early life of Coco Chanel.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1982, Black starred opposite Cher and Sandy Dennis in a Robert Altman-directed Broadway production of "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean". She subsequently co-starred with Cher and Dennis in Altman's film adaptation, also released in 1982. In both renditions, she portrayed the role of Joanne, a trans woman in a small Texas town. In preparation for the role, Black spent months speaking with transgender people, and "did research into pretty depressing statistics about people who've become transsexuals and how they still don't feel complete. I had to become a man, and I am not a man...  And that transition was so painful to me, to become a man, that I could use the pain of my actual transition for Joanne." While the Broadway production garnered Black some unfavorable reviews, Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" praised Black's performance in the film, writing that "watching her in the movie, you can understand that what she's doing as Joanna "[sic]" might depend on the intimacy of the camera to be both witty and credible."


title: Karen Black

text: Black next starred in the Henry Jaglom-directed comedy "Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?" (1983) playing a divorcee who becomes involved with a bachelor, followed by a lead in the teen-themed black comedy "Bad Manners" (1984). She also appeared in television during this period, with a guest-starring role as Sheila Sheinfeld on "E/R" between 1984 and 1985. She starred in several feature films in 1985, including the Italian exploitation horror film "Cut and Run", directed by Ruggero Deodato; the Canadian supernatural horror film "The Blue Man"; and the action film "Savage Dawn", co-starring with Lance Henriksen as a kidnappee.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1986, Black co-starred with her son, Hunter, in Tobe Hooper's science fiction horror film "Invaders from Mars". The following year, she married her fourth husband, Stephen Eckelberry, on September 27, 1987, with whom she adopted a daughter, Celine. She had a supporting role as a mutant's mother in Larry Cohen's horror sequel "" (1987), and in the youth-themed comedy "The Invisible Kid" (1988). She co-starred with Jim Belushi and Whoopi Goldberg in "Homer and Eddie" (1989), a comedy about a woman (Goldberg) with a psychologically-impairing brain tumor, and a mentally-challenged man (Belushi). In 1990, Black had a supporting role in "The Children" (1990), a British adaptation of a novel by Edith Wharton, opposite Ben Kingsley, and in the science fiction comedy "Zapped Again!".


title: Karen Black

text: Beginning in the 1990s, Black was more frequently cast in horror films. Among them were "Mirror, Mirror" (1990), in which she played a troubled mother; Gary Graver's low-budget supernatural film "Evil Spirits" (1990); and "Children of the Night" (1991), in which she played an ancient vampire. She also had roles in the British comedy "Rubin and Ed" (1991), the martial arts film "The Roller Blade Seven" (also 1991), and a cameo in Robert Altman's "The Player" (1992). Black reprised her role from "The Roller Blade Seven" in its 1992 and 1993 sequels, and appeared in the direct-to-video comedy "The Double 0 Kid" (1993), with Corey Haim and Nicole Eggert. Also in 1993, Black had a supporting role in George Sluizer's drama "Dark Blood" opposite River Phoenix and Judy Davis, a film that remained incomplete and unreleased for two decades after Phoenix died during the production. In 1995, she starred in "Plan 10 from Outer Space", a science fiction satire of Mormon theology, directed by Trent Harris.


title: Karen Black

text: In 1996, Black appeared as a paranoid mother in small-town Nebraska in "", opposite Naomi Watts. She had supporting roles in a number of other independent films that year, including as a public defender in Ulli Lommel's drama "Every Minute is Goodbye", and the exploitation comedy "Dinosaur Valley Girls". The following year, she co-starred with Tilda Swinton as Lady Byron in the feminist science fiction feature "Conceiving Ada" (1997), about a contemporary scientist who uses software to make contact with the Victorian pioneer of computer programming Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. She also had supporting roles in the independent drama "Men", and as a singer in rural Missouri in George Hickenlooper's "Dogtown".


title: Karen Black

text: She continued to star in numerous independent features in 1998, including the camp comedy "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died", the drama "Charades", as well as the short film "Waiting for Dr. MacGuffin". In 2000, Black began filming Rob Zombie's directorial debut "House of 1000 Corpses", in which she portrayed Mother Firefly, the matron of a family of psychotic murderers. Upon its release in 2003, the film received largely unfavorable reviews, though it helped cement Black's status as a cult icon in the horror genre.


title: Karen Black

text: In March 2005, Black received the Best Actress Award at the Fantasporto International Film Festival in Porto, Portugal, for her work in the critically acclaimed Steve Balderson film "Firecracker" (2005), in which she played two roles, Sandra and Eleanor. She and actor John Hurt were also presented with Career Achievement Awards.


title: Karen Black

text: Black launched a career as a playwright in May 2007 with the opening of "Missouri Waltz" at the Blank Theater in Los Angeles; Black starred in the play as well. She also performed live narrations of Guy Maddin's experimental film "Brand Upon the Brain!" in 2007, touring the show around the United States.


title: Karen Black

text: In April 2009, Black worked with director Steve Balderson for "Stuck!", a homage to film noir women-in-prison dramas, which co-starred Mink Stole, Pleasant Gehman and Jane Wiedlin. She starred in John Landis' 2010 thriller "Some Guy Who Kills People", as well as Aïda Ruilova's surrealist short film "Meet the Eye" (2009). Later that year, Black appeared on Cass McCombs' song "Dreams-Come-True-Girl" from the album "Catacombs".


title: Karen Black

text: The experimental hip-hop group Death Grips released a video on YouTube called "Bottomless Pit" in October 2015. The video shows footage of Black reciting lines from a film script written by the group's drummer/co-producer Zach Hill. The footage was shot in early 2013.


title: Karen Black

text: Due to her work in various independent and mainstream films in the 1970s, Black is considered by film historians as a prominent figure of New Hollywood, and was described in 2004 by Howard Feinstein in the LGBT magazine "The Advocate" as "Hollywood's off-center icon." She was prolific throughout her career, sometimes appearing in as many as seven films a year, and favored working in independent films: "That's my world—independent features," she stated in 2007. "That's how I started. That's what I like. It's playful and comfortable and not stressful, and it's an individual's way of creating. You're not in the studio system imitating other people and yourself. I'm having a good life."


title: Karen Black

text: In her later life, Black spoke unfavorably of the formal study of acting, and commented that she found her training both in the university (under Alvina Krause) and at the Actors Studio unhelpful and oppressive. Also a writer, Black likened her acting process to that of writing screenplays or other literature: "Everything that occurs in this zone is imagination-based. In that sense you mock up a life, and then you become the effect of what you’ve mocked up, so it’s cause and effect. So the more you can mock it up so that it seems real to you, the more you can react to the effect. That’s what acting is, and that’s what writing involves for me, too. That’s the simplicity of it. It sounds simple, because it is." Black considered herself a character actress.


title: Karen Black

text: Throughout her career, Black was noted for her distinctive eyes, which gave her a slightly "cross-eyed" appearance, although she stated in a 1982 interview that she had not been clinically diagnosed as such. One reviewer once described her as a "lopsided caricature of a pretty face." For much of her career, Black was typecast as unglamorous or lowly women of limited intelligence. Beginning in the 1990s, Black began garnering a cult following for her appearances in horror films, though she clarified in 2008 that she had acted only in "about 14" out of her wide-ranging filmography. "When I did "Trilogy of Terror", with that [demon] doll, I filled the role very well," she recalled. "It was very real to people, and they just fell in love with it. And that got to be incredibly popular. With my last name being Black ... so it got to be kind of an unconscious thing, [my association with horror movies]. But I'm not interested in blood."


title: Karen Black

text: Beginning in the mid-1970s, Black became a Scientologist, and practiced it for the remainder of her life. She was a vocal proponent of gay rights, commenting in 2007: "I'm for gay rights. Who you are is very sacred, and should be honored—no matter what gender you were born. You shouldn't feel like you have to dodge some sort of conformity." Black also advocated animal rights and was critical of the fur industry, once posing in a Halloween-themed anti-fur advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).


title: Karen Black

text: After the release of her final films in 2010, Black was diagnosed with ampullary cancer and stopped making public appearances. She had a portion of her pancreas removed that year and underwent two further operations.


title: Karen Black

text: On August 8, 2012, she reconnected with a daughter, Diane Koehnemann Bay, whom Black had given up for adoption at the age of 19. Black was very open to the reunion and welcomed Diane into her family.


title: Karen Black

text: On August 8, 2013, Black died at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, from the ampullary cancer, aged 74. Actress and fellow Scientologist Juliette Lewis paid tribute, saying "Karen Black was my mentor and a second mother to me. She inspired everyone she came in contact with." Peter Fonda, her co-star in "Easy Rider", commented upon her death: "[Karen] managed to play kooky, she managed to play sexy, she managed to play crazed. She managed to play all the different ways of human nature." Black is interred at Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Meet the Parents is a 2000 American comedy film written by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg and directed by Jay Roach. It chronicles a series of unfortunate events that befall a good-hearted but hapless nurse (Ben Stiller as Greg Focker) while visiting his girlfriend's parents (Robert De Niro as Jack Byrnes and Blythe Danner as Dina Byrnes). Teri Polo as Pam Byrnes and Owen Wilson as Kevin Rawley also star.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The film is a remake of a 1992 film of the same name directed by Greg Glienna and produced by Jim Vincent. Glienna – who also played the original film's protagonist – and Mary Ruth Clarke cowrote the screenplay. Universal Pictures purchased the rights to Glienna's film with the intent of creating a new version. Jim Herzfeld expanded the original script but development was halted for some time. Jay Roach read the expanded script and expressed his desire to direct it but Universal declined him. At that time, Steven Spielberg was interested in doing so while Jim Carrey was interested in playing the lead role. The studio only offered the film to Roach once Spielberg and Carrey left the project.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Released in the United States and Canada on October 6, 2000 and distributed by Universal Pictures, the film earned back its initial budget of $55 million in only 11 days. It went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of 2000, earning over $165 million in North America and over $330 million worldwide. It was well received by film critics and viewers alike, winning several awards and earning additional nominations. Ben Stiller won two comedy awards for his performance and the film was chosen as the Favorite Comedy Motion Picture at the 2001 People's Choice Awards. The success of the film inspired two sequels, namely "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers" released in 2004 and 2010, respectively. It also inspired a reality television show titled "Meet My Folks" and a sitcom titled "In-Laws", both of which debuted on NBC in 2002.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Greg Focker, a nurse living in Chicago, intends to propose to his girlfriend, Pam Byrnes, but his plan is disrupted when they are invited to the wedding of Pam's sister, Debbie, at their parents' house on Long Island. Greg decides to impress Pam's parents first, and propose to her in front of her family, but this plan is put on hold when the airline company loses his luggage which contains the engagement ring.


title: Meet the Parents

text: At the Byrnes's house, Greg meets Pam's father Jack, her mother Dina, and their beloved cat Jinx. Jack is immediately suspicious of Greg and openly criticizes him for his choice of career as a male nurse and anything else he sees as a difference between Greg and the Byrnes family. Greg attempts to impress Jack, but his efforts fail. He becomes even more uncomfortable after he receives an impromptu lie detector test from Jack and later learns from Pam that Jack is a retired CIA operative who interrogated double agents.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Meeting the rest of Pam's family and friends, Greg still feels like an outsider. Despite efforts to impress her family, his inadvertent actions make him an easy target for ridicule. Greg unintentionally gives Debbie a broken nose and a black eye during a pool volleyball game, uses a malfunctioning toilet which floods the Byrnes' backyard with sewage, and sets the wedding altar on fire. Several misunderstandings also cause Jack to believe Greg is a marijuana user after Pam's weed-using brother, Denny, unintentionally frames him.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Later, Greg loses Jinx and replaces him with a stray, whose tail he spray-paints and who makes a mess of the house, including destroying Debbie's wedding dress (though the real Jinx is later found). By now, the entire Byrnes family, including Pam, agrees that Greg should leave Long Island. Desperate to save himself, Greg reveals he has seen Jack engaging in some secret activity with some shady characters, and that Jack is planning a covert mission after the wedding. Jack angrily counters that the mission was a surprise honeymoon for Debbie and her fiancé Bob, then accuses Greg of lying about being a nurse and taking the Medical College Admission Test because his CIA contacts could not find any record of a "Gregory" Focker.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Greg's missing luggage arrives, revealing his real first name as Gaylord, much to the amusement of the Byrnes family. Greg drives sadly to the airport preparing to return to Chicago but is detained by airport security for insisting that his luggage stays with him rather than be checked. Back at the Byrnes's house, Jack learns from a disappointed Pam that he could find no record of Greg from the CIA because his real name is Gaylord, and is presented with copies of Greg's transcripts his parents faxed her, proving that Greg passed the Medical College Admission Test. Despite this, Jack still states his belief that Greg is an unsuitable husband for Pam because of the mistakes and lies he made, but is told off by Dina over his consistent picking apart of any man Pam brings home (and that he didn't even like Pam's previous fiancé, Kevin, until after they broke up).


title: Meet the Parents

text: After hearing Pam make a heartfelt phone call to Greg to apologize for not sticking up for him earlier, Jack realizes that Pam truly loves Greg. He rushes to the airport, convinces airport security to release Greg, and brings him back to the Byrnes's house. Jack performs a lie detector test on Greg to tell the truth about the weekend and loving Pam, leading Jack to propose to Greg to be his son-in-law.


title: Meet the Parents

text: As Greg proposes to Pam, Jack and Dina listen in on their conversation from another room, agreeing that they should now meet Greg's parents despite their worries about doing so. After Debbie's wedding, Jack views footage of Greg recorded by hidden cameras that he had placed strategically around the house in which Greg calls Jack a "psycho" and mocks him but also exposes Denny as the true marijuana user.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Greg Focker is a middle-class Jewish nurse whose social and cultural position is juxtaposed against the Byrnes family of upper-class White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. With respect to Greg as a Jew and a nurse when compared to the Byrnes and Banks families, a distinct cultural gap is created and subsequently widened. The cultural differences are often highlighted, and Greg repeatedly made aware of them. This serves to achieve comedic effect through character development and has also been commented upon as being indicative of thematic portrayal of Jewish characters' roles in modern film as well as being a prime example of how male nurses are portrayed in media. Speaking about character development in "Meet the Parents", director Jay Roach stated that he wanted an opportunity to "do character-driven comedy" and "to create realistic characters, but heighten the comedic situations and predicaments."


title: Meet the Parents

text: Vincent Brook observes mainstream Hollywood cinema's tendency since the 1990s of incorporating Jewish liminality and "popularizing the Jew." He explains the "manly Jewish triumph" of characters like Jeff Goldblum's David Levinson in "Independence Day" and labels it as a "certain answer to America's yearnings for a new Jewish hero." This stands in direct contrast to the schlemiel or "the Jewish fool" which was seen to have been revitalized in the mid-1990s after faltering since the 1960s. The schlemiel, Brook explains, is an anti-hero in whose humiliation the audience finds supreme pleasure. Within that context, Brook describes Greg Focker's character as "the quintessential example of the postmodern schlemiel." The repeated embarrassing encounters that Greg faces with his girlfriend's all-American family is compared to the example of Jason Biggs's character Jim Levenstein of the "American Pie" film series where Levenstein is often the comedic centerpiece due to his repeated sexual embarrassments.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Anne Bower writes about Jewish characters at mealtime as part of the broader movement she believes started in the 1960s where filmmakers started producing work that explored the "Jewish self-definition." She postulates that the dinner table becomes an arena where Jewish characters are often and most pointedly put into "conflicts with their ethnic and sexual selves." She describes the example of Greg sitting down for dinner with the Byrnes family and being asked to bless the food. In this scene, Greg attempts to recite a prayer by improvising and, in doing so, launches into a recital of the song "Day by Day" from Act I of "Godspell". Bower notes this scene as "particularly important for establishing the cultural distance" between the Jewish Greg and the Christian Byrnes. She noted that the social gap is further widened next morning when Greg is the last person to arrive at the breakfast table; he shows up wearing pajamas while everyone else is fully clothed. Here Greg is shown eating a bagel, which Bower argues as being a clear signifier of Jewishness.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Based on common misconceptions and stereotypes about men in nursing, Greg's profession is repeatedly brought up by Jack in a negative context and the character of Greg Focker has come to be one of the best known film portrayals of a male nurse. Even though men dominated the profession in earlier times, there has been a feminization of the nursing profession over the course of the last century which has caused men in nursing to often be portrayed as misfits by the media. A common stereotype is that of a man who accepts a career in nursing as an unfortunate secondary career choice, either failing to become a physician or still trying to become one. Such stereotyping is due to a presumption that a man would prefer to be a physician but is unable to become one due to lack of intelligence or non-masculine attributes. Jack is often seen openly criticizing Greg's career choice per his perception of nursing being an effeminate profession. In their book "Men in Nursing: History, Challenges, and Opportunities" authors Chad O'Lynn and Russell Tranbarger present this as an example of a negative portrayal. Commenting on the same issue but disagreeing, Barbara Cherry in her book "Contemporary Nursing: Issues, Trends, & Management" called the portrayal of Greg as a nurse "one of the most positive film portrayals of men who are nurses" and commented that Greg "humorously addresses and rises above the worst of all stereotypes that are endured by men in this profession." Sandy and Harry Summers in the book "Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk" postulate that Greg's character, although intelligent and firm in his defense of his profession, "might have done more to rebut the stereotypes" while also reporting that "some men in nursing" expressed their opinions that it would have been better to not present the stereotypes at all.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The film is a remake of a 1992 independent film of the same name. Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke wrote the original story and screenplay. Glienna also directed and starred in the 76-minute film which was filmed on 16 mm film in 1991 and released the following year. The 1992 film also marked one of only several film roles played by comedian Emo Philips which he also helped produce. Film producer Elliot Grove, founder of Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards, listed the original "Meet the Parents" on his personal Top Ten list of favorite films where he called it "much funnier and tighter than the Hollywood version". The 1992 film was a featured entry in the 1995 Raindance Film Festival.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Producer Nancy Tenenbaum acquired the rights to the 1992 film. After she sent a copy of the original film to several people of interest, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh replied that he was interested and that he wanted to direct a remake. He brought it to the attention of Universal Studios who initially declined but subsequently optioned the rights to the film in 1995. Soderbergh took on the project but then dropped it when he got involved with "Out of Sight".


title: Meet the Parents

text: Universal approached screenwriter Jim Herzfeld to expand the screenplay. Herzfeld expanded the modest script, completing the first draft as early as 1996. He initially presented it to Roach who had, up to that point, directed the first two "Austin Powers" films. Roach admits to have liked the script from the beginning and was very much willing to make the film even though he thought "it needed more work." Universal initially declined to have relatively inexperienced Roach take on the project. The studio was skeptical of Roach's ability to direct a "less-cartoony, character-driven script" compared to a comedy like "Austin Powers". Universal's reluctance to give the project to Roach was also due to new interest from Steven Spielberg who wanted to direct and produce the film with Jim Carrey playing the role of Greg Focker. However, Spielberg and Carrey never took the project past the planning stages. The script was then returned to Roach who had by now taken on his next project of "Mystery, Alaska" but was still interested in making "Meet the Parents".


title: Meet the Parents

text: The drafts of the script were written by Herzfeld and, once De Niro and Stiller were confirmed as stars, John Hamburg was brought on board "to help fit the script to their verbal styles." Due to changes in directorial and acting line-ups after the early drafts of the script were written, Hamburg kept adjusting and re-writing the script well after production had already begun.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Upon the suggestion of Universal Studios, Roach cast De Niro in the role of Jack Byrnes due to critical acclaim of his recent comedy work in films such as "Analyze This" and in the live-action/animated film "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle". His character is Pam's father and a retired CIA operative who is overly protective of his family and has a hard time warming up to his daughters' love interests. The script was not written with De Niro in mind as Jack Byrnes; the first draft of the script was completed in 1996, three years before De Niro appeared in "Analyze This". However, shortly after De Niro finished filming "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle", Universal suggested to Roach that he should cast him for the role to which Roach agrees that he had "no reservations whatsoever." In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", De Niro stated that he was in active pursuit of comedic roles since "Analyze This". Admitting that he had initial reservations about starring in the film, he said that he felt "pushed into it" due to insistence by Jane Rosenthal—De Niro's partner in TriBeCa Productions who also acted as one of the producers. Screenwriter Jim Herzfeld and director Jay Roach both confirmed that, after committing to the project and reviewing the script, De Niro was actually the person who came up with the idea for the famous polygraph test scene. Asked about working with him given the serious nature of his previous roles, Ben Stiller said that "it was a little bit intimidating working with De Niro" but that he "has a great sense of humor and I think that's the biggest surprise about him."


title: Meet the Parents

text: Explaining how Ben Stiller came to be cast in the role of Greg, Roach states: "I saw "Meet the Parents" as an anxiety dream, and in my view nobody plays that kind of material better than Ben." Additionally, Roach was impressed with Stiller's creative and ad lib abilities stating that "he has lots of great ideas and he's very skilled at loose improvisation." His character is a nurse who loves his girlfriend and tries desperately to impress her parents by any means which includes telling harmless little lies which are then covered up with bigger lies and elaborate cover-up schemes. The film's script was initially written with Jim Carrey in the role of Greg and contained much more physical comedy, something that Stiller did not think would be successful with himself playing the role. This resulted in deletion of some scenes but also in introduction of at least one unscripted scene that was completely improvised by Stiller. Roach cast Stiller only after it became clear that Carrey would not be taking on the role.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The consideration to play the character of Pam Byrnes, Greg's girlfriend who acts as a mediator between Greg and the Byrnes family, especially her father, Jack, was initially given to British actress Naomi Watts. She ultimately lost the role to Teri Polo because the filmmakers "didn't think [Watts] was sexy enough".


title: Meet the Parents

text: Other characters in the film were played by Blythe Danner (as Dina Byrnes, Jack's wife and Pam's mother), Owen Wilson (as Kevin Rawley, Pam's ex-fiancée), Nicole DeHuff (as Debbie Byrnes, Pam's sister), Jon Abrahams (as Denny Byrnes, the youngest child of Jack and Dina Byrnes), Thomas McCarthy (as Bob Banks, Debbie's fiancé), and James Rebhorn (as Larry Banks, Bob Banks' father and a close friend of Jack's). Phyllis George, who is a former Miss Texas and Miss America pageant winner and has appeared on numerous television programs as a guest and a host, made her acting debut as Linda Banks, Larry's wife and Bob's mother.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The role of Jinx the cat was played by two five-year-old Himalayan cats named Bailey and Misha (sometimes written as Meesha). The American Humane Association oversaw the filming of all scenes where the cats were used and ensured the animals' obedience and well-being by keeping two trainers and a veterinarian on set at all times.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Greg Glienna did not come up with the surname Focker; Greg's character in the original film did not have a last name. The name was written into the script after Jim Carrey came up with the idea for the Focker surname during a creative session held before he abandoned the project. Once "Meet the Parents" was submitted for rating evaluation, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) questioned the surname Focker as possibly an expletive and, due to the repetitiveness of the surname throughout the film, it was in danger of being rated R according to the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system. The filmmakers were asked if they had made up the name or if they can prove that such a name exists. The studio submitted to the MPAA a list of real people with the surname Focker which ensured that the film retained a PG-13 rating.


title: Meet the Parents

text: "Meet the Parents" had its theatrical release in United States and Canada on October 6, 2000. Distributed domestically by Universal Studios, it had an advertising budget of $33.9 million. It quickly proved to be a financial success taking in $28.6 million during its opening weekend and averaging $10,950 per theater in a total of 2,614 theaters. It finished as the top-earning film for the weekend of October 6–8 beating the second-placer "Remember the Titans" by a margin of over $9 million and bringing in more than four times the earnings of "Get Carter", the next highest-earning film released that same weekend. Its opening-weekend earnings were the highest ever for any film released in the month of October, surpassing "Antz", as well as marking the highest opening weekend earnings for a film starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller, beating "Analyze This" and "The Cable Guy" simultaneously. The film's October opening weekend record was later given to "Red Dragon" in 2002. Its earnings for the second week of release dropped by 26% down to $21.1 million, which still kept it at No.1 at the box office beating "Remember the Titans" by a margin of over $8 million. By the end of the second week of release, it had already grossed over $58 million, surpassing its production budget of $55 million.


title: Meet the Parents

text: It spent its first four weeks of theatrical release as the highest-grossing film at the U.S. box office, making it the first film to do so since "The Sixth Sense" in 1999. It was displaced from No.1 during the weekend of November 3–5 by the newly released "Charlie's Angels" while still managing to stay ahead of "The Legend of Bagger Vance", another new release that debuted at number 3. It remained in the Top 10 grossing films until its 11th week. In the United Kingdom, it had its theatrical premiere on December 15, 2000 and was distributed by United International Pictures (UIP). There, it managed to earn over $21 million during its run. In Australia, also being distributed by UIP, it was released on December 26, 2000, where it earned over $11 million during the theatrical run.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Twenty-five weeks after its opening day in North America, "Meet the Parents" completed its theatrical run on March 29, 2001, grossing $166.2 million in the United States and a total of $330.4 million worldwide, making it the seventh-highest-grossing film of the year both domestically and worldwide.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The film was released on VHS and DVD on March 6, 2001. The DVD sales for it were successful, taking in over $200 million for 2001. "Billboard" magazine listed it as having the highest video sales for all weeks from March 31 up to and including April 21, being the top-selling DVD for the weeks of March 24 and March 31, and being the top-rented video for the weeks of April 7 and April 14.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The DVD release provides only the letterbox format of the film and is also 108 minutes in length. The aspect ratio is 1.85:1 with an accommodation for an enhanced 16:9 playback. English-language audio tracks available with the film are a 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS with the main noticeable difference being only a slightly louder bass on one of the tracks. A French-language audio track is also available only in 5.1 Dolby Digital Format. Additionally, English language subtitles are provided as well.


title: Meet the Parents

text: The single-disc "Collector's Edition" contains two audio commentaries, one a light-hearted and humorous discussion between Roach, Stiller, De Niro, and producer Jane Rosenthal and the other a more formal technical commentary on the film-making aspects by the director and editor Jon Poll. The director discusses issues that include working with the cast, utilizing the best camera angles for comedic effect, discussing scenes that were improvised and scenes that were scripted, and commenting on issues surrounding shooting on location. The editor speaks about putting together the best functioning comedy from material that was filmed and discusses some deleted scenes that were excluded from the DVD release. In addition, the DVD features a twelve-minute outtake section, three minutes of deleted scenes, and Universal's "Spotlight on Location" featurette. "Spotlight on Location" is a standard 24-minute-long featurette about the making of the film which includes interviews with the cast members and contains behind-the-scenes footage. It also contains two games called "Take The Lie Detector Test" and "The Forecaster Game" as well as PC material such as wallpapers and screensavers. There are also trailers for "The Mummy Returns" and "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". The region 2 edition of the DVD was released on October 22, 2001. A region 1 "Bonus Edition" was released on December 14, 2004 and contains three additional featurettes: "Silly Cat Tricks", "The Truth About Lying" and a 12-minute-long "Jay Roach: A Director's Profile".


title: Meet the Parents

text: The original motion picture soundtrack for the film was released on September 26, 2000 on the DreamWorks Records record label. The soundtrack features 14 original compositions by Randy Newman as well as additional tracks by Bobby Womack, Lee Dorsey, and Dr. John and a hidden bonus track. Newman's original song "A Fool in Love" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song—Newman's 14th Oscar nomination—at the 73rd Academy Awards but it ultimately lost to Bob Dylan's "Things Have Changed" for "Wonder Boys". For the same song, Newman also won the 16th Annual ASCAP Film & Television Music Award in the Top Box Office Films category and was nominated at the 5th Golden Satellite Awards in the Original Song category. Dan Goldwasser, in his review of the soundtrack for Soundtrack.Net, gave credit to Newman and the soundtrack for doing "an excellent job keeping the humor level high."


title: Meet the Parents

text: "Meet the Parents" received a generally positive response from film critics, being commended on the subtlety of its humor as well as being named as "the funniest" or "one of the funniest" films of the year by several critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average rating of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Meet the Parents

text: Kenneth Turan, film critic for "Los Angeles Times", called it "the funniest film of the year so far, possibly the most amusing mainstream live-action comedy since "There's Something About Mary"." Critic Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" stated that the film "does almost everything right with a story about everything going wrong" and that it "works up a major comic delirium on the theme of Murphy's Law", concluding that ""Meet the Parents" is the funniest movie of the year." CNN's Paul Clinton proclaimed ""Meet the Parents" is one of the best comedies of this—or any other—year", calling it "wonderfully funny" and expressing his hope that "the Academy will also recognize this wonderful movie, something it rarely does when it comes to comedies." "Time" magazine's film critic Richard Schickel stated that it was "divinely invented and perfectly orchestrated". He complimented the screenplay by calling the screenwriters Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg "a couple of skilled tool-and-die makers" as well as the acting cast because he believed that they "understand that palpable reality will always trump frenzied fantasy when it comes to getting laughs." Schickel concluded his review by proclaiming "Meet the Parents" a "superbly antic movie". Todd McCarthy of "Variety" magazine called the film "flat-out hilarious" and Neil Smith of BBC proclaimed that "there's not a weak scene in this super-funny picture" while awarding it a rating of five stars out of five. Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it three stars out of four comparing it to Roach's previous work on the "Austin Powers" film series and offering his opinion that "["Meet the Parents"] is funnier because it never tries too hard." Critic Christopher Null of AMC's Filmcritic.com claimed that ""Meet the Parents" is one of the funniest comedies I've seen since "Annie Hall"". Lisa Schwarzbaum from "Entertainment Weekly" called the script "unforced" and concluded that it "goes down like a flute of Champagne, leaving an aftertaste of giggles."


title: Meet the Parents

text: However, Internet film critic James Berardinelli, in spite of awarding it two-and-a-half stars out of four, gave the film a somewhat scathing review. On his website, Berardinelli wrote that ""Meet the Parents" is put together like a TV sit-com," that Roach "strings together a series of hit-and-miss lowbrow gags with little care for whether any of the connecting material is coherent, interesting, or enjoyable (in most cases, it's none of those three)" and concluding that "even with Stiller and De Niro, "Meet the Parents" is an encounter that can be postponed until it's available on video." Jeff Vice of the "Deseret News", another detractor of the film, proclaimed "Meet the Parents" "only erratically funny" and accused Roach of taking "the cheap way out with a series of unfunny jokes." Critic Peter Bradshaw's review of it in "The Guardian" concludes that "It is somehow less than the sum of its parts. It strains to come to life, but never quite makes it." After it was released on home media, DVD reviewer and "Rolling Stone" magazine contributor Douglas Pratt in his book "Doug Pratt's DVD: Movies, Television, Music, Art, Adult, and More!" stated that "perhaps in the crowded theater the film is hysterical, but in the quieter venue of home video, it just seems sadistic, and as the humor evaporates, the holes in the plot become clearer."


title: Meet the Parents

text: The success of the film was initially responsible for a 2002 NBC reality television show entitled "Meet My Folks" in which a young woman's love interest, vying for her family's approval, is interrogated by the woman's overprotective father with the help of a lie detector machine. In September 2002, NBC also aired a situation comedy entitled "In-Laws". During the development of it, NBC called it "a "Meet the Parents" project" which prompted an investigation by Universal into whether NBC was infringing on Universal's copyright. Universal did not pursue any action against NBC but neither show lasted more than one season. NBC and Universal would merge in 2004.


title: Meet the Parents

text: In 2004, "Meet the Fockers" was released as a sequel to the film. Directed again by Jay Roach with a screenplay by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, it chronicles the events that take place when the Byrnes family meets Bernie and Roz Focker, Greg's parents, played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand. The producers intended for them to be the opposite of the Byrneses' conservative, upper class, WASPy demeanor; to that effect, producer Jane Rosenthal explains that "Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand were our dream team." The sequel proved to be another financial success grossing $280 million domestically and $516 million worldwide, outperforming "Meet the Parents" by a large margin and finishing as the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2004.


title: Meet the Parents

text: In February 2007, Universal Studios announced that they would be making a second sequel in the franchise, titled "Little Fockers". It was to be directed by Roach with the screenplay written by Larry Stuckey, Roach's former assistant. The sequel brings back De Niro, Stiller, Polo, Danner, Hoffman, and Streisand. Roach was later replaced as director of the third film by Paul Weitz. "Little Fockers" was released in 2010 and grossed $148.4 million domestically and $310.7 million worldwide.


title: Meet the Parents

text: On July 18, 2005, a regularly scheduled American Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport to San Juan, Puerto Rico had to be diverted back to Fort Lauderdale shortly after take-off due to a bomb threat. The pilot turned the plane around approximately 40 minutes into the flight after a flight attendant found a crumpled napkin that read "Bomb, bomb, bomb...meet the parents," a clear reference to the scene in which Greg repeatedly shouts the word "bomb" while being detained by airport security. The plane was met by a bomb squad of the local sheriff's office as well as the FBI whose agents questioned its 176 passengers about the note.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Frontier Airlines is a major ultra-low-cost U.S. airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It operates flights to over 100 destinations throughout the United States and 31 international destinations, and employs more than 3,000 staff. The carrier is a subsidiary and operating brand of Indigo Partners, LLC, and maintains a hub at Denver International Airport with numerous focus cities across the US.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Frontier Airlines was created by Frederick W. "Rick" Brown (a United Airlines pilot), his wife Janice Brown, and Bob Schulman, the latter two having worked at the original Frontier Airlines (1950–1986). In 1993, Continental Airlines was scaling back flights from Denver's Stapleton International Airport, and the three proposed a charter airline named AeroDenver Travel Services to fill demand on international routes, potentially in partnership with Condor Airlines. To run the company, they brought in M.C. "Hank" Lund (ex-CEO of the original Frontier Airlines) as CEO and Sam Addoms as executive vice-president and treasurer (later CEO). As Continental's Denver drawback expanded in scope in late 1993, the proposed airline pivoted to fill regional routes, and adopted the Frontier Airlines name. The company was incorporated in February and went public in May 1994.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Scheduled flights began on July 5, 1994, using Boeing 737-200 jetliners between Denver and four cities in North Dakota. Around three-quarters of its 180 employees, and many executives, had worked for the original Frontier Airlines. By January 1995, Frontier had expanded its route network from Denver and was serving destinations in New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, Texas, Nevada, Nebraska, and Arizona. Like the original airline of the same name, the new Frontier operated a hub at Denver (DEN) and for the first nine years used the slogan "The Spirit of the West" which was displayed above the windows and just behind the cursive letters "Frontier" on the fuselage of their aircraft.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In 1999, Frontier signed agreements to begin purchasing and leasing Airbus A318 and A319 jet aircraft and had also added Boeing 737-300 jetliners to its fleet as well. Also by September 1999, the airline was serving destinations from coast to coast in the U.S., having expanded its route network to include Atlanta (ATL); Baltimore (BWI); Bloomington/Normal, Illinois (BMI); Boston (BOS); Chicago (MDW, Midway Airport); Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW); Phoenix (PHX); Los Angeles (LAX); Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP); New York City (LGA, LaGuardia Airport); Orlando (MCO); Portland, Oregon (PDX); Salt Lake City (SLC); San Diego (SAN); San Francisco (SFO); and Seattle (SEA), all served from its Denver hub.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Frontier took delivery of its first Airbus aircraft (an A319) in 2001 and simultaneously launched with it DirecTV in-flight television along with a new company livery. Frontier Airlines was the launch customer of the Airbus A318 in 2003. In mid-April 2005, Frontier officially became an all-Airbus fleet, retiring its last Boeing 737. Jeff Potter was appointed CEO in 2002.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: As part of its plan to stay competitive in reaction to the entry of Southwest Airlines into Denver, the company underwent a reorganization early in 2006. On April 3, 2006, Frontier created Frontier Airlines Holdings (FRNT), a holding company incorporated in Delaware to take advantage of favorable tax laws in that state. The corporate headquarters did not leave Colorado. In 2007, Frontier established a commuter airline subsidiary, Lynx Aviation, Inc., chaired by Dr. Paul Stephen Dempsey. Also that year, Jeff Potter left the company and was replaced by Air Canada's Sean Menke as CEO.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On January 24, 2007, Frontier was designated as a major carrier by the United States Department of Transportation.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On January 11, 2007, Frontier Airlines signed an 11-year service agreement with Republic Airways. Under the agreement, Republic was to operate 17, 76-seat Embraer 170 aircraft for the former Frontier JetExpress operations. At the time the contract was canceled in April 2008, Republic Airways operated 11 aircraft for Frontier Airlines, with the remaining six aircraft expected to join the fleet by December 2008. With the integration of Republic aircraft, the 'JetExpress' denotation was removed. Subsequent to the cessation of Horizon's services for Frontier in December 2007, all flights operated by Republic were sold and marketed as "Frontier Airlines, operated by Republic Airways." The first market created specifically for the Embraer 170 was Louisville, Kentucky, which began on April 1, 2007. Service to Louisville was suspended in August 2008 but restarted in April 2010.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Flights operated by Republic Airlines offered in-flight snack and beverage services similar to Frontier's mainline flights. Unlike Frontier's aircraft and due to the nature of contracting with regional carriers, these Embraer 170 aircraft were not fitted with LiveTV.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On April 10, 2008, Frontier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in reaction to the intent of its credit card processor, First Data, to withhold significant proceeds from ticket sales. First Data decided that it would withhold 100% of the carrier's proceeds from ticket sales beginning May 1. According to Frontier's press release, "This change in practice would have represented a material change to our cash forecasts and business plan. Unchecked, it would have put severe restraints on Frontier's liquidity..." Its operation continued uninterrupted, though, as Chapter 11 bankruptcy protected the corporation's assets and allowed restructuring to ensure long-term viability. After months of losses, Frontier Airlines reported that they made their first profit during the month of November 2008, reporting in net income for the month.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On June 22, 2009, Frontier Airlines announced that, pending bankruptcy court approval, Republic Airways Holdings, the Indianapolis-based parent company of Republic Airways, would acquire all assets of Frontier for the amount of $108 million. Thus, Frontier Airlines would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Republic. However, five weeks later on July 30, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines announced that it would be making a competing bid of $113.6 million for Frontier with intentions to also operate Frontier as a wholly owned subsidiary, but that it would gradually fold Frontier resources into current Southwest operating assets.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: During a bankruptcy auction on August 13, 2009, Republic Airways Holdings acquired Frontier Airlines and its regional airline, Lynx Aviation, as wholly owned subsidiaries. On October 1, Republic completed the transaction, and Frontier officially exited bankruptcy as a new airline.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In late 2009, Republic began to consolidate administrative positions and moved 140 jobs from the Frontier Airlines Denver headquarters to Indianapolis. Shortly after in January 2010, Republic Airways announced that it would move all of its executives to Indianapolis. Later in February, the "Denver Business Journal" stated that the headquarters would be moved "soon". Despite this, according to the "Denver Business Journal", Frontier Airlines will still maintain a local headquarters in Denver to house Training, Marketing, Customer Reservations, and Scheduling & Planning teams after extending its lease on the building through 2020.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: As Republic Airways Holdings was in the process of bidding to acquire Frontier in 2009, it was also in the process of acquiring Milwaukee-based Midwest Airlines. Through the fall and winter of 2009, Republic operated its two new acquisitions as separate brands. However, to improve efficiency by better matching aircraft capacity to route demand, Republic began to intermix the fleets of the two airlines, swapping a portion of its higher-capacity planes from Frontier with its smaller-capacity planes from Midwest and vice versa. However, the move caused some confusion amongst the public, as the two brands did not offer the same amenities and did not match the amenities mentioned on the airfare. As a result, in the Spring of 2010, Frontier and Midwest Airlines announced that their brands would merge, with Frontier being the surviving brand. This was a merger of brands only—no Midwest Airlines aircraft was ever operated by Frontier, as by this time, all Midwest Airlines flights were operated on its behalf by other Republic Airways Holdings subsidiaries.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On April 13, 2011, Frontier formed a new subsidiary, Frontier Express, that was planned to operate the airline's smaller aircraft with different services than those available on full-size aircraft.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Upon the full merger and integration of Frontier and Midwest Airlines in October 2010, Frontier and its regional partners operated over 100 daily flights from the Milwaukee hub. However, on September 9, 2011, Frontier notified the public of a 40% reduction of arriving and departing flights from MKE. Along with this reduction of flights, the company laid off approximately 140 employees from the MKE station. This included but was not limited to: maintenance, grooming services, flight-line and gate.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In February 2012, Frontier Airlines further reduced service to Milwaukee by cutting five more nonstop routes. This move "reduced Frontier's daily departing flights out of Mitchell International from 32 to 18," or 56%. Frontier announced further layoffs in conjunction with this route change: up to 446 Milwaukee-area employees were affected by the job cuts that occurred between April 15 and 30, 2012.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In an effort to focus on regional contract flights for major carriers, Republic Airways Holdings announced in January 2012 its intention to sell or spin off Frontier. On January 26, 2012, Republic Airways Holdings appointed former US Airways and Gate Gourmet CEO David Siegel as president and CEO of Frontier Airlines. Republic also added new senior officers for Frontier's finance and commercial team, among other changes in the executive leadership team. Siegel and other Frontier executives moved to Denver where Frontier is headquartered in order to facilitate management of all aspects of Frontier during its separation process from Republic and continue its transformation into an ultra-low-cost carrier.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In November 2012, Frontier started low-frequency service between Orlando International Airport and Trenton–Mercer Airport, located in Ewing, New Jersey, which at that time, had no commercial service. Frontier later expanded service several times from Trenton, and as of June 2016 services 11 destinations. Frontier currently bases three aircraft in Trenton. Trenton Mercer Airport lies roughly equidistant between Philadelphia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In July 2013, Frontier started service from Wilmington-New Castle Airport near Wilmington, Delaware, to five destinations, which Frontier markets as Wilmington/Philadelphia. Again, this airport had no commercial service prior to Frontier's entry. New Castle Airport lies roughly 30 miles southwest of Philadelphia International Airport and 75 miles northeast of Baltimore–Washington International Airport.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Frontier marketed both the Trenton-Mercer and Wilmington-Philadelphia airports as low-cost, low-hassle alternatives to the existing nearby commercial airports. Frontier was the only commercial carrier at these two airports.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In October 2013, Republic Airways Holdings entered into an agreement with private equity firm Indigo Partners to sell Frontier Airlines for approximately $145 million. According to Indigo, the transaction would further Frontier's evolution into an ultra-low-cost carrier. In December 2013, Indigo Partners LLC, through an affiliate, completed the purchase of Frontier Airlines from Republic Airways Holdings. The airline's headquarters remained in Denver. On January 1, 2014, Republic Airways Holdings subsidiary Republic Airlines ceased its operation of Embraer 190 aircraft on behalf of Frontier.In 2014, Frontier announced it would be transitioning into an ultra-low cost carrier. Frontier also announced that it would cut several flights and jobs at its Denver hub and transition them to different markets. On January 16, 2015, Frontier announced that it would close both its Denver and Milwaukee call centers, laying off 1,300 employees and outsourcing the jobs to call center company Sitel, which operates a large call center for Frontier in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Frontier Airlines joined Spirit and Allegiant in June 2015 by eradicating its toll-free telephone number for customer service.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In January 2015, Frontier Airlines cut several flights from Wilmington and Trenton. It also resumed service to Philadelphia, casting doubt on the airline's existing bases. In late June 2015, Frontier announced it had ceased service in Wilmington, stating it was not profitable.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In February 2015, Frontier announced that they would begin service to several destinations from Atlanta, adding the airport as a focus city. In July, Frontier began to decrease service from Washington Dulles International Airport, removing the airport as a focus city. In early 2016, Frontier announced major route expansion from airports nationwide, including Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Orlando, and Philadelphia. In June 2016, Frontier re-established service to John Glenn Columbus International Airport. In May 2017, the airline announced it would open a new crew base in Las Vegas in fall 2017, to improve operational reliability and potentially create new jobs in Las Vegas. In December 2017, Frontier began service to Buffalo, New York, with service to Denver, Colorado, and Florida, including Miami, Fort Myers, Orlando, and Tampa.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In May 2015, Indigo and Frontier announced the departure of David Siegel as CEO. He had already previously turned over the role of president to Barry Biffle, formerly of Spirit Airlines. Siegel was not immediately replaced; instead, his duties were split between Biffle and Indigo chairman Bill Franke. Biffle cited operational issues in connection with Siegel's departure.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In 2015, in an airline quality rating report by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Wichita State University, Frontier was ranked amongst the five worst airlines in the United States, especially due to its rate of customer complaints and bumped passengers. The airline had relatively poor on-time performance, and the waiting time for help when calling the airline on the phone was reported to have risen to two hours or more.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In December 2016, a winter weather event disrupted fleet operations and caused Frontier to delay or cancel up to 70% of their flights suddenly during the peak of the crisis. On the weekend of December 17, the storm caused major delays at Frontier's Denver hub. The effects of the storm were felt throughout the fleet. Flights were delayed or canceled at airports across the country; in some cases, planes were ready to depart, but the airline had no rested and available flight crews to service the flights. The head of Frontier's pilot's union issued a statement criticizing the companies' handling of the event, comparing the airline to a "house of cards."


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In 2020, class-action lawsuits against Frontier were filed after the company refused to refund airfare for customers who could not travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company accepted part of the $25 billion in U.S. government funds to offset financial damage to the airline industry during the outbreak.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On April 1, 2021, Frontier went public with an initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange. The company adopted the ticker symbol ULCC, a nod to the company's ultra low-cost carrier business model.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In early 2022, Frontier attempted to acquire Spirit Airlines, another US-based ultra low-cost carrier in a cash-and-stock deal. The deal would have created the fifth-largest airline in the country. After announcing the proposal, JetBlue made a competing offer to acquire Spirit for in cash. On July 27, 2022, Spirit announced that its shareholders had rejected Frontier's offer.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In November 2022, Frontier announced that it will establish a crew operating base at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in early 2023, and will add a gate in DFW Terminal E for flights to additional destinations starting in April of that year. That month, it also eliminated its customer service phone line completely, referring customers to online modalities. Customers looking for information or help must now deal with an online chatbot, social media channels, or WhatsApp. Those wishing to speak with a live agent can use the carrier's 24/7 chat tool. "We have found that most customers prefer communicating via digital channels," spokesperson Jennifer F. de la Cruz said in a statement, saying they can now receive information as "expeditiously and efficiently as possible."


title: Frontier Airlines

text: The key available trends for Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. over recent years are shown below (as at year ending December 31), although full annual accounts have not been published since Frontier has been owned by private equity firm, Indigo Partners.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Dave Siegel took the chief executive officer role in January 2012. Siegel's tenure ran through May 2015, when he left for personal reasons and was succeeded by the company's chairman, Bill Franke, who would manage strategy and finances. In April 2014, Barry L. Biffle was appointed as the company's president, reporting to Siegel; after Siegel's departure, Biffle was charged with managing the company's day-to-day operations.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In February 2002, the airline launched its first regional product, Frontier JetExpress, initially operated by Mesa Airlines, using CRJ-200 regional jets. Similar to the "express" operations of other carriers, Frontier JetExpress was targeted for markets to and from Denver that do not generate traffic sufficient to support Frontier's smallest mainline jet, the Airbus A318, but could still offer lucrative business with a smaller jet.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: The initial JetExpress partnership with Mesa ended in January 2004, when Horizon Air was selected to operate the routes. Horizon utilized slightly larger CRJ-700 regional jet aircraft on these routes. In August 2006, Frontier and Horizon planned to end their partnership. While Frontier was generally pleased with Horizon's operation, the carrier decided that it needed to revisit the agreement and find a provider with additional regional jets to grow the operation. The last of the CRJ-700s was returned to the Horizon Air fleet on November 30, 2007. As the service by Horizon Air was winding down in November 2007, Frontier had some flights operated by ExpressJet using Embraer-145 regional jets.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On September 6, 2006, Frontier created a new division of the holding company, known as Lynx Aviation, to operate Bombardier Q400 aircraft beginning in May 2007. On December 5, 2007, Lynx Aviation received its operating certificate from the FAA. Lynx began passenger operations on the morning of December 6, 2007.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: After commencing operations, Lynx provided service to 19 regional destinations: Albuquerque, Aspen, Billings, Boise, Bozeman, Colorado Springs, Durango, El Paso, Fargo, Grand Junction, Hayden/Steamboat Springs (seasonal), Jackson Hole (Seasonal), Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Rapid City, Salt Lake City, Tulsa, and Wichita. Most cities were also served by mainline Frontier jets however Lynx provided the only Frontier service to Aspen, Billings, Bozeman, Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, and Hayden.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In 2012, the Lynx Aviation operation was folded into Republic Airways Holdings' subsidiary, Republic Airways. The remaining Q400 aircraft were withdrawn from Frontier service and placed in service for United Airlines, flying as United Express.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Republic Airways operated Embraer 170 regional jets on behalf of Frontier in 2007 through mid-2008. Republic was also providing feeder service for Midwest Airlines and as Frontier and Midwest began merging in 2009, retaining the Frontier brand, Republic resumed service for Frontier with the Embraer 170s and also introduced larger Embraer 190 jets.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Chautauqua Airlines had been operating feeder flights on behalf of Midwest Airlines and began service for Frontier with the merger of Frontier and Midwest in October 2010. Chautauqua operated up to 12 Embraer 135 and Embraer 145 jets out of Milwaukee. Frontier began branding these flights as Frontier Express in the spring of 2011. New service began in 2011 on three subsidized Essential Air Service routes to the cities of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, as well as Ironwood and Manistee, Michigan. However, Frontier almost immediately began a pull-down of the Milwaukee hub and by the end of 2012, the only route that continued to operate with a Frontier Express ERJ-145 jet was Milwaukee to Rhinelander. Service to Rhinelander ended on January 3, 2013, and Chautauqua transferred the remaining aircraft to other partners.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In 1997, Maverick Airways was operating code share service for Frontier with de Havilland Canada DHC-7 Dash 7 STOL capable turboprops between Denver (DEN) and two destinations in Colorado: Grand Junction (GJT) and Steamboat Springs (SBS). However, the service was short lived as Maverick encountered financial challenges and then ceased all flights.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Great Lakes Airlines also operated a codeshare service with Frontier from the early 2000s, until the airline shut down in 2018. Great Lakes provided connecting service to many smaller cities from the Denver hub, using Beechcraft 1900D and Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia aircraft.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: From 1994 to 2001, the airline's livery consisted of green script "Frontier" titles on the forward fuselage, a small "Spirit of the West" slogan, and wildlife photography on the tail of each aircraft. Most Boeing 737 aircraft featured different imagery on both sides.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Beginning in 2001, a new livery was introduced on the airline's new Airbus A319s, with large silver "FRONTIER" titles on the sides of the aircraft, and the airline's "Spirit of the West" slogan, later changed to "A whole different animal." The animal tails were retained, although only one image per aircraft was now used. Though the airline's Boeing 737s remained in the fleet until 2005, none were repainted into this livery.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: In April 2013, Frontier introduced a modified version of that livery, keeping the iconic animals on aircraft tails, but dropping its former slogan and replacing "FRONTIER" with "FLYFRONTIER.COM", the company's website, in support of new marketing that focused heavily on the airline's web presence. This livery was only painted on a few newly delivered aircraft. Aircraft in the older livery received "FLYFRONTIER.COM" titles on engine nacelles.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On September 9, 2014, Frontier introduced an updated livery, as part of a rebranding that saw the spokesanimals' roles increase. The new livery reintroduced a green "FRONTIER" typeface to the fuselage, featuring the stylized "F" designed by Saul Bass for the original Frontier when the carrier unveiled a new livery in 1978. The livery of 2014 also includes the traditional arrow used by the original Frontier prior to 1978. Each aircraft features the name of the animal featured on its tail near the nose of the aircraft for easier identification.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Animal concepts used in the livery extend into Frontier's marketing as well. Each animal has a specific name. Animal aircraft used in their radio and television commercials include Jack the rabbit, Grizwald the bear, Foxy the fox (for whom Jack has a crush), Flip the dolphin (who always gets stuck going to Chicago rather than the warmer climates the others are going to), Larry the lynx, Hector the sea otter, and Sal the cougar. New additions are Penguins Jim, Joe, Jay, and Gary, a barbershop-style quartet, singing the praises of EarlyReturns to an audience of Frontier's well-known characters from the "a whole different animal" campaign, Hector the otter, advertising Frontier's expanding service to Mexico, and Polly the Parrot, who won the new animal audition in 2012.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: Frontier Airlines currently flies to 115 destinations throughout the United States, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: , Frontier Airlines operates an all-Airbus A320ceo and A320neo family fleet composed of the following aircraft:


title: Frontier Airlines

text: During the 2011 Paris Air Show, Republic Airways Holdings ordered 60 A320neo aircraft and 20 A319neo aircraft for Frontier. In 2014, the airline ordered 19 Airbus A32neos. In October 2016, Frontier Airlines took delivery of its first Airbus A320neo aircraft and became the second US operator of the type after Spirit Airlines.


title: Frontier Airlines

text: On November 15, 2017, Frontier Airlines announced a $15 billion order for 134 additional A320neo family aircraft. The order, slightly revised under new owner Indigo, consisted of 100 A320neos and 34 A321neos. The order also included the conversion of the remaining A319neo to A320neo. With this order, Frontier Airlines fleet sought industry-leading fuel efficiency as well as one of the youngest and most modern fleets, particularly in comparison to other low-cost carriers, with an average fleet age of five years .