title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 4th Infantry Division assaulted the northern coast of German-held France during the Normandy landings, landing at Utah Beach, 6 June 1944. The 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division claimed being the first surface-borne Allied unit (as opposed to the parachutist formations that were air-dropped earlier) to hit the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944. Relieving the isolated 82nd Airborne Division at Sainte-Mère-Église, the 4th cleared the Cotentin peninsula and took part in the capture of Cherbourg on 25 June. After taking part in the fighting near Periers, 6–12 July, the division broke through the left flank of the German 7th Army, helping to stem the German drive toward Avranches.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: By the end of August the division had moved to Paris, and gave French forces the first place in the liberation of their capital. During the liberation of Paris, Ernest Hemingway took on a self-appointed role as a civilian scout in the city of Paris for his friends in the 4 ID. He was with the 22nd Infantry Regiment when it advanced from Paris, northeast through Belgium, and into Germany. J. D. Salinger, who met Hemingway during the liberation of Paris, was with the 12th Infantry Regiment.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 4th then moved into Belgium through Houffalize to attack the Siegfried Line at Schnee Eifel on 14 September, and made several penetrations. Slow progress into Germany continued in October, and by 6 November the division entered the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, where it was engaged in heavy fighting until early December. It then shifted to Luxembourg, only to meet the German Army's winter Ardennes Offensive head-on (in the Battle of the Bulge) starting on 16 December 1944. Although its lines were dented, it managed to hold the Germans at Dickweiler and Osweiler, and, counterattacking in January across the Sauer, overran German positions in Fouhren and Vianden.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Halted at the Prüm River in February by heavy enemy resistance, the division finally crossed on 28 February near Olzheim, and raced on across the Kyll on 7 March. After a short rest, the 4th moved across the Rhine on 29 March at Worms, attacked and secured Würzburg and by 3 April had established a bridgehead across the Main at Ochsenfurt. Speeding southeast across Bavaria, the division had reached Miesbach on the Isar on 2 May 1945, when it was relieved and placed on occupation duty. Writer J. D. Salinger served with the division from 1942–1945.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division returned to the United States in July 1945 and was stationed at Camp Butner North Carolina, preparing for deployment to the Pacific. After the war ended it was deactivated on 5 March 1946. It was reactivated as a training division at Fort Ord, California on 15 July 1947.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 1 October 1950, it was redesignated a combat division, training at Fort Benning, Georgia. In May 1951 it deployed to Germany as the first of four United States divisions committed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the early years of the Cold War. The division headquarters was at Frankfurt. After a five-year tour in Germany, the division redeployed to Fort Lewis, Washington in May 1956.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division was replaced in Germany by the 3rd Armored Division as part of an Operation Gyroscope deployment. The division was reduced to zero strength, the colors were transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington, and the division was reestablished by reflagging the 71st Infantry Division (which itself had just returned from Alaska) on 15 September 1956.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 1 April 1957, the division was reorganized as a Pentomic Division. The division's three infantry regiments (the 8th, 12th and 22nd) were inactivated, with their elements reorganized into five infantry battle groups (the 1-8 IN, 1-12 IN, 1-22 IN, 2-39 IN and the 2-47 IN).


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 1 October 1963, the division was reorganized as a Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD). Three Brigade Headquarters were activated and Infantry units were reorganized into battalions.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 6th Tank Battalion of the 2d Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas, was sent to Korea during the war to serve with the 24th Infantry Division. The lineages of the tank companies within the battalion are perpetuated by battalions of today's 66th and 67th Armor Regiments in the 4th Infantry Division.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 4th Infantry Division deployed from Fort Lewis to Camp Enari, Pleiku, Vietnam on 25 September 1966 and served more than four years, returning to Fort Carson, Colorado on 8 December 1970. Two brigades operated in the Central Highlands/II Corps Zone, but its 3rd Brigade, including the division's armor battalion, was sent to Tây Ninh Province northwest of Saigon to take part in Operation Attleboro (September to November 1966), and later Operation Junction City (February to May 1967), both in War Zone C. After nearly a year of combat, the 3rd Brigade's battalions officially became part of the 25th Infantry Division in exchange for the battalions of the 25th's 3rd Brigade, then in Quảng Ngãi Province as part of the division-sized Task Force Oregon.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Throughout its service in Vietnam the division conducted combat operations ranging from the western Central Highlands along the border between Cambodia and Vietnam to Qui Nhơn on the South China Sea. The division experienced intense combat against People's Army of Vietnam regular forces in the mountains surrounding Kontum in the autumn of 1967. The division's 3rd Brigade was withdrawn from Vietnam in April 1970 and deactivated at Fort Lewis.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In May the remainder of the division conducted cross-border operations during the Cambodian Incursion. The division then moved to An Khe. The "Ivy Division" returned from Vietnam on 7 December 1970, and was rejoined in Fort Carson by its former 3rd Brigade from Hawaii, where it had re-deployed as part of the withdrawal of the 25th Infantry Division. One battalion remained in Vietnam as a separate organization until January 1972.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Returning to the US, the Division resumed training and Cold War missions. The Division remained stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado from 1970 through 1995. During this period, the Division was converted to a mechanized infantry division, and frequently sent constituent units to Europe to participate in the annual REFORGER exercises to continue the Cold War mission of deterring Communist threats. In 1976 the Division's 4th Brigade was established and permanently stationed forward at Wiesbaden, West Germany as Brigade 76, remaining there until being inactivated in 1984. It was during their time in Fort Carson that the Division assumed the nickname, "Ironhorse".


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In December 1995, the Ivy Division was reflagged at Ft Hood, Tx when the 2nd Armored Division was deactivated as part of the downsizing of the Army. One brigades remained at Ft Carson as 3rd Brigade 4th Infantry Division stationed at Ft Carson. The division became an experimental division of the Army, as it had been in the early 1940s. Until completing the mission in October 2001, 4ID led the Army into the 21st century under Force XXI, the Army's modernization program. The division tested and fielded state-of-the-art digital communications equipment, night fighting gear, advanced weaponry, organization, and doctrine to prepare the Army for the future.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: From 1989 to 1996 the 116th Cavalry Brigade of the Idaho and Oregon Army National Guard served as roundout brigade of the division.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Alerted on 19 January 2003, the 4th Infantry Division was scheduled to take part in the Iraq War in the spring of 2003 by spearheading an advance from Turkey into northern Iraq. The Turkish Parliament refused to grant permission for the operation and the division's equipment remained offshore on ships during the buildup for the war (see below). Its original mission, holding 13 Iraqi divisions along the "Green Line" in northern Iraq, was executed by joint Task Force Viking.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: As stated above, the Turkish situation kept the division from participating in the invasion as originally planned, instead joining the fight as a follow-on force. After quickly organizing materiel and manpower at ports in Kuwait, the division moved to positions around Baghdad in April 2003. After all divisional assets were established in Iraq, the Brigade combat teams attacked selected areas. The main avenues of attack for the division pushed north through Tikrit and Mosul. Headquartered in Saddam Hussein's former palaces, the 4th ID was deployed in the northern area of the Sunni Triangle. The 4th Infantry Division was spread all over Northern Iraq from Kirkuk to the Iranian border and as far south as Al Wihda, southeast of Baghdad.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The Division Headquarters was located at FOB Ironhorse in the old Saddam Presidential Complex in Tikrit, while the 1st Brigade Combat Team headquarters was at FOB Raider south of the city. To the south in the volatile Diyala Province was the 2nd Brigade Combat Team headquarters at FOB Warhorse just northeast of Baqubah. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team was at FOB Anaconda at the Balad Air Base northwest of Khalis and DIVARTY, along with elements of the 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment at FOB Gunner, Al Taji airfield. To the far north stationed at an air field just on the outskirts of the city of Kirkuk were elements of the division's 4th Artillery Brigade and attached units, until mid-September when it was moved back to Tikrit. The 4th Infantry Division also disarmed the MEK warriors in Northern Iraq in July–August 2003.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 13 December 2003, elements of the 1st Brigade Combat Team participated in Operation Red Dawn with United States special operations forces, who captured Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division rotated out of Iraq in the spring of 2004, and was relieved by the 1st Infantry Division.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Some have been critical of the division under its then-commander Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, calling its stance belligerent during their initial entry into Iraq after the ground war had ceased and arguing that the unit's lack of a 'hearts and minds' approach was ineffective in quelling the insurgency. In his unit's defense, Odierno and others have argued that enemy activity in the 4th ID's area of operations was higher than in any other area of the country because of the region's high concentration of Sunni resistance groups still loyal to Saddam Hussein's regime. His unit was headquartered in Hussein's hometown and this environment necessitated a different approach from those of units located in the more peaceful regions in the south and the north of the country.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The division's second deployment to Iraq began in the fall of 2005. The division headquarters replaced the 3rd Infantry Division, which had been directing security operations as the headquarters for Multi-National Division – Baghdad. The 4th ID assumed responsibility on 7 January 2006 for four provinces in central and southern Iraq: Baghdad, Karbala, An-Najaf and Babil. On 7 January 2006, MND-Baghdad also assumed responsibility for training Iraqi security forces and conducting security operations in the four provinces.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: During the second deployment, 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division area of operation (AO) was Saladin and Diala provinces and was assigned to conduct security and training operations under the command of Task Force Band of Brothers, led initially by the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and later 25th Infantry Division Headquartered out of FOB Warhorse. Later during the third deployment the unit was involved in the 2008 Battle of Sadr City.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In March 2008 the 1st Brigade Combat Team deployed to Iraq and was stationed in Baghdad. The 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment was detached from the brigade and attached to the 4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division which was stationed at FOB Rustamiyah in Al Amin, Baghdad. The brigade returned home to Fort Hood, Texas in March 2009 and immediately began preparing for reassignment to Fort Carson, Colorado.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: July 2009 saw another division change of command as MG David Perkins took command to become the 56th Commanding General of the 4th Infantry Division. With this change of command, even more significant events happened as the 4ID completed 14 years calling Fort Hood, TX home and returned to Fort Carson, CO, where they had served from late 1970 through late 1995. It was at this time that the 4th Division headquarters and the 1st Brigade Combat Team transferred to Fort Carson, Colorado. The 2nd, and 4th Brigades had already relocated and 3rd Brigade was already at Fort Carson having never moved to Fort Hood and the 4th Infantry Division's Aviation Brigade stayed at Fort Hood, Texas.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division deployed to southern Iraq from March 2010 to March 2011 in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn in an “Advise and Assist” role. 3rd Brigade Soldiers served alongside 50,000+ other U.S. service members under the command of United States Forces- Iraq. Soldiers from the brigade assisted in the training and preparation of Iraqi forces tasked with taking over responsibility of the southern sector of Iraq after U.S. forces were expected to withdraw from the area. 3rd Brigade Soldiers were re-flagged from being designated as a “Brigade Combat Team” and instead were reassigned as an “Advise and Assist” Brigade. The Brigade was still tasked with completing combat operations within the southern sector Area Of Operation (A.O.) in Iraq and were exposed to direct combat with anti coalition forces operating within the A.O. The 3rd Brigade returned to Fort Carson in March of 2011 in order to resume garrison duties.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In May 2009 the 4th Brigade Combat Team deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom X for a 12-month combat rotation. The 1st Battalion 12th Infantry Regiment deployed to Regional Command South. Task Force 1-12 operated in Maiwand district and Zhari district, namely the Arghandab River Valley, west of Kandahar City. Referred to as "The Heart of Darkness" for its notoriety as the birthplace of the Taliban, the soldiers of Task Force 1-12 operated in a very complex combat environment.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Much of the fighting was conducted in notoriously dense grape fields, which insurgent forces used as cover and concealment for a variety of complex attacks on coalition forces. The 2nd Battalion 12th Infantry Regiment deployed in to Regional Command East and was based in the Pech River Valley, Kunar Province, home to the Korangal Valley, Waygal, Shuriak, and Wata Pour Valleys. During its rotation, the 2nd Battalion saw heavy combat throughout the area.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 3rd Squadron 61st Cavalry Regiment was also deployed to Regional Command East and served during its rotation in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces. Task Force Destroyer saw intense combat, namely the Battle of Kamdesh in which a combat outpost was attacked by over 300 insurgents in a complex attack 20 miles from the Pakistan border. For their bravery, on October 3, 2009, Bravo Troop 3-61 Cavalry became the most decorated unit of the Afghanistan War. The Battle of Kamdesh was the first in 50 years in which the Medal of Honor was given to two living servicemen.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Some reports indicate that the US soldiers of 4th ID did not maintain their efforts in the fight and withdrew inside of buildings to wait for QRF to arrive from elements of 10th Mountain Division. In May 2010, elements of the 4th Brigade Combat Team began to redeploy to Fort Carson and immediately began assisting and training sister units for future contingency operations, as well as training for its own future combat deployments. 38 soldiers from the brigade died during the deployment. For its actions 4th Brigade Combat Team was awarded the Valorous Unit Award, the second highest unit decoration awarded to United States Army units.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Upon 4BCT redeploying to Fort Carson, the rest of the division was set to deploy to Afghanistan. The 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams also served in Afghanistan building on the efforts that were initiated by 4BCT. The 4th BCT has once again deployed in an advise and assist capacity, fulfilling the mission of training and preparing the Afghan Security Forces for the handover of all combat operations in the upcoming years.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel in 2017.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: Soldiers assigned to the 4th Infantry Division completed a nine-month deployment to Iraq in 2015, in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. This operation supported the military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In February 2015, troops from the division's 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team were deployed to Southwest Asia in support of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In September 2021, troops from the division's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team deployed to Erbil Air Base in Iraq following base closures for Operation Inherent Resolve.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: In October 2015, the US Army announced that 1,000 troops from 4th Infantry Division's Combat Aviation Brigade would be sent to Afghanistan sometime in winter, with another 1,800 soldiers from the 4th ID's 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team deploying to Afghanistan in the spring 2016. On 12 August 2016, a U.S. Soldier from 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th ID died from a noncombat-related injury in Kandahar.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: On 3 November 2016, the U.S. Army deployed some 4,000 soldiers from 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team to Europe in winter in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve - to help deter possible Russian aggression. The brigade will arrive in Poland and will fan out across the continent, one battalion with M1 Abrams tanks will cover the Baltic region of Estonia and Latvia, while another will operate in Germany. A mechanised infantry battalion with M2 Bradley troop carriers and M1 Abrams tanks will have a foothold in the Romanian and Bulgarian region, whilst Brigade headquarters will remain in Poland, along with an armoured cavalry unit and a field artillery battalion wielding self-propelled M109 Paladin howitzers.


title: 4th Infantry Division (United States)

text: The 4th Infantry Division consists of a division headquarters battalion, three brigade combat teams (two Stryker and one armored), a division artillery, a combat aviation brigade, and a division sustainment brigade:


title: James L. Dolan

text: James Lawrence Dolan (born May 11, 1955) is an American businessman who serves as executive chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Sports and Madison Square Garden Entertainment and executive chairman of MSG Networks. As the companies' chairman, Dolan oversees all operations within the company and also supervises day-to-day operations of its professional sports teams, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers as well as their regional sports networks, which include MSG Network and MSG Plus. Dolan previously served as CEO of Cablevision until its sale in June 2016.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan is the son of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan and his wife, Helen Ann Dolan. He is of Irish descent. After originally pursuing a career in music, Dolan eventually switched to a major in communications at SUNY New Paltz and began working for Cablevision in various capacities including sales before eventually being dispatched to Cleveland by his father to manage the launching of a sports radio station. In 1995, he was made CEO of Cablevision. Throughout his early adult life, Dolan battled drug and alcohol problems and was reportedly known for having a volatile temper. In 1993, he went to drug rehabilitation at the Hazelden clinic in Center City, Minnesota.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan opposed his father's proposed Voom satellite service, which became a polarizing controversy among Cablevision's board of directors. While supporters argued Voom could propel Cablevision into the future emerging satellite market and a wider customer base, opponents of the plan, including James Dolan, argued it was too expensive with no expense relief for the foreseeable future. In the end, the younger Dolan prevailed and Voom was shut down. This was an instrumental event in Dolan emerging from his father's shadow, albeit reluctantly, as a viable businessman.


title: James L. Dolan

text: His business career has included multiple failures, which include purchasing the failing Wiz electronics and entertainment chain, which ended up posting losses of $250 million before being liquidated, and the Clearview Cinemas chain which has failed to generate any significant revenue.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan fostered Cablevision's philanthropic partnership with The Lustgarten Foundation, a private supporter of pancreatic cancer research. Together with Charles Dolan and former Cablevision Vice Chairman and Madison Square Garden Chairman Marc Lustgarten. Dolan established the Foundation in 1998. In 2008, Cablevision made a multi-year commitment to underwrite the Foundation's costs, ensuring that 100 percent of every donation goes to researching this disease. With Dolan's backing, Cablevision used its assets to advance the curePC campaign, aimed at increasing public awareness of pancreatic cancer and is responsible for organizing the Holiday Rock & Roll Bash, the Foundation's annual fundraiser.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan played a role in organizing the recent "12-12-12" benefit concert, which raised an initial $50 million for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, with additional money still coming in. Other benefit concerts included "The Concert For New York City," which generated more than $35 million in aid for 9/11 victims and heroes, and "From The Big Apple to The Big Easy," which raised nearly $9 million for Hurricane Katrina relief. Dolan supports MSG's ongoing commitment to the community, particularly through the Garden of Dreams Foundation, the non-profit charity that partners with MSG to help children facing obstacles throughout the New York metropolitan area.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In 1994, Paramount Communications, the owner of Madison Square Garden, was acquired by Viacom, who in turn sold the MSG properties to Cablevision and ITT Corporation, which had 50% ownership each. ITT sold its share to Cablevision three years later.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In 1999, Dolan was given an increased role in managing Cablevision's sports properties and is now the primary manager of these assets. The teams under his domain include most notably the National Basketball Association's New York Knicks, the National Hockey League's New York Rangers, the Women's National Basketball Association's New York Liberty, and the American Hockey League's Hartford Wolf Pack.


title: James L. Dolan

text: As Chairman of Madison Square Garden, he supervises day-to-day operations of its professional sports teams and regional sports networks, which include MSG Network and MSG Plus. He also serves as a governor of the Knicks and Rangers to their respective leagues.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Like the Rangers, the Knicks performed abysmally in the early 2000s. Unlike the Rangers, they have yet to fully recover, which fans mostly blame on Dolan's management missteps. Although the Knicks made the NBA Finals in 1999, they did not post another winning season until the 2012–13 season. Furthermore, the Knicks did not make the playoffs at any point between the 2003–04 and 2010–11 seasons, which both ended in the first round with four-game sweeps of the Knicks. In 2007, NBA Commissioner David Stern criticized Dolan's management of the Knicks, saying "they're not a model of intelligent management." One widely criticized decision was to give shooting guard Allan Houston a 6-year, $100 million maximum contract in 2001, when no other team had offered Houston more than $75 million. Houston retired due to injury after just four seasons and with over $40 million remaining on his contract.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In 2003, Dolan hired Isiah Thomas as Team President of Basketball Operations and General Manager to replace embattled executive Scott Layden. Thomas made aggressive moves to re-tool and upgrade the Knicks' roster through trades, the NBA Draft, and free agency. Despite the talent Thomas imported, the team did not perform up to expectations and Thomas was often the target of the frustration of Knicks fans; Dolan was also on the receiving end of the ire of Knicks fans for his commitment to Thomas in spite of Thomas' sometimes questionable decisions.


title: James L. Dolan

text: After the 2004–05 season, the Knicks signed head coach Larry Brown to a 5-year, $50 million contract. After just one (losing) season, Brown was fired and the team bought-out Brown's contract for $18 million. Brown walked away with a total of $28 million for coaching the Knicks for just one year.


title: James L. Dolan

text: After firing Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas assumed the duties of head coach of the Knicks. During a staged interview on MSG Network, Dolan gave Thomas an ultimatum to show "evident progress" or potentially be fired. In the latter half of the 2006–07 season, with the Knicks within reach of a playoff spot, Dolan signed Thomas to a multi-year contract extension. The team subsequently fell out of contention and Dolan was castigated in many quarters for his extension of Thomas's contract. The next season, Dolan stripped Thomas of his front office duties because Thomas had taken the Knicks to the playoffs just once during his tenure. New team President Donnie Walsh removed Thomas as head coach upon the conclusion of the season.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Other coaches that also had short-lived tenures as head coaches of the Knicks include Don Chaney (2001–2003) and Lenny Wilkens (2003–2005). Like Thomas and Brown, they remained on the Knicks' payroll following their departure from the bench due to multi-year contracts signed with the owner (and in Chaney's case, 2 separate contract extensions).


title: James L. Dolan

text: In 2007, Dolan was named as a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit submitted by a former Knicks executive, Anucha Browne-Sanders. Browne-Sanders accused Dolan of firing her out of spite after she complained about sexual harassment from Isiah Thomas. The court ruled in favor of Brown-Sanders and Dolan had to pay $3 million of the $11 million settlement. MSG was responsible for paying the remainder of the settlement.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In July 2012, Dolan faced criticism for allowing popular Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin to sign with the Houston Rockets without matching their $25.1 million offer.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In February 2015, Dolan responded to a letter from Irving Bierman, a 73-year-old, lifelong Knicks fan, that criticized Dolan's ownership of the Knicks and questioned his leadership with a seething letter of his own, telling the fan to "root for the Nets because the Knicks don't want you" and that Bierman was "a sad person" and probably an "alcoholic maybe". Dolan later addressed the issue with the press, but did not apologize, only saying the letter was a case of "tit for tat" and declaring the incident "over". Newly appointed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver did not reprimand or penalize Dolan, but instead called Dolan a "consummate New Yorker" who received "an unkind email and responded with an unkind email".


title: James L. Dolan

text: On February 9, 2017, former Knicks player Charles Oakley was engaged in a yelling match with Dolan at Madison Square Garden during a Knicks–Clippers game and removed following an altercation with MSG security. Oakley contends that Dolan has ignored, if not ostracized, him. On March 11, 2019, prompted by a similar incident two days earlier with a fan, Oakley remarked that Dolan tries to bully everyone because he has money and power, stating there was very little reason for reconciliation with him after the incident.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In March 2019, Dolan threatened a ban towards a fan at Madison Square Garden after he yelled "sell the team" at Dolan. Discussing the situation on TV, ESPN questioned the reasoning behind his reaction and concluded that Commissioner Silver should compel Dolan to apologize to the fan by selling the team. Some fans of the team responded to the outrage by giving away free t-shirts saying "St. Patty Says Ban Dolan" on their March 17 game against the Los Angeles Lakers, though some of the shirts got confiscated by security before fans entered the arena.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In March 2021, Dolan had a fan removed from a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden for wearing a t-shirt reading, "Ban Dolan" in protest of Dolan's management of the organization and treatment of retired Knicks players.


title: James L. Dolan

text: After winning the Stanley Cup in 1994, the Rangers saw a decline in performance in the wake of Dolan's increased role in managing the team and failed to make the playoffs from the 1997–98 season until the 2004–05 NHL lockout, despite leading the league in payroll in most of those years. This was the longest playoff drought in the franchise's history, in part due to questionable, expensive free-agent signings, such as Eric Lindros, Pavel Bure, and Theo Fleury. Despite fan and media calls for the team's general manager Glen Sather to be fired for the organization's shortcomings, Sather was retained. However, since the resolution of the NHL lockout in 2005, Dolan has allowed Sather to rebuild from the ground up, which has led to a revival of the club and the organization, leading to a trip to the Eastern Conference finals in 2012, their first since 1997, and to the Stanely Cup Finals in 2014. However, when Dolan spoke of the team's Stanley Cup chances in January 2012, Rangers head coach John Tortorella took issue with his remarks.


title: James L. Dolan

text: "I have my owner up here talking about a Stanley Cup. That's a bunch of bullshit," Tortorella said in response. "We need to take it one game at a time."


title: James L. Dolan

text: On May 5, 2015, Dolan announced that Isiah Thomas would serve as president of the WNBA's Liberty. Considering Thomas' history being both a failed President/GM of the Knicks and Thomas being implicated in the Anucha Browne-Sanders sexual harassment incident, Dolan's judgment was questioned by many fans and members of the press.


title: James L. Dolan

text: In an ongoing lawsuit between the Madison Square Garden Company and the city of Inglewood, California, Dolan is said to be trying to avoid being deposed in the case. The Los Angeles Clippers want to build a new arena, which would compete directly with The Forum, which is owned by the Madison Square Garden Company. In December 2018, the Madison Square Garden Company was countersued by the Clippers for trying to prevent the construction of a competing arena. In March 2019, leaked emails revealed that Irving Azoff attempted to lure the Los Angeles Lakers back to The Forum after their lease at the Staples Center was up. Despite nothing coming of the proposal, Azoff's proposal to re-purpose The Forum was seen as a way of preventing the Clippers from building their own arena in Inglewood and ensuring that the Madison Square Garden Company got an unfair advantage over rival AEG, which already owns part of the Lakers. In the summer of 2019, details emerged in regard to Dolan's tactics being used to prevent the construction of the competing arena. The Madison Square Garden Company had spent money trying to influence Inglewood's mayoral election as a way of trying to stop the arena from being built. They had also funded community groups to help their opposition to the arena.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan rarely speaks with members of the media and communicates to the press through released statements or in interviews with MSG Network. In 2000, Dolan instituted media training for all Garden employees who might deal with the press and instituted an ironclad rule against team personnel criticizing others in the organization via the media. Under Dolan's watch MSG implemented controversial media policies limiting access to players. Some of these measures included prohibiting reporters and Knicks' beat writers from interviewing players without an MSG public relations official present, forbidding one-on-one interviews, and excommunicating writers who write articles critical of the organization. The policies also forbid the MSG Network from being critical of the Knicks and the Rangers, regardless of their performance. Such measures were not standard practice for other NBA teams. In addition, the Knicks did not make their medical staff available to the press. In 2004, longtime broadcaster Marv Albert's contract was not renewed by MSG Network, allegedly because of his criticism of the Knicks' play.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan lives on Long Island with his wife. He has been married twice and has six sons. He is the son of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan and nephew of Cleveland Guardians owner Larry Dolan. On March 28, 2020, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: James L. Dolan

text: Dolan performs blues-inspired rock as the singer for JD & The Straight Shot. After a show in New York City in 2017, one reviewer wrote that Dolan "sings like he’s trying not to cough, and it’s possible he can’t play the guitar. Worse, his songs belie his status as a cosplaying bluesman; most of his lyrics simply summarize current events or books that he’s read as if he were presenting a 10th grade English class project." On August 1, 2018, his band released the song titled "I Should've Known" inspired by his own experiences perpetuating sexual harassment from the album "The Great Divide". The album was set to be released in October 2018.


title: The Mikado

text: The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. Gilbert used foreign or fictional locales in several operas, including "The Mikado", "Princess Ida", "The Gondoliers", "Utopia, Limited" and "The Grand Duke", to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions. Since the 1990s, some productions of the opera in the United States have drawn criticism for promoting stereotypes of East Asians.


title: The Mikado

text: Gilbert and Sullivan's opera immediately preceding "The Mikado" was "Princess Ida" (1884), which ran for nine months, a short duration by Savoy opera standards. When ticket sales for "Princess Ida" showed early signs of flagging, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte realised that, for the first time since 1877, no new Gilbert and Sullivan work would be ready when the old one closed. On 22 March 1884, Carte gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required within six months. Sullivan's close friend, the conductor Frederic Clay, had suffered a serious stroke in December 1883 that effectively ended his career. Reflecting on this, on his own precarious health, and on his desire to devote himself to more serious music, Sullivan replied to Carte that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself". Gilbert, who had already started work on a new libretto in which people fall in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge, was surprised to hear of Sullivan's hesitation. He wrote to Sullivan asking him to reconsider, but the composer replied on 2 April 1884 that he had "come to the end of my tether" with the operas:


title: The Mikado

text: Gilbert wrote that Sullivan's letter caused him "considerable pain". Sullivan responded that he could not set the "lozenge plot", stating that it was too similar to the plot of their 1877 opera "The Sorcerer". As April 1884 wore on, Gilbert tried to modify his plot, but he could not satisfy Sullivan. The parties were at a stalemate, and Gilbert wrote, "And so ends a musical & literary association of seven years' standing – an association of exceptional reputation – an association unequaled in its monetary results, and hitherto undisturbed by a single jarring or discordant element." But by 8 May 1884, Gilbert was ready to back down, writing: "am I to understand that if I construct another plot in which no supernatural element occurs, you will undertake to set it? ... a consistent plot, free from anachronisms, constructed in perfect good faith & to the best of my ability." The stalemate was broken, and on 20 May, Gilbert sent Sullivan a sketch of the plot to "The Mikado". It would take another ten months for "The Mikado" to reach the stage. A revised version of "The Sorcerer" coupled with their one-act piece "Trial by Jury" (1875) played at the Savoy while Carte and their audiences awaited their next work. Gilbert eventually found a place for his "lozenge plot" in "The Mountebanks", written with Alfred Cellier in 1892.


title: The Mikado

text: In 1914, Cellier and Bridgeman first recorded the familiar story of how Gilbert found his inspiration:


title: The Mikado

text: The story is an appealing one, but it is largely fictional. Gilbert was interviewed twice about his inspiration for "The Mikado". In both interviews the sword was mentioned, and in one of them he said it was the inspiration for the opera, though he never said the sword had fallen. What puts the entire story in doubt is Cellier and Bridgeman's error concerning the Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge: it did not open until 10 January 1885, almost two months after Gilbert had already completed Act I. Gilbert scholar Brian Jones, in his article "The Sword that Never Fell", notes that "the further removed in time the writer is from the incident, the more graphically it is recalled." Leslie Baily, for instance, told it this way in 1952:


title: The Mikado

text: The story was dramatised in more or less this form in the 1999 film "Topsy-Turvy". But although the 1885–87 Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of "The Mikado", European trade with Japan had increased in recent decades, and an English craze for all things Japanese had built through the 1860s and 1870s. This made the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert told a journalist, "I cannot give you a good reason for our ... piece being laid in Japan. It ... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is ... judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public."


title: The Mikado

text: In an 1885 interview with the "New-York Daily Tribune", Gilbert said that the short stature of Leonora Braham, Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls", the opera's "three little maids". He also recounted that a young Japanese lady, a tea server at the Japanese village, came to rehearsals to coach the three little maids in Japanese dance. On 12 February 1885, one month before "The Mikado" opened, "The Illustrated London News" wrote about the opening of the Japanese village noting, among other things, that "the graceful, fantastic dancing featured ... three little maids!" In the "Tribune" interview, Gilbert also related that he and Sullivan had decided to cut the only solo sung by the opera's title character (who appears only in Act II, played by Savoy veteran Richard Temple), but that members of the company and others who had witnessed the dress rehearsal "came to us in a body and begged us to restore the excised 'number'".


title: The Mikado

text: Gentlemen of the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A handsome but poor minstrel, Nanki-Poo, arrives and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel I"). He inquires about his beloved, a schoolgirl called Yum-Yum, who is a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor). One of the gentlemen, Pish-Tush, explains that when the Mikado decreed that flirting was a capital crime, the Titipu authorities frustrated the decree by appointing Ko-Ko, a prisoner condemned to death for flirting, to the post of Lord High Executioner ("Our great Mikado, virtuous man"). As Ko-Ko was the next prisoner scheduled to be decapitated, the town authorities reasoned that he could "not cut off another's head until he cut his own off", and since Ko-Ko was not likely to execute himself, no executions could take place. But all the town officials, except the haughty nobleman Pooh-Bah, proved too proud to serve under an ex-tailor and resigned. Pooh-Bah now holds all their posts and collects all their salaries. He informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is scheduled to marry Ko-Ko on the very day that he has returned ("Young man, despair").


title: The Mikado

text: Ko-Ko enters ("Behold the Lord High Executioner") and asserts himself by reading off a list of people "who would not be missed" if they were executed ("As some day it may happen"), such as people "who eat peppermint and puff it in your face". Yum-Yum appears with Ko-Ko's other two wards, Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing ("Comes a train of little ladies", "Three little maids from school"). Pooh-Bah does not think that the girls have shown him enough respect ("So please you, sir"). Nanki-Poo arrives and informs Ko-Ko of his love for Yum-Yum. Ko-Ko sends him away, but Nanki-Poo manages to meet with his beloved and reveals his secret to Yum-Yum: he is the son and heir of the Mikado, but travels in disguise to avoid the amorous advances of Katisha, an elderly lady of his father's court. They lament that the law forbids them to flirt ("Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted").


title: The Mikado

text: Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah receive news that the Mikado has just decreed that unless an execution is carried out in Titipu within a month, the town will be reduced to the rank of a village, which would bring "irretrievable ruin". Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush point to Ko-Ko himself as the obvious choice for beheading, since he was already under sentence of death ("I am so proud"). But Ko-Ko argues that it would be "extremely difficult, not to say dangerous", for someone to attempt to behead himself, and that suicide is a capital offence. Fortuitously, Ko-Ko discovers that Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After ascertaining that nothing would change Nanki-Poo's mind, Ko-Ko makes a bargain with him: Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum for one month if, at the end of that time, he allows himself to be executed. Ko-Ko would then marry the young widow.


title: The Mikado

text: Everyone arrives to celebrate Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum's union ("With aspect stern and gloomy stride"), but the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Katisha, who has come to claim Nanki-Poo as her husband. But the townspeople are sympathetic to the young couple, and Katisha's attempts to reveal Nanki-Poo's secret are drowned out by their shouting. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes clear that she intends to be avenged.


title: The Mikado

text: Yum-Yum's friends are preparing her for her wedding ("Braid the raven hair"). She muses on her own beauty ("The sun whose rays"), but Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo remind her of the limited duration of her approaching union with Nanki-Poo. Joined by Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush, they try to keep their spirits up ("Brightly dawns our wedding-day"), but soon Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah enter to inform them of a twist in the law that states that when a married man is beheaded for flirting, his wife must be buried alive ("Here's a how-de-do"). Yum-Yum is unwilling to marry under these circumstances, and so Nanki-Poo challenges Ko-Ko to behead him on the spot. It turns out that the soft-hearted Ko-Ko has never executed anyone and cannot execute Nanki-Poo. Instead, he sends Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum away to be wed (by Pooh-Bah, as Archbishop of Titipu), promising to present to the Mikado a false affidavit in evidence of the fictitious execution.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" had the longest original run of the Savoy Operas. It also had the quickest revival: after Gilbert and Sullivan's next work, "Ruddigore", closed relatively quickly, three operas were revived to fill the interregnum until "The Yeomen of the Guard" was ready, including "The Mikado", just 17 months after its first run closed. On 4 September 1891, D'Oyly Carte's touring "C" company gave a Royal Command Performance of "The Mikado" at Balmoral Castle before Queen Victoria and the Royal Family. The original set design was by Hawes Craven, with men's costumes by C. Wilhelm. The first provincial production of "The Mikado" opened on 27 July 1885 in Brighton, with several members of that company leaving in August to present the first authorised American production in New York. From then on, "The Mikado" was a constant presence on tour. From 1885 until the Company's closure in 1982, there was no year in which a D'Oyly Carte company (or several of them) was not presenting it.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" was revived again while "The Grand Duke" was in preparation. When it became clear that that opera was not a success, "The Mikado" was given at matinees, and the revival continued when "The Grand Duke" closed after just three months. In 1906–07, Helen Carte, the widow of Richard D'Oyly Carte, mounted a repertory season at the Savoy, but "The Mikado" was not performed, as it was thought that visiting Japanese royalty might be offended by it. It was included, however, in Mrs. Carte's second repertory season, in 1908–09. New costume designs were created by Charles Ricketts for the 1926 season and were used until 1982. Peter Goffin designed new sets in 1952.


title: The Mikado

text: In America, as had happened with "H.M.S. Pinafore", the first productions were unauthorised, but once D'Oyly Carte's American production opened in August 1885, it was a success, earning record profits, and Carte formed several companies to tour the show in North America. Burlesque and parody productions, including political parodies, were mounted. More than 150 unauthorised versions cropped up, and, as had been the case with "Pinafore", Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan could do nothing to prevent them or to capture any license fees, since there was no international copyright treaty at the time. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried various techniques for gaining an American copyright that would prevent unauthorised productions. The U.S. courts held, however, that the act of publication made the opera freely available for production by anyone. In Australia, "The Mikado"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first authorised performance was on 14 November 1885 at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, produced by J. C. Williamson. During 1886, Carte was touring five Mikado companies in North America.


title: The Mikado

text: Carte toured the opera in 1886 and again in 1887 in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. In September 1886 Vienna's leading critic, Eduard Hanslick, wrote that the opera's "unparalleled success" was attributable not only to the libretto and the music, but also to "the wholly original stage performance, unique of its kind, by Mr D'Oyly Carte's artists... riveting the eye and ear with its exotic allurement." Authorised productions were also seen in France, Holland, Hungary, Spain, Belgium, Scandinavia, Russia and elsewhere. Thousands of amateur productions have been mounted throughout the English-speaking world and beyond since the 1880s. One production during World War I was given in the Ruhleben internment camp in Germany.


title: The Mikado

text: After the Gilbert copyrights expired in 1962, the Sadler's Wells Opera mounted the first non-D'Oyly Carte professional production in England, with Clive Revill as Ko-Ko. Among the many professional revivals since then was an English National Opera production in 1986, with Eric Idle as Ko-Ko and Lesley Garrett as Yum-Yum, directed by Jonathan Miller. This production, which has been revived numerous times over three decades, is set in a swanky 1920s English seaside hotel, with sets and costumes in black and white "as an homage to the Marx Brothers, Noël Coward, and Busby Berkeley". Canada's Stratford Festival has produced "The Mikado" several times, first in 1963 and again in 1982 (revived in 1983 and 1984) and in 1993.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" is a comedy, yet it deals with themes of death and cruelty. This juxtaposition works because Gilbert treats these themes as trivial, even lighthearted issues. For instance, in the song "Our great Mikado, virtuous man", Pish-Tush sings: "The youth who winked a roving eye / Or breathed a non-connubial sigh / Was thereupon condemned to die – / He usually objected." The term for this rhetorical technique is meiosis, a drastic understatement of the situation. Other examples of this are when self-decapitation is described as "an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt", and also as merely "awkward". When a discussion occurs of Nanki-Poo's life being "cut short in a month", the tone remains comic and only mock-melancholy. Burial alive is described as "a stuffy death". Finally, execution by boiling oil or by melted lead is described by the Mikado as a "humorous but lingering" punishment.


title: The Mikado

text: Death is treated as a businesslike event in Gilbert's topsy-turvy world. Pooh-Bah calls Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, an "industrious mechanic". Ko-Ko also treats his bloody office as a profession, saying, "I can't consent to embark on a professional operation unless I see my way to a successful result." Of course, joking about death does not originate with "The Mikado". The plot conceit that Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum if he agrees to die at the end of the month was used in "A Wife for a Month", a 17th-century play by John Fletcher. Ko-Ko's final speech affirms that death has been, throughout the opera, a fiction, a matter of words that can be dispelled with a phrase or two: being dead and being "as good as dead" are equated. In a review of the original production of "The Mikado", after praising the show generally, the critic noted that the show's humour nevertheless depends on "unsparing exposure of human weaknesses and follies – things grave and even horrible invested with a ridiculous aspect – all the motives prompting our actions traced back to inexhaustible sources of selfishness and cowardice... Decapitation, disembowelment, immersion in boiling oil or molten lead are the eventualities upon which [the characters'] attention (and that of the audience) is kept fixed with gruesome persistence... [Gilbert] has unquestionably succeeded in imbuing society with his own quaint, scornful, inverted philosophy; and has thereby established a solid claim to rank amongst the foremost of those latter-day Englishmen who have exercised a distinct psychical influence upon their contemporaries."


title: The Mikado

text: The opera is named after the Emperor of Japan using the term "mikado" (御門 or 帝 or みかど), literally meaning "the honourable gate" of the imperial palace, referring metaphorically to its occupant and to the palace itself. The term was commonly used by the English in the 19th century but became obsolete. To the extent that the opera portrays Japanese culture, style and government, it is a fictional version of Japan used to provide a picturesque setting and to capitalise on Japonism and the British fascination with Japan and the Far East in the 1880s. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution." "The Mikado" "was never a story about Japan but about the failings of the British government".


title: The Mikado

text: By setting the opera in a foreign land, Gilbert felt able to more sharply criticise British society and institutions. G. K. Chesterton compared the opera's satire to that in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels": "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England till they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as Swift did. ... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fits the Japanese. But all the jokes in the play fit the English. ... About England, Pooh-bah is something more than a satire; he is the truth." The opera's setting draws on Victorian notions of the far east, gleaned by Gilbert from the glimpses of Japanese fashion and art that immediately followed the beginning of trade between the two island empires, and during rehearsals Gilbert visited the popular Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge, London. A critic wrote in 2016: "It has been argued that the theatricality of the show was ... a tribute on the part of Gilbert and Sullivan to the growing British appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic [in the 1880s]."


title: The Mikado

text: Gilbert sought authenticity in the Japanese setting, costumes, movements and gestures of the actors. To that end, he engaged some of the Japanese at the Knightsbridge village to advise on the production and to coach the actors. "The Directors and Native Inhabitants" of the village were thanked in the programme that was distributed on the first night. Sullivan inserted into his score, as "Miya sama", a version of a Japanese military march song, called "Ton-yare Bushi", composed in the Meiji era. Giacomo Puccini later incorporated the same song into "Madama Butterfly" as the introduction to "Yamadori, ancor le pene". The characters' names in the play are not Japanese names, but rather (in many cases) English baby-talk or simply dismissive exclamations. For instance, a pretty young thing is named "Pitti-Sing"; the beautiful heroine is named "Yum-Yum"; the pompous officials are "Pooh-Bah" and "Pish-Tush"; the hero is called "Nanki-Poo", baby-talk for "handkerchief". The headsman's name, "Ko-Ko", is similar to that of the scheming Ko-Ko-Ri-Ko in "Ba-ta-clan" by Jacques Offenbach.


title: The Mikado

text: The Japanese were ambivalent toward "The Mikado" for many years. Some Japanese critics saw the depiction of the title character as a disrespectful representation of the revered Meiji Emperor; Japanese theatre was prohibited from depicting the emperor on stage. Japanese Prince Komatsu Akihito, who saw an 1886 production in London, took no offence. When Prince Fushimi Sadanaru made a state visit in 1907, the British government banned performances of "The Mikado" from London for six weeks, fearing that the play might offend him – a manoeuvre that backfired when the prince complained that he had hoped to see "The Mikado" during his stay. A Japanese journalist covering the prince's stay attended a proscribed performance and confessed himself "deeply and pleasingly disappointed." Expecting "real insults" to his country, he had found only "bright music and much fun."


title: The Mikado

text: After World War II, "The Mikado" was staged in Japan in a number of private performances. The first public production, given at three performances, was in 1946 in the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo, conducted by the pianist Jorge Bolet for the entertainment of American troops and Japanese audiences. The set and costumes were opulent, and the principal players were American, Canadian, and British, as were the women's chorus, but the male chorus, the female dancing chorus and the orchestra were Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur banned a large-scale professional 1947 Tokyo production by an all-Japanese cast, but other productions have occurred in Japan. For example, the opera was performed at the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo in 1970, presented by the Eighth Army Special Service.


title: The Mikado

text: In 2001, the town of Chichibu (秩父), Japan, under the name of "Tokyo Theatre Company", produced an adaptation of "The Mikado" in Japanese. Locals believe that Chichibu was the town Gilbert had in mind when he named his setting "Titipu", but there is no contemporary evidence for this theory. Although the Hepburn system of transliteration (in which the name of the town appears as "Chichibu") is usually found today, it was very common in the 19th century to use the Nihon-shiki system, in which the name 秩父 appears as "Titibu". Thus, it is easy to surmise that "Titibu", found in the London press of 1884, became "Titipu" in the opera. Japanese researchers speculate that Gilbert may have heard of Chichibu silk, an important export in the 19th century. The town's Japanese-language adaptation of "The Mikado" has been revived several times throughout Japan and, in 2006, the "Chichibu Mikado" was performed at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in England.


title: The Mikado

text: Since the 1990s, some productions of the opera in the United States have drawn criticism from the Asian-American community as promoting "simplistic orientalist stereotypes". In 2014, after a production in Seattle, Washington, drew national attention to such criticism, the Gilbert biographer Andrew Crowther wrote that "The Mikado" "does not portray any of the characters as being 'racially inferior' or indeed fundamentally any different from British people. The point of the opera is to reflect British culture through the lens of an invented 'other', a fantasy Japan that has only the most superficial resemblance to reality." For example, the starting point for the plot of "The Mikado" is "an invented 'Japanese' law against flirting, which makes sense only as a reference to the sexual prudishness of British culture". Crowther noted that production design and other features of traditionally staged productions of the opera often "do look somewhat insensitive, not to say insulting. ... It should [be possible] to avoid such things in the future, with a little sensitivity. ... G&S is about silliness, and fun, and ... mocking the powerful, and accepting the fundamental absurdity of life". Some commentators dismissed the criticism as political correctness but a public discussion of the issue in Seattle a month later drew a large crowd who nearly all agreed that, although works like "The Mikado" should not be abandoned in their traditional form, there should be "some kind of contextualizing apparatus to show that the producers and performers are at least thinking about the problems in the work".


title: The Mikado

text: In 2015 a planned production by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players was withdrawn after its publicity materials ignited a similar protest in the Asian-American blogosphere. The company redesigned its "Mikado" production and debuted the new concept in December 2016, receiving a warm review from "The New York Times". After Lamplighters Music Theatre of San Francisco planned a 2016 production, objections by the Asian-American community prompted them to reset the opera in Renaissance-era Milan, eliminating all references to Japan. Reviewers felt that the change resolved the issue.


title: The Mikado

text: Modern productions update some of the words and phrases in "The Mikado". For example, two songs in the opera use the word "nigger". In "As some day it may happen", often called the "list song", Ko-Ko names "the nigger serenader and the others of his race". In the Mikado's song, "A more humane Mikado", the lady who modifies her appearance excessively is to be punished by being "blacked like a nigger with permanent walnut juice". These references are to white performers in blackface minstrel shows, a popular entertainment in the Victorian era, rather than to dark-skinned people. Until well into the 20th century, audiences did not consider the word "nigger" offensive. Audience members objected to the word during the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's 1948 American tour, however, and Rupert D'Oyly Carte asked A. P. Herbert to supply revised wording. These alterations have been incorporated into the opera's libretto and score since then.


title: The Mikado

text: Also included in the little list song are "the lady novelist" (referring to writers of fluffy romantic novels; these had been lampooned earlier by George Eliot) and "the lady from the provinces who dresses like a guy", where "guy" refers to the dummy that is part of Guy Fawkes Night, meaning a tasteless woman who dresses like a scarecrow. In the 1908 revival Gilbert allowed substitutions for "the lady novelist". To avoid distracting the audience with references that have become offensive over time, lyrics are sometimes modified in modern productions. Changes are also often made, especially in the little list song, to take advantage of opportunities for topical jokes. Richard Suart, a singer well known in the role of Ko-Ko, published a book containing a history of rewrites of the little list song, including many of his own.


title: The Mikado

text: As soon as the opera premiered, Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte began to license numerous products that used the opera's name, characters, lyrics, lines and designs, not just for licensing fees, but to drive ticket sales; the show "was by far the most successful example [of merchandising] in the 19th century". "Mikado" trading cards were created that advertised various products. Other "Mikado" products included figurines, fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, puzzles, toothpaste, soap, games, wallpaper, corsets, sewing thread and stoves.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" became the most frequently performed Savoy Opera and has been translated into numerous languages. It is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. A feature on Chicago Lyric Opera's 2010 production noted that the opera "has been in constant production for the past 125 years", citing its "inherent humor and tunefulness".


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" has been admired by other composers. Dame Ethel Smyth wrote of Sullivan, "One day he presented me with a copy of the full score of "The Golden Legend", adding: 'I think this is the best thing I've done, don't you?' and when truth compelled me to say that in my opinion "The Mikado" is his masterpiece, he cried out: 'O you wretch!' But though he laughed, I could see he was disappointed."


title: The Mikado

text: The following tables show the casts of the principal original productions and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring repertory at various times through to the company's 1982 closure:


title: The Mikado

text: ²For the 1896–97 revival, Temple returned to play The Mikado during January and February 1896, and again from November 1896 – February 1897.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" has been recorded more often than any other Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Of those by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the 1926 recording is the best regarded. Of the modern recordings, the 1992 Mackerras/Telarc is admired.


title: The Mikado

text: A three-minute silent film of a scene from the opera was made in 1902. This was followed in 1906 by a silent film of the opera by Gaumont Film Company. Sound film versions of 12 of the musical numbers from "The Mikado" were produced in Britain and presented as programmes in 1907 titled "Highlights from The Mikado". Another production was released the same year by the Walturdaw Company, starring George Thorne as Ko-Ko. Both of these programmes used the Cinematophone sound-on-disc system to synchronize phonograph recordings (Phonoscène) of the performers singing and speaking with the silent footage of the performance. The first full-length film of the opera, called "Fan Fan", was a 1918 silent film with a cast of children; theatres could show the film with live musical accompaniment.


title: The Mikado

text: In 1926, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a brief promotional film of excerpts from "The Mikado". Some of the most famous Savoyards of the day are seen in this film, including Darrell Fancourt as The Mikado, Henry Lytton as Ko-Ko, Leo Sheffield as Pooh-Bah, Elsie Griffin as Yum-Yum, and Bertha Lewis as Katisha.


title: The Mikado

text: In 1939, Universal Pictures released a ninety-minute film adaptation of "The Mikado". Made in Technicolor, the film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah, the American singer Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo and Jean Colin as Yum-Yum. Many of the other leads and choristers were or had been members of the D'Oyly Carte company. The music was conducted by Geoffrey Toye, a former D'Oyly Carte music director, who was also the producer and was credited with the adaptation, which involved a number of cuts, additions and re-ordered scenes. Victor Schertzinger directed, and William V. Skall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Art direction and costume designs were by Marcel Vertès. There were some revisions – "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" is performed twice, first by Nanki-Poo in a new early scene in which he serenades Yum-Yum at her window, and later in the traditional spot. A new prologue which showed Nanki-Poo fleeing in disguise was also added, and much of the Act II music was cut.


title: The Mikado

text: In 1966, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a film version of "The Mikado" that closely reflected their traditional staging, although there are some minor cuts. It was filmed on enlarged stage sets rather than on location, much like the 1965 Laurence Olivier "Othello", and was directed by the same director, Stuart Burge. It stars John Reed, Kenneth Sandford, Valerie Masterson, Philip Potter, Donald Adams, Christene Palmer and Peggy Ann Jones and was conducted by Isidore Godfrey. "The New York Times" criticised the filming technique and the orchestra and noted, "Knowing how fine this cast can be in its proper medium, one regrets the impression this "Mikado" will make on those not fortunate enough to have watched the company in the flesh. The cameras have captured everything about the company's acting except its magic."


title: The Mikado

text: Video recordings of "The Mikado" include a 1972 offering from Gilbert and Sullivan for All; the 1982 Brent-Walker film; the well-regarded 1984 Stratford Festival video; and the 1986 English National Opera production (abridged). Opera Australia have released videos of their 1987 and 2011 productions. Since the 1990s, several professional productions have been recorded on video by the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival.


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" was adapted as a children's book by W. S. Gilbert titled "The Story of The Mikado", which was Gilbert's last literary work. It is a retelling of "The Mikado" with various changes to simplify language or make it more suitable for children. For example, in the "little list" song, the phrase "society offenders" is changed to "inconvenient people", and the second verse is largely rewritten.


title: The Mikado

text: The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company controlled the copyrights to performances of "The Mikado" and the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the U.K. until 1961. It usually required authorised productions to present the music and libretto exactly as shown in the copyrighted editions. Since 1961, Gilbert and Sullivan works have been in the public domain and frequently are adapted and performed in new ways. Notable adaptations have included the following:


title: The Mikado

text: A wide variety of popular media, including films, television, theatre, and advertising have referred to, parodied or pastiched "The Mikado" or its songs, and phrases from the libretto have entered popular usage in the English language. Some of the best-known of these cultural influences are described below.


title: The Mikado

text: Quotes from "The Mikado" were used in letters to the police by the Zodiac Killer, who murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay area in 1968 and 1969. A second-season (1998) episode of the TV show "Millennium", titled "The Mikado", is based on the Zodiac case. "The Mikado" is parodied in "Sumo of the Opera", which credits Sullivan as the composer of most of its songs. The detective novel "Death at the Opera" (1934) by Gladys Mitchell is set against a background of a production of "The Mikado". In 2007 the Asian American theatre company Lodestone Theatre Ensemble produced "The Mikado Project", an original play by Doris Baizley and Ken Narasaki. It was a deconstruction of the opera premised on a fictional Asian American theatre company attempting to raise funds, while grappling with perceived racism in productions of "The Mikado", by producing a revisionist version of the opera. This was adapted as a film in 2010.


title: The Mikado

text: Film and television references to "The Mikado" include the climax of the 1978 film "Foul Play", which takes place during a performance of "The Mikado". In the 2010 episode "Robots Versus Wrestlers" of the TV sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", at a high-society party, Marshall strikes an antique Chinese gong. The host rebukes him: "Young man, that gong is a 500-year-old relic that hasn't been struck since W. S. Gilbert hit it at the London premiere of "The Mikado" in 1885!" Marshall quips, "His wife's a 500-year-old relic that hasn't been struck since W. S. Gilbert hit it at the London premiere".


title: The Mikado

text: "The Mikado" is a villainous vigilante in the comic book superhero series "The Question", by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan. He dons a Japanese mask and kills malefactors in appropriate ways – letting "the punishment fit the crime". In 1888, Ed J. Smith wrote a stage parody of "The Mikado" called "The Capitalist; or, The City of Fort Worth" to encourage capital investment in Fort Worth, Texas. The 2-8-2 railroad locomotive was renamed "The Mikado" when a U.S. production run of these locomotives was shipped to Japan in 1893. Fans even decorated "Mikado" rooms in their homes, "Mikado" clubs were established across America, and in 1886 a Michigan town took the name of the opera.


title: The Mikado

text: The phrase "A short, sharp shock", from the Act 1 song "I am so proud" has entered the English language, appearing in titles of books and songs, such as in samples of Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon", as well as political manifestos. "Let the punishment fit the crime" is another often-used phrase from the Mikado's Act II song and has been mentioned in the course of British political debates. Both concepts predate Gilbert. Examples of later use include episode 80 of the television series "Magnum, P.I.", "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime", which features bits of several songs from "The Mikado". The phrase and the Mikado's song also are featured in the "Dad's Army" episode "A Soldier's Farewell". In "The Parent Trap" (1961), the camp director quotes the phrase before sentencing the twins to the isolation cabin together. In Season 5, Episode 20 of Seinfeld, George quotes the phrase to Jerry after he and his acquaintances saw George's girlfriend, Jane, topless.


title: The Mikado

text: The name of the character Pooh-Bah has entered the English language to mean a person who holds many titles, often a pompous or self-important person. Pooh-Bah is mentioned in P. G. Wodehouse's novel "Something Fresh" and in other, often political, contexts. In December 2009 BBC presenter James Naughtie, on Radio 4's Today programme, compared UK cabinet member Peter Mandelson to Pooh-Bah because Mandelson held many offices of state, including Secretary of State for Business, First Secretary of State, Lord President of the Council, President of the Board of Trade, and Church Commissioner, and he sat on 35 cabinet committees and subcommittees. Mandelson replied, "Who is Pooh-Bah?" Mandelson was also described as "the grand Pooh-Bah of British politics" earlier the same week by the theatre critic Charles Spencer of "The Daily Telegraph". In the U.S., particularly, the term has come to describe, mockingly, people who hold impressive titles but whose authority is limited. William Safire speculated that invention of Winnie-the-Pooh by the author A. A. Milne might have been influenced by the character. The term "Grand Poobah" has been used on television shows, including "The Flintstones" and "Happy Days", and in other media, as the title of a high-ranking official in a men's club, spoofing clubs like the Freemasons, the Shriners, and the Elks Club.


title: The Mikado

text: Politicians often use phrases from songs in "The Mikado". For example, Conservative Peter Lilley pastiched "As Someday It May Happen" to specify some groups to whom he objected, including "sponging socialists" and "young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue". Comedian Allan Sherman also did a variant on the "Little List" song, presenting reasons one might want to seek psychiatric help, titled "You Need an Analyst". In a "Eureeka's Castle" Christmas special called "Just Put it on the List", the twins, Bogg and Quagmire, describe what they'd like for Christmas to the tune of the song. Richard Suart and A.S.H. Smyth released a book in 2008 called "They'd none of 'em be missed," about the history of "The Mikado" and the 20 years of little list parodies by Suart, the English National Opera's usual Ko-Ko. In Isaac Asimov's short story "Runaround" a robot recites some of the song.


title: The Mikado

text: Other songs in "The Mikado" have been referenced in films, television and other media. For example, the movie poster for "The Little Shop of Horrors" (pictured) parodies the song title "The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring, Tra la!", changing the word "bloom" to "kill". In "The Producers", an auditioner for the musical "Springtime for Hitler" begins his audition with Nanki-Poo's song, "A wand'ring minstrel I". He is quickly dismissed. In the 2006 film "Brick", femme fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner) performs a spoken-word version of "The Sun Whose Rays are All Ablaze" while playing piano. In the 1966 "Batman" episode "The Minstrel's Shakedown", the villain identifies himself as "The Minstrel" by singing to the tune of "A wand'ring minstrel I". In the "Top Cat" episode "All That Jazz", Officer Dibble woefully sings the same song. In "Blackadder Goes Forth" a recording of "A Wand'ring Minstrel I" is played on a gramophone at the beginning of the first episode, and a snatch of the song is also sung by Captain Blackadder in the episode involving "Speckled Jim". "There Is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast" is performed by Richard Thompson and Judith Owen on the album "1000 Years of Popular Music".


title: The Mikado

text: The song "Three Little Maids" is featured in the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire", where Harold Abrahams first sees his future wife dressed as one of the Three Little Maids. Television programmes that have featured the song include the "Cheers" episode "Simon Says" (for which John Cleese won an Emmy Award), the "Frasier" episode "Leapin' Lizards", the "Angel" episode "Hole in the World", "The Simpsons" episode "Cape Feare", "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" episode "Lost in Translation", and "The Animaniacs Vol. 1" episode "Hello Nice Warners". The Capitol Steps performed a parody titled "Three Little Kurds from School Are We". On the "Dinah Shore Show", Shore sang the song with Joan Sutherland and Ella Fitzgerald in 1963.


title: The Mikado

text: References to "Tit-Willow" ("On a tree by a river") have included Allan Sherman's comedy song "The Bronx Bird Watcher", about a Yiddish-accented bird whose beautiful singing leads to a sad end. On "The Dick Cavett Show", Groucho Marx and Cavett sang the song. Groucho interrupted the song to quiz the audience on the meaning of the word "obdurate". A Season 1 episode of "The Muppet Show" (aired on 22 November 1976) featured Rowlf the Dog and Sam Eagle singing the song, with Sam clearly embarrassed at having to sing the word 'tit' (also asking the meaning of "obdurate"). In the film "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?", Shelley Winters as the title character sings the song just before she is murdered.


title: Castle Howard

text: Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, within the civil parish of Henderskelfe, located north of York. It is a private residence and has been the home of the Carlisle branch of the Howard family for more than 300 years. Castle Howard is not a fortified structure, but the term "castle" is sometimes used in the name of an English country house that was built on the site of a former castle.


title: Castle Howard

text: The house is familiar to television and film audiences as the fictional "Brideshead", both in Granada Television's 1981 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" and in a two-hour 2008 adaptation for cinema. Today, it is part of the Treasure Houses of England group of heritage houses.


title: Castle Howard

text: In 1577, the 4th Duke of Norfolk's third son, Lord William Howard, married his step-sister Elizabeth Dacre, youngest daughter of the 4th Baron Dacre. She brought with her the sizable estates of Henderskelfe in Yorkshire and Naworth Castle in what was then Cumberland, now Cumbria.


title: Castle Howard

text: Castle Howard was commissioned by the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, who was a male-line descendant of Lord William Howard. The site selected was part of the Henderskelfe estate. The creation of Castle Howard, began in 1699, with the start of design work by John Vanbrugh. It was completed with the decoration of the Long Gallery in 1811.


title: Castle Howard

text: The house is surrounded by a large estate which, at the time of the 7th Earl of Carlisle, covered over and included the villages of Welburn, Bulmer, Slingsby, Terrington and Coneysthorpe. The estate was served by its own railway station, Castle Howard station, from 1845 to the 1950s.


title: Castle Howard

text: While attending Girton College during the early Edwardian era, Lady Dorothy Georgiana Howard, the daughter of the 9th Earl and "Radical Countess" of Carlisle, befriended six of her fellow students, including the future archaeologist Gisela Richter and future candidate for Roman Catholic Sainthood Anna Abrikosova. All six were invited by Lady Dorothy to Castle Howard as guests during holidays.


title: Castle Howard

text: After the death of the 9th Earl in 1911, Castle Howard was inherited by his fifth son, Geoffrey Howard, with later earls having Naworth Castle as their northern country house. In 1952, Castle Howard was opened to the public by its then-owner, Lord Howard of Henderskelfe, a younger son of Geoffrey Howard. It is now owned by a Howard family company, Castle Howard Estate Limited, and managed by the Hon. Nicholas Howard (the second son of Lord Howard of Henderskelfe) and his wife, Victoria.


title: Castle Howard

text: The 3rd Earl of Carlisle first spoke to William Talman, a leading architect, but commissioned Vanbrugh, a fellow member of the Kit-Cat Club, to design the building. Castle Howard was that gentleman-dilettante's first foray into architecture, but he was assisted by Nicholas Hawksmoor.


title: Castle Howard

text: Vanbrugh's design evolved into a Baroque structure with two symmetrical wings projecting to either side of a north–south axis. The crowning central dome was added to the design at a late stage, after building had begun. Construction began at the east end, with the East Wing constructed from 1701 to 1703, the east end of the Garden Front from 1701 to 1706, the Central Block (including dome) from 1703 to 1706, and the west end of the Garden Front from 1707 to 1709. All are exuberantly decorated in Baroque style, with coronets, cherubs, urns and cyphers, with Roman Doric pilasters on the north front and Corinthian on the south. Many interiors were decorated by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini.


title: Castle Howard

text: The Earl then turned his energies to the surrounding garden and grounds. Although the complete design is shown in the third volume of Colen Campbell's "Vitruvius Britannicus", published in 1725, the West Wing was not yet started when Vanbrugh died in 1726, despite his remonstration with the Earl. The house remained incomplete on the death of the 3rd Earl in 1738, but the remaining construction finally started at the direction of the 4th Earl. However, Vanbrugh's design was not completed: the West Wing was built in a contrasting Palladian style to a design by the 3rd Earl's son-in-law, Sir Thomas Robinson. The new wing remained incomplete, with no first floor or roof, at the death of the 4th Earl in 1758; although a roof had been added, the interior remained undecorated by the death of Robinson in 1777. Rooms were completed stage by stage over the following decades, but the whole was not completed until 1811 under Charles Heathcote Tatham.


title: Castle Howard

text: A large part of the house was destroyed by a fire which broke out on 9 November 1940. The dome, the central hall, the dining room and the state rooms on the east side were entirely destroyed. Antonio Pellegrini's ceiling decoration, the "Fall of Phaeton", was lost when the dome collapsed. In total, twenty pictures (including two Tintorettos) and several valuable mirrors were lost. The fire took the Malton and York Fire Brigades eight hours to bring under control.


title: Castle Howard

text: Some of the devastated rooms have been restored over the following decades. In 1960–61 the dome was rebuilt, and in the following couple of years Pellegrini's "Fall of Phaeton" was recreated on the underside of the dome. The East Wing remains a shell, although it has been re-roofed.


title: Castle Howard

text: In 2009 an underwater ground-source heat recovery system was installed under the castle's lake that halved the heating bill.


title: Castle Howard

text: According to figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, over 269,000 people visited Castle Howard in 2019.


title: Castle Howard

text: Castle Howard has extensive and diverse gardens. There is a large formal garden immediately behind the house. The house is prominently situated on a ridge and this was exploited to create an English landscape park, which opens out from the formal garden and merges with the park. The gardens are Grade I listed on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.


title: Castle Howard

text: Two major garden buildings are set into this landscape: the Temple of the Four Winds at the end of the garden, and the Mausoleum in the park. There is also a lake on either side of the house. There is a woodland garden, Ray Wood (formerly Wray Wood), and the walled garden contains decorative rose and flower gardens. The Ray Wood walls date from the 18th century and were restored in 2007.


title: Castle Howard

text: Further buildings outside the preserved gardens include Nicholas Hawksmoor's Pyramid, restored in 2015, an obelisk, and several follies and eyecatchers in the form of fortifications which have been restored in recent years. In nearby Pretty Wood, there are two more monuments, The Four Faces and a smaller pyramid by Hawksmoor.


title: Castle Howard

text: Located on the estate, but operating separately from the house and gardens and run by an entirely independent charitable trust, is the Yorkshire Arboretum.


title: Castle Howard

text: The house is Grade I listed and there are many other listed structures on the estate, several of which are on the Heritage at Risk Register.


title: Castle Howard

text: Castle Howard appeared in film as Brideshead in both the 1981 television serial and 2008 film adaptations of Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited".


title: Castle Howard

text: It featured in Peter Ustinov's 1965 film "Lady L" and it appeared as the Kremlin, in Galton and Simpson's 1966 film "The Spy with a Cold Nose". It was then used as the exterior set for Lady Lyndon's estate in Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film "Barry Lyndon" and it appeared in the 1995 mini-series "The Buccaneers".


title: Castle Howard

text: In 2003, a "Time Team" episode tried to discover traces of the old settlement of Henderskelf that had been demolished to make way for the castle. It was also used for the 2006 film "".


title: Castle Howard

text: Rooms (Great Hall Entrance, Turquoise Drawing Room) were used for indoor scenes in the 2013 TV series "Death Comes to Pemberley". The castle and its grounds were used as the setting for the 2015 Bollywood film "Shaandar" and in the 2016 ITV series "Victoria". The castle and mausoleum were used as the setting for the video for the 2018 Arctic Monkeys song "Four Out of Five".


title: Castle Howard

text: The castle was used as the setting for Clyvedon House, the family seat of the Duke of Hastings, in the Netflix series "Bridgerton" (2020).


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu Productions () was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy Show", "Mannix", "The Untouchables", "" and "". Until 1962, Desilu was the second-largest independent television production company in the United States, behind MCA's Revue Studios, until MCA bought Universal Pictures and Desilu became and remained the number-one independent production company, until being sold in 1968.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Ball and Arnaz jointly owned the majority stake in Desilu from its inception until 1962, when Ball bought out Arnaz and ran the company by herself for several years. Ball had succeeded in making Desilu profitable again by 1968, when she sold her shares of Desilu to Gulf+Western for $17 million (a valued $ in ). Gulf+Western then transformed Desilu into the television production arm of Paramount Pictures, rebranding the company as the original Paramount Television.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu's entire library is owned by Paramount Global through two of its subsidiaries. The CBS unit owns all Desilu properties that were produced and concluded before 1960, which were sold to CBS by Desilu itself. Its CBS Studios unit owns the rights to everything Desilu produced after 1960 as successor in interest to Paramount Television.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu Productions was formed in 1950 using the combined names of "Desi Arnaz" and "Lucille Ball". It was created to produce Lucy and Desi's vaudeville act as a television series and sell it to Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executives. Arnaz and Ball wanted to adapt Ball's CBS radio series "My Favorite Husband" to television. The television project eventually became "I Love Lucy". During the show's first few years, Desilu rented space at General Service Studios (now the Sunset Las Palmas Studios) at Santa Monica Boulevard and North Las Palmas Avenue. They used Stage Two, which was named Desilu Playhouse. Later, a special entrance was added at 6633 Romaine Street, on the south side of the lot, to allow direct access to it.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Ball's contribution was more on the artistic side. She was skilled at proposing new programs that were popular to broad audiences and successful in both their original broadcasts and syndication reruns. Before starring in "I Love Lucy," she starred in many B movies, and had a good idea of what television audiences wanted.


title: Desilu Productions

text: She approved original production concepts (such as "The Untouchables" and "Star Trek") for development into broadcast series, assessing how the public would enjoy them and their potential for long-term success. This led to continued profits from the programs through reruns, which would recover their high development and production costs. Even decades after the absorption of Desilu Productions and the production end of all original series Desilu approved for development, some series have achieved enduring success and, in some cases, redevelopment into feature-length movie franchises in their own right. Examples are "The Untouchables", "Star Trek" and "Mission Impossible".


title: Desilu Productions

text: Much of Desilu Productions' early success can be traced to Arnaz's unusual business style in his role as producer of "I Love Lucy". For example, lacking formal business training, he knew nothing of amortization and often included all the costs incurred by the production into the first episode of a season rather than spreading them across the projected number of episodes in the year. As a result, by the end of the season, episodes were nearly entirely paid for, at preposterously low figures.


title: Desilu Productions

text: At that time, most television programs were broadcast live, and as the largest markets were in New York, the rest of the country received only images derived from kinescopes. Karl Freund, the cameraman on "I Love Lucy", and Arnaz himself have been credited with the development of the linked multifilm camera setup using adjacent sets in front of a live audience that became the standard production method for situation comedy. The use of film enabled every station around the country to broadcast high-quality images of the show. Arnaz was told it was impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage, but he worked with Freund to design sets that accommodated audiences, allowed filming, and adhered to fire, health, and safety codes.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Network executives considered the use of film an unnecessary extravagance. Arnaz persuaded them to allow Desilu to cover all additional costs associated with filming, rather than broadcasting live, under the stipulation that Desilu owned and controlled all rights to the film prints and negatives. Arnaz's unprecedented arrangement is widely considered to be one of the shrewdest deals in television history. As a result of his foresight, Desilu reaped the profits from all reruns of the series.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu soon outgrew its first space and in 1954 bought its own studio, the Motion Picture Center on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, what is now Red Studios Hollywood. Most of the "I Love Lucy" episodes were produced there.


title: Desilu Productions

text: In late 1957, the company bought the RKO Pictures production facilities for $6 million from General Tire and Rubber, including RKO's main facilities on Gower Street in Hollywood and the RKO-Pathé lot (now Culver Studios) in Culver City. This purchase included Forty Acres, the backlot where exteriors for "Mayberry" were filmed. These acquisitions gave the Ball-Arnaz TV empire a total of 33 sound stages — four more than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and eleven more than Twentieth Century-Fox had in 1957.


title: Desilu Productions

text: The studio's initial attempt to become involved in film production was the film "Forever, Darling" (1956), Arnaz and Ball's followup to their highly successful MGM release "The Long, Long Trailer" (1954), but it was a box-office failure. It was produced at Desilu, but under the banner of Zanra Productions (Arnaz spelled backward). Most subsequent attempts to bring projects to the big screen were aborted until "Yours, Mine and Ours" (1968) with Ball and Henry Fonda. This film was a critical and financial success.


title: Desilu Productions

text: In 1960, Desi Arnaz sold the pre-1960s shows to CBS. Desilu Productions retained ownership of those shows that premiered after 1960, and were still in production.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Ball and Arnaz divorced in 1960. Ball served as president and chief executive officer of Desilu while at the same time starring in her own weekly series. In November 1962, Arnaz resigned as president when his holdings in the company were bought out by Ball, who succeeded him as president. This made her the first woman to head a major studio and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood at the time. Ball founded Desilu Sales, Inc., for syndication which distributed Jay Ward Productions' Fractured Flickers in 1964. Today, Desilu Sales is part of CBS Media Ventures (formerly CBS Television Distribution).


title: Desilu Productions

text: During Ball's time as sole owner, Desilu developed popular series such as "" (1966), "Mannix" (1967), and "" (1966). It has been falsely rumored that a Desilu loss during this time was Carol Burnett, who declined to star in a sitcom for the studio in favor of "The Carol Burnett Show", a weekly variety show that lasted 11 seasons. In truth, "Here's Agnes" was offered to Burnett by CBS executives who attempted to dissuade her from having a variety show because they felt that men were better suited for them. Burnett and Ball, however, remained close friends, often guest-starring in each other's series.


title: Desilu Productions

text: In 1967, Ball agreed to sell her television company to Gulf+Western, which had only recently acquired Paramount Pictures. The company was renamed Paramount Television, and the former RKO main lot on Gower Street was absorbed into the adjacent Paramount lot. The old RKO globe logo is still in place. The company is now called CBS Studios (formerly CBS Television Studios). Perfect Film purchased Desilu Studios' other lot in Culver City in 1968.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Arnaz left television production for a few years but returned in 1966 when he formed his own company, Desi Arnaz Productions, based at Desilu. Desi Arnaz Productions, along with United Artists Television, co-produced "The Mothers-in-Law" for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Arnaz attempted to sell other television pilots, including a comedy with Carol Channing and an adventure series with Rory Calhoun. Neither series sold. Arnaz also tried to create a law drama called "Without Consent", with Spencer Tracy as a defense attorney, but after several attempts at developing a suitable script failed and because of insurance concerns regarding Tracy's heavy drinking, the project was abandoned.


title: Desilu Productions

text: After selling Desilu, Ball established her own new production company, Lucille Ball Productions (LBP), in 1968. The company went to work on her new series "Here's Lucy" that year. The program ran until 1974 and enjoyed several years of ratings success. Ball returned to network television in 1986 with the short-lived "Life with Lucy". It lasted eight episodes before it was cancelled—a first for Ball—because of poor ratings. LBP continues to exist, and its primary purpose is residual sales of license rights for "Here's Lucy".


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu-Paramount TV's holdings are owned by Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS), the owner of the pre-1960s shows. Desilu Productions Inc. was reincorporated in Delaware in 1967, by Paramount Pictures and still exists as a legal entity. Desilu Too LLC was later created by Lucie Arnaz mostly as a licensee for "I Love Lucy"-related merchandise. Desilu Too also partners with MPI Home Video and Lucille Ball Productions (formed by Ball and second husband Gary Morton) on the video releases of "Here's Lucy" and other material Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other. Desilu Too officials have worked with MPI Home Video for the home video reissue of "The Mothers-In-Law". Paramount Home Entertainment (through CBS DVD) continues to hold DVD distribution rights to the CBS library. In November 2019 CBS Studios registered the DESILU trademark again to protect its previous Common Law trademark usage. Syndication rights for "Here's Lucy" were sold by Ball to Telepictures, which later merged with Lorimar Television and ultimately was folded into Warner Bros. Discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery is the show's current distributor, although MPI now holds home video rights under license from Lucille Ball Productions and Desilu Too.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Whether Desilu Too has interests in the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum & Center for Comedy in Jamestown, New York, is not known. Neither Desilu Too nor LBP operates as a production company.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Desilu began the creation of its productions using conventional film studio materials, production, and processing techniques. The use of these materials and techniques meant that the 35 mm negatives (the source material for copyright purposes) were immediately available for production and distribution of prints when the "Lucy" series went into syndication at local stations around the country. As such, no "lost" episodes of programs occurred, and no programs were recorded by kinescope from the television broadcast.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Through the use of film-studio production techniques, the content and quality of Desilu productions displayed a high standard relative to peers in television of the 1950s and '60s. Moreover, they were readily adaptable to both comedy and drama formats and were able to handle special effects or feature interior or exterior sets and locations with equal ease.


title: Desilu Productions

text: Some of these programs were created and owned by Desilu; others were other production companies' programs that Desilu filmed or to which Desilu rented production space.