title: Jake Shields

text: Shields was raised near Mountain Ranch, California, in the Sierra Nevada. He was home schooled up to junior high. He and his two older brothers grew up at the end of a dirt road on the rim of the Jesus Maria Canyon. Their nearest friends were a 45-minute hike down one side of the canyon and up the other. Their activities included mountain biking, wild caving, snowboarding, clearing brush, bucking firewood, climbing mountains, exploring the high country, and wrestling.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields began amateur wrestling at age nine. He has competed in over 601 folkstyle, freestyle, and submission wrestling matches. Shields was a four-year varsity wrestler and state qualifier at Calaveras High School, finished 2nd place at the Amateur Athletic Union National Freestyle Championships, qualified for U.S.A./ FILA Nationals & World Team Trials in both the junior & university men's divisions. He is also a two-time junior college All-American wrestler from Cuesta College, placing 4th in the California JC state tournament in the weight class in 1997 and 3rd in the weight class a year later. In September 1999, Shields began his MMA training by joining Chuck Liddell's SLO Kickboxing Academy. Within a few weeks he fought his first fight, filling in for an injured teammate at . Shields fought five fights at 185 lbs "for fun, to stay in shape and learn some self defense". In 2001, Shields decided he wanted to make a career of mixed martial arts and began fighting at his natural weight of .


title: Jake Shields

text: In the summer of 2001, Shields received a wrestling scholarship to San Francisco State University. At that time he began training with the Cesar Gracie Fight Team, resulting in a dramatic improvement of the jiu jitsu variety. He is a three-time Grapplers Quest Advance Champion, Pan American Championships Jiu Jitsu Champion, Pan Am Open Advance Submission Champion, Gracie Open Superfight Champion and finished 3rd place at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in 2005. His victory at the Pan American Championships (which requires wearing a uniform) as a purple belt is notable because Jake Shields claims he has trained "about four hours with the gi in [his] life," and the Pan Americans is one of the largest Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitions in the world. He continued to improve on the kickboxing skills he picked up with Chuck Liddell, by cross-training with the professional Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Fairtex Combat Academy, training with Muay Thai Champions Jongsanan Fairtex and Alex Gong. He was awarded the rank of black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu by Cesar Gracie in February 2007.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields was the head instructor of BJJ (Brazilian jiu-jitsu) and MMA at the Fairtex-Gracie affiliate in San Francisco from March 2002 until April 2008.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields has developed a style of fighting called "American Jiu-Jitsu," which he has tattooed on his forearm. Shields's American Jiu-Jitsu is a no-gi style of grappling for MMA and self-defense is a complete combat art that combines the relaxed and ready position and submission techniques of Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the explosive takedowns, throws and transitions of wrestling.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields is best known for his 15-fight winning streak, finishing eight of his eleven opponents before being defeated by UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre in a hard-fought five round battle at UFC 129. Shields has captured the Shooto World Mixed Martial Arts Championship and the Rumble on the Rock World Championship. He submitted Nick Thompson via guillotine choke in a bout for the Elite XC Welterweight Championship.


title: Jake Shields

text: At he fought EliteXC's last middleweight champion and former two-time ICON Sport middleweight champion at a catchweight of . Lawler took the center of the cage and looked comfortable on his feet. Robbie Lawler said in the post fight interview, "His striking was good. He threw a lot of kicks. He worked. He threw hands and wasn't shying away from standup, that's for sure." Two minutes into the first round, Shields pounced and secured a guillotine choke to finish his opponent via submission at 2:02 of the first round.


title: Jake Shields

text: At he fought Jason 'Mayhem' Miller for the vacant Strikeforce Middleweight Championship after Cung Le stepped down as champion to pursue his acting career. Shields defeated Miller via unanimous decision (48–47, 49–46, and 49–46).


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields successfully defended his title, defeating former Pride World Welterweight and Pride Middleweight Champion Dan Henderson via unanimous decision on April 17, 2010, at .


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields was spotted and shown on camera next to UFC President Dana White at the WEC 48 PPV. With Dana White saying, "He's mine!" and his arm around Shields, this fueled rumors of Shields signing with the UFC. Jake Shields stated in an interview that it was tough for Strikeforce to provide him with exciting fights and this would be a key aspect in his decision to stay or leave. Dana White also stated in this interview he would be willing to pay huge sums to strip away one of Strikeforce's champions. This has further fueled speculation that Shields would leave Strikeforce for the UFC.


title: Jake Shields

text: On June 30, Strikeforce released Shields from the organization during his contract renegotiation period. Shields then entered into talks with the UFC, with his manager and father Jack Shields stating that his son is eager to fight against top UFC fighters, such as Anderson Silva. In July 2010, it was reported that Shields was close to signing a deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship to compete in the promotion's Welterweight division.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields made his UFC debut against Martin Kampmann on October 23, 2010, at UFC 121. Prior to Shields's UFC debut, Dana White stated that Shields is most likely next for a shot at the UFC Welterweight Championship between the winner of Georges St-Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck if he defeats Kampmann. After Shields defeated Kampmann via split decision, White later confirmed that Shields would receive a title shot against the winner of the Georges St-Pierre vs. Josh Koscheck fight at UFC 124.


title: Jake Shields

text: Georges St-Pierre won his UFC 124 bout against Josh Koscheck. Shields fought St-Pierre for the UFC Welterweight Championship on April 30, 2011, at UFC 129 in Toronto. Shields lost via unanimous decision. This was Shields's first loss in over 6 years.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields faced Jake Ellenberger on September 17, 2011 at UFC Fight Night 25, losing via first-round TKO. This was the first time Shields has been finished in over ten years.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields returned to the middleweight division and faced Ed Herman on August 11, 2012 at UFC 150. He won the bout via unanimous decision. However, on October 12, 2012, it was announced that Jake Shields had failed his drug test at UFC 150 and he was subsequently fined and suspended. The result of the fight was overturned to a No Contest. In January 2015 Shields said the failed test was due to a banned diuretic.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields faced Tyron Woodley in a welterweight bout on June 15, 2013 at UFC 161. The bout was contested on the feet for nearly its entirety in a largely uneventful fight where neither fighter was able to deliver any significant offense. Shields defeated Woodley via split decision.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields next faced Demian Maia on October 9, 2013 at UFC Fight Night 29. As expected, the contest between the two decorated jiu jitsu practitioners took place mostly on the ground, and Shields won via split decision.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields fought Héctor Lombard on March 15, 2014 at UFC 171. Shields lost the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Jake Shields

text: After his release from the UFC, the outspoken and often candid president of the organization, Dana White, had this to say about Shields:


title: Jake Shields

text: "We look at everything. Everything. Money has something to do with it. I'd be lying if I said it didn't. But that wasn't the only reason or the main reason. It was a part of the piece of the puzzle as we were doing our evaluation of him. Mixed martial arts is a young man's game. I like Jake Shields a lot. But let's be honest here: Where was he going in this [welterweight] division of animals we have? He's on the downswing, and he's never going to be the guy. His stand-up never improved. He hasn't really shown anything in his last couple of fights to make you go, 'Holy [expletive].' Right now, at this point, he's just another guy."


title: Jake Shields

text: In April 2014, Shields signed a multi-fight deal with the World Series of Fighting. Shields was expected to compete at WSOF 11 on July 5, 2014 against Jon Fitch. However, Shields was forced out of the bout due to a shoulder injury.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields made his debut for World Series of Fighting at on October 11, 2014 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada against WSOF Canadian Welterweight Champion Ryan Ford. He won the fight via submission in the first round.


title: Jake Shields

text: In his second fight for the promotion, Shields faced Brian Foster in the main event at WSOF 17 on January 17, 2015. He again won the fight via submission in the first round.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields faced Rousimar Palhares on August 1, 2015 at . He lost the fight by submission due to a kimura, marking his first loss by submission. This wasn't without controversy as Palhares repeatedly eye gouged Shields after several warnings from the ref, Palhares also held onto the submission well after Shields had tapped. In response, Shields punched Palhares in the face after the fight was over, and attempted a kick which the referee blocked. Both Shields and Palhares were temporarily suspended by the NSAC after the fight.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields was lined up to face Jon Fitch for the vacant WSOF welterweight championship at on April 1, 2016. Though they have never competed together in an MMA contest, Shields holds a victory over Fitch in a submission grappling match. However, the match was later cancelled due to contract issues between Shields and the company.


title: Jake Shields

text: On September 13, 2016, it was announced that Shields would challenge for the WSOF Welterweight Championship against Jon Fitch on November 12, 2016 at . On October 17, 2016, it was announced that the fight was then rescheduled to take place on December 31, 2016 in the co-main event. Shields lost the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields made his PFL debut at PFL Everett on July 29, 2017 against Danny Davis Jr. He won the bout via unanimous decision.


title: Jake Shields

text: On July 5, 2018, Shields made his PFL season debut at PFL 3 losing to Ray Cooper III via technical knockout in the second round.


title: Jake Shields

text: On August 16, 2018, Shields defeated Herman Terrado at PFL 6 via unanimous decision advancing to the playoffs.


title: Jake Shields

text: On October 20, 2018, Shields faced Ray Cooper III in a rematch at PFL 10. He lost the fight via technical knockout in the first round to advance to the semifinals of the playoffs.


title: Jake Shields

text: On November 22, 2014, Shields fought Roberto Satoshi in a grappling match in Metamoris V. The fight ended in a draw.


title: Jake Shields

text: On April 2, 2016, Shields then fought AJ Agazarm at Polaris 3. The match was controversial as it was plagued with eye gouges and strikes coming from both fighters. At one point in the match Shields slapped Agazarm while both men were standing. The fight ended in the draw.


title: Jake Shields

text: Shields has a daughter Maddie (born December 2000) and is a single father. He is a lifelong vegetarian. He appeared in both print and video ads for PETA, touting his vegetarian lifestyle.


title: Jake Shields

text: On August 29, 2011, Shields's father and manager, Jack Shields, died at the age of 67. Jake is also a lifelong Liverpool F.C. supporter.


title: Jake Shields

text: Jake Shields stars in and co-produced "Fight Life", an award-winning documentary on the sport of MMA, the film is directed by James Z. Feng and released in 2013. Shields appeared in three episodes of "Bully Beatdown" on MTV and MTV2 on April 12, 2009, a different episode on September 10, and again in an MTV.com-exclusive episode. Shields also served as a grappling coach for Chuck Liddell on "The Ultimate Fighter 11", and appeared on the Animal Planet channel for episodes of "Wild Recon" and "Venom in Vegas".


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure, long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and historic county of Berkshire), some east of Swindon, south of the town of Faringdon and a similar distance west of the town of Wantage; or south of Uffington. The hill forms a part of the scarp of the Berkshire Downs and overlooks the Vale of White Horse to the north. The best views of the figure are obtained from the air, or from directly across the Vale, particularly around the villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot, and Fernham.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The Uffington White Horse was created some time between 1380 and 550 , during the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. The site is owned and managed by the National Trust and is a scheduled monument. "The Guardian" stated in 2003 that "for more than 3,000 years, the Uffington White Horse has been jealously guarded as a masterpiece of minimalist art." The Uffington Horse is by far the oldest of the white horse figures in Britain and is of an entirely different design from the others inspired by it.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The earliest reference to the site is found in Medieval Welsh literature. The Llyfr Coch Hergest ("Red Book of Hergest", 1375–1425) states that "Near to the town of Abinton there is a mountain with a figure of a stallion upon it, and it is white. Nothing grows upon it." Some scholars have compared the figure to the Celtic goddess Epona, or the later Rhiannon of the Mabinogi


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The figure is one of a number in the area that was long thought to have ancient origins. In the 17th century, John Aubrey attributed the figure to Hengist and Horsa. However, Aubrey also ascribed its origins to the British Celts, noting the similarity of the image to those found on native Iron Age coins. Francis Wise would state that the image was created by Alfred the Great to celebrate his victory at the Battle of Edington.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Although the notion of it being a post-Roman creation remained popular, many antiquarians and scholars had noted the designs similarity to the Celtic art found on the coins of the local tribes (the Dobunni and Atrebates). Comparative analysis of the design with numismatic and archeological finds was conducted by Stuart Piggott in 1931 and Ann Ross in 1967, with Piggott suggesting circa 100  as a possible date of origin. In 1949, Morris Marple suggested a Bronze Age date, comparing the design to others throughout Europe and North Africa.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Following an excavation in 1990, the figure's origin was finally settled with optically stimulated luminescence testing. Simon Palmer and David Miles of the Oxford Archaeological Unit dated silt deposits to the period between 1380BCE and 550BCE, confirming the Uffington White Horse to be Britain's oldest chalk figure. The new Bronze Age date would place the figures origin at the same time as Uffington Castle, during a period when the horse was transforming British warfare.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Until the late 19th century, the horse was scoured every seven years as part of a more general local fair held on the hill. Francis Wise wrote in 1736: ""The ceremony of scouring the Horse, from time immemorial, has been solemnized by a numerous concourse of people from all the villages roundabout."" After the work was done a rural festival was held sponsored by the lord of the manor.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: During the Second World War the figure, easily recognisable from the air, was covered over with turf and hedge trimmings so that "Luftwaffe" pilots could not use it for navigation during bombing raids. It was uncovered after the war by Welsh archaeology professor William Francis Grimes.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: In August 2002, the figure was defaced with the addition of a rider and three dogs by members of the "Real Countryside Alliance" (Real CA). The act was denounced by the Countryside Alliance. Soon afterwards for a couple of days in May 2003, a temporary hill figure advertisement for the fourth series of Channel 4's series "Big Brother" was controversially placed near the figure. In March 2012, as part of a pre-Cheltenham Festival publicity stunt, a bookmaker added a large jockey to the figure.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: It has long been debated whether the chalk figure was intended to represent a horse or some other animal, such as a dog or a sabre-toothed cat. However, it has been called a horse since the 11th century at least. A cartulary of Abingdon Abbey, compiled between 1072 and 1084, refers to ""mons albi equi"" at Uffington ("the White Horse Hill").


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The horse is thought to represent a tribal symbol, perhaps connected with the builders of Uffington Castle. It is similar to horses depicted on Celtic coinage, the currency of the pre-Romano-British population, and on the Marlborough Bucket (an Iron Age burial bucket found in Marlborough, Wiltshire).


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Another theory proposed by University of Southampton archaeologist Joshua Pollard points to the horse's alignment with the sun, particularly in midwinter when the sun appears to overtake the horse, to indicate that it was created as a depiction of a "solar horse", reflecting mythological beliefs that the sun was carried across the sky on a horse or in a chariot.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The White Horse has been carefully cleared of vegetation from time to time. The figure has remained clear of turf throughout its long existence, except for being covered as a precaution during the Second World War. The cleaning process, known as the Scouring of the White Horse, was formerly made the occasion of a festival. Sports of all kinds were held, and keen rivalry was maintained, not only between the inhabitants of the local villages, but between local champions and those from distant parts of England.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The first of such festivals known took place in 1755 and they died out only subsequently to 1857, after 30,000 people turned up for the event. "The Scouring of the White Horse", by Tom Hughes, was published in 1859 as a semi-fictionalised recounting of his visit to the 1857 event. He recounts being told that the local towns had laid claim to a traditon of scouring the White Horse since Saxon times.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The tradition was revived in 2009 by the National Trust, with local volunteers replacing a layer of freshly quarried chalk on the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. Frequent work is required for the figure to remain visible. If regular cleaning is halted, the figure quickly becomes obscured; Periodic scouring continues, on chalking day volunteers with hammers, buckets of chalk, and kneepads kneel and "smash the chalk to a paste, whitening the paths cut in the grass inch by inch."


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The most significant nearby feature is the Iron Age Uffington Castle, located on higher ground atop a knoll above the White Horse. This hillfort comprises an area of approximately enclosed by a single, well-preserved bank and ditch. Dragon Hill is a natural chalk hill with an artificial flat top, associated in legend with St George.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Whitehorse Hill is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It is a geological SSSI due to its Pleistocene sediments, and a biological SSSI as it has one of the few remaining unploughed grasslands along the chalk escarpment in Oxfordshire.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: To the west are ice-cut terraces known as the "Giant's Stair". Some believe these terraces at the bottom of this valley are the result of medieval farming, or alternatively were used for early farming after being formed by natural processes. The steep sided dry valley below the horse is known as the Manger and legend says that the horse grazes there at night.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The Blowing Stone, a perforated sarsen stone, lies in a garden in Kingston Lisle, away and produces a musical tone when blown through.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic long barrow and chamber tomb southwest of the Horse. It lies next to The Ridgeway, an ancient trackway that also runs behind Uffington Castle, and is followed by the Ridgeway National Trail, a long-distance footpath running from Overton Hill, near Avebury, to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: In 2019, a group of workers laying water pipes near Letcombe Bassett unearthed an almost 3,000 year-old settlement that archaeologists believe to belong to the same community involved in the creation of the Uffington White Horse. The find includes tools, animal bones and the remains of 26 people whose skeletons suggest human sacrifice.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The horse was a direct influence on much later hill figures of white horses, including Kilburn White Horse (1858) in Yorkshire, Folkestone White Horse (2003) at the Channel Tunnel terminal near Kent, and a white horse cut from heather that existed from 1981 until the mid-1990s in Mossley, Greater Manchester. The first Westbury White Horse, which faced left, is also believed to have been inspired by the Uffington horse. The Uffington White Horse has also inspired lookalike hill figures, including one facing left in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Direct replicas of the Uffington horse can be found at Cockington Green Gardens in Australia and Hogansville, Georgia, USA. Uffington White Horse has also inspired two sculptures in Wiltshire, namely Julie Livsey's "White Horse Pacified" (1987) in nearby Swindon, a town which was also once considered for a white horse, and Charlotte Moreton's "White Horse" (2010) in Solstice Park, Amesbury.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The White Horse is used as a symbol by diverse organisations (mostly with Oxfordshire or Berkshire connections) and appears in numerous works of literature, visual art and music.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The White Horse is the emblem of the Vale of White Horse District Council, the Berkshire Yeomanry (an Army Reserve unit based in Windsor), and educational establishments including Faringdon Community College, The Ridgeway School and Sixth Form College in Wroughton, Wiltshire, and The Ridgeway Primary School in Whitley, Berkshire.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: Thomas Hughes, the author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays", who was born in the nearby village of Uffington, wrote a book called "The Scouring of the White Horse". Published in 1859, and described as "a combined travel book and record of regional history in the guise of a novel, sort of", it recounts the traditional festivities surrounding the periodic renovation of the White Horse. In "Idylls of the King", written between 1859 and 1885, Tennyson compares King Arthur's removal of certain corrupt judges, who had been installed by his predecessor, Uther, to the way in which "Men weed the White Horse on the Berkshire hills, to keep him bright and clean as heretofore." G.K. Chesterton also features the scouring of the White Horse in his epic poem "The Ballad of the White Horse", published in 1911, a romanticised depiction of the exploits of King Alfred the Great.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: In modern fiction, Rosemary Sutcliff's 1977 children's book "Sun Horse, Moon Horse" tells a fictional story of the Bronze Age creator of the figure, and the White Horse and nearby Wayland's Smithy feature in a 1920s setting in the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery/detective novel "A Pale Horse" by Charles Todd; a depiction of the White Horse appears on the book's dust jacket. The horse is also central to the 1978 BBC Television serial "The Moon Stallion" by Brian Hayles, who later novelised the series. "The horse on the chalk" in Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series is inspired by the Uffington White Horse. Pratchett (who is famous for his sardonic humor) said "By an "amazing" coincidence, the horse carved on the chalk in "A Hat Full of Sky" (2004) is remarkably similar to the Uffington White Horse." The White Horse is a significant setting, plot point, and symbol in the 2018 novel "Lethal White", the fourth instalment in the Cormoran Strike detective series.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: David Bedford's "Song of the White Horse" (1978), set for ensemble and children's choir and commissioned for the BBC's "Omnibus" programme, depicts a journey along a footpath alongside the Uffington Horse and includes words from Chesterton's poem. The composition requires the choir to inhale helium to sing the "stratospherically high notes" of the climax, accompanied by aerial footage of the horse animated to show it rearing up from the ground. A recording, produced by Mike Oldfield, was released by Oldfield Music in 1983.


title: Uffington White Horse

text: The Uffington Horse is illustrated on the cover of "English Settlement" (1982), the fifth studio album by the Swindon band XTC, and appears (among other symbols copied from Barbara G. Walker's "The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects") on the back cover of Nirvana's final album, "In Utero" (1993).


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The coin-operated arcade game version was released in Japan on July 18, 2008, with North American arcades importing the machines by August. The console versions for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were released in Japan on February 12, 2009, and were sold in North American stores as early as February 16, with a February 18 intended release date.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The official European release was on February 20. A Microsoft Windows version was released on July 2, 2009, in Japan, July 3, 2009 in Europe and July 7, 2009, in the United States. A version for iOS was released on March 10, 2010. Also, an Android version was launched, initially as an exclusive for certain LG devices. Then by December 31, 2012, the exclusivity expired and the game was made available for all Android devices on the Play Store, with a region restriction that makes it available only in Japan. An updated version, "Super Street Fighter IV", was released as a standalone title in April 2010.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Street Fighter IV received universal critical acclaim; receiving universally high scores from many gaming websites and magazines and it has often been cited as one of the greatest games of all time. It was followed by "Super Street Fighter IV" and "" in 2010, "" in 2011, and "Ultra Street Fighter IV" in 2014. All versions of "Street Fighter IV" have sold over 9million units across all platforms.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Producer Yoshinori Ono stated that he wanted to keep the game closer to "". The battles in "SFIV" begin with a short pre-fight intro, a small cinematic dialogue sequence which varies depending on the player's chosen character. A new system called Focus Attacks (Saving Attack for the Japanese version) has been introduced, as well as Ultra Moves. The traditional six-button control scheme returns, with new features and Special Moves integrated into the input system, mixing classic gameplay with additional innovations.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The game arguably has a similar feel to "Super Street Fighter II Turbo", but also includes a few features from "". As in "Street Fighter III", throwing is performed by pressing both light attack buttons, while pressing both heavy attack buttons performs the character's personal action or taunt. Pressing both medium attack buttons performs a character's Focus Attack. Dashes and quick standing are also in the game. C. Viper and Dan (with the air taunt) are the only characters who can perform a high jump.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: It was intended that bonus rounds such as the car-smashing stage from earlier "Street Fighter" games would return. Ono later stated that the bonus stages would not be in the arcade game, citing the reason to be that the time players spend on bonus stages is time during which they have no chance of losing, which ultimately takes money from arcade operators. The bonus stages were later added in "Super Street Fighter IV". There are also Rival Battles which have a cutscene between two characters (which depends on who they are) before the battle starts.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Focus Attacks, known as Saving Attack in the Japanese version, is a new system introduced in "Street Fighter IV". The Focus Attack is a move that allows the player to absorb an attack and launch a counterattack, and it is performed by holding the medium punch and medium kick buttons simultaneously. There are two phases to the attack. In the first phase, the player will shift into a new stance, at which point they are able to absorb a single hit from the opponent. The second phase is the counterattack. The longer the player holds down the medium punch and kick buttons, the more powerful the attack will be. There are three stages to the charge.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Attacks that were absorbed during the first phase of a Focus Attack still cause damage to the player; however, life lost from the opponent's attack will be quickly regenerated afterward. In addition, during the first and second phase of the Focus Attack, the player may perform a dash either forward or backward to cancel the Focus Attack. Finally, at the cost of two bars of the Super Combo gauge, many Special Moves can be canceled into a Focus Attack. By executing a Focus Attack during the Special Move, the animation of the move will be cut short and go instantly into the Focus Attack animation. This allows players with precise timing to cancel Special Moves into Focus Attacks, and in turn cancel Focus Attacks into the forward dash, resulting in new combo possibilities. If a Special Move is blocked by the opponent, the new system allows players to cancel the blocked move with a Focus Attack, and then cancel the Focus Attack by dashing backward safely away from the opponent. Ono has stated that this system was incorporated in order to shift the emphasis away from combos and toward a more realistic system he has compared to boxing, in which "the skill is in reading your opponent's move before [they start] moving ... We haven't forgotten about combos and linked moves, but focus makes it so that you have to read your opponent." The system aims to make ground attacks as viable a way of approaching opponents as jumping was in previous games. The focus system is a core part of "Street Fighter IV"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s gameplay.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: In addition to the powered-up versions of Special Moves introduced in previous "Street Fighter" games such as Super Combos and EX Special Moves, the game also introduces a new type of powered-up Special Move officially dubbed the Ultra Combo. Ultra Combos are long and cinematic moves featuring a lengthy combination of punches, kicks and other fighting techniques. Just as there is a Super Combo gauge, there is also an Ultra Combo gauge (officially known as the Revenge Gauge or Revenge Meter), but whereas the Super Combo gauge fills up when the player hits their opponent or performs a Special Move, the Revenge Gauge fills when one takes damage from their opponent (similar to the K Groove featured in "Capcom vs. SNK 2"). Along with the Super Combos, Ultra Combos are one of the only times (besides Zangief, E. Honda, Seth and Abel's command throws) the camera breaks from its normal fixed position to show a more dynamic, cinematic view of the gameplay.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: "Street Fighter IV" takes place after the events of "Street Fighter II" and before the events of "Street Fighter V" (thus is chronologically set before "Street Fighter III" which takes place in the future).


title: Street Fighter IV

text: After M. Bison's survival following his encounter with Akuma, the S.I.N. corporation began another fighting tournament in order to draw out the most powerful street fighters on Earth to complete the BLECE project. Each World Warrior has their own reasons for entering this tournament, but S.I.N.'s real desire is to lure Ryu to them in order to analyze the Satsui no Hadō, believed to be the last piece of data needed to complete BLECE.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Gouken, having recently awakened from a coma after surviving an attack by Akuma which occurred between the events of "Street Fighter" and "Street Fighter Alpha" about seven years before, knowing of SIN's interest in Ryu, starts looking for him to instruct to stop his Satsui no Hado development. He instructs Ryu and shows him a power known as the Mu no Ken (or Power of Nothingness), which is essentially the opposite of Satsui no Hadō, where calm and tranquility transcend human powers.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Akuma, knowing what Gouken has done to Ryu, has become driven with fury and has a fight to the death with Gouken once again, releasing everything from his Satsui no Hadō against all the power of Gouken's Mu no Ken.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: It is revealed that Crimson Viper was a double agent, and she betrayed Seth, in addition to Juri who also wanted to see Shadaloo's total downfall, and set up the fight between M. Bison and Seth. Although Seth took over SIN, M. Bison managed to take on the consciousness of another clone thanks to the scientists at Shadaloo, and ends up with Seth.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: M. Bison is behind the SIN, letting the plans go, while everyone thinks he is dead, and the Seth that the players find at the end of the game is revealed to be a clone, as the real Seth was killed by M. Bison.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Abel, who is a fighter with no memory, supposedly was saved by Charlie Nash and joins Chun-Li and Guile to destroy the SIN headquarters, so they manage to end this organization.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Chronologically set between the "Street Fighter II" series and the "Street Fighter III" series, the playable character roster of the arcade version includes the cast of the original "Street Fighter II" (all 12 characters, including the four Shadaloo Grand Masters) and four new characters. Akuma from "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" also appears as a hidden playable character, as well as a secret opponent, for a total of 17 playable characters. Additionally, the game includes two more secret characters: Seth as the game's standard final boss, and Gouken as a secret opponent, which makes for a total of 19 characters. The console version includes 6 more characters to the roster making for a total of 25, the returning characters are: Cammy, Dan, Fei Long, Gen, Rose and Sakura.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Before producer Yoshinori Ono pitched the idea to Capcom R&D head Keiji Inafune, the prevailing attitude around Capcom was that a new numeric entry to the "Street Fighter" series would not be made. Initially, there was much resistance to Ono's pitch for a new "Street Fighter" game so many years after the original. The gap from 2000 to 2008, since "Street Fighter EX3", the latest "Street Fighter" game at that point, represented the longest time the series had gone without a sequel. However, in light of fan demand plus the positive reception to "Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting" on Xbox Live Arcade, Inafune eventually allowed the project to begin. This was Ono's first take on a new entry for the "Street Fighter" series as a producer, although he had previously worked on "Street Fighter III 3rd Strike" as a "sound management director" and previously produced "Capcom Fighting Jam". The experience provided by "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" became the main influence for the "Street Fighter IV" development team.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The original game concept, titled "Street Fighter IV Flashback", imagined in part by David Sirlin, the designer of "Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix", never made it past the proposal stage. "Flashback" would likewise feature the 2.5D gameplay and a roster made of classic "Street Fighter II" characters plus Sakura and a few new characters. The game would have also featured a single-player mode with third-person 3D action (similar to this of the "God of War" series) that focused on Ryu's backstory, as well as all "Street Fighter" arcade games in their original forms and a 3D version of "Super Turbo". "Flashback"'s proposed easy control system was later used in "", minus its titular "flashback" gameplay feature.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: While "Street Fighter IV" features models and backgrounds rendered in 3D, the gameplay remains on a traditional 2D plane, with the camera having freedom to move in 3D at certain times during fights, for dramatic effect, similar to the "Street Fighter EX" series Capcom produced with Arika. Initially the title had been developed to use 3D hitboxes, but the testers felt it did not have the "pixel perfect" precision of a "Street Fighter" game, and the game was therefore changed to use 2D hitboxes.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Ono has also cited the arcade version of Arc System Works' "Battle Fantasia" as the inspiration for the game's three-dimensional art style. Art director and character designer Daigo Ikeno, who previously worked on "Street Fighter III 3rd Strike", opted for non-photorealistic rendering to give them a hand-drawn look, with visual effects accented in calligraphic strokes, ink smudges and ink sprays during the fights.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: "Street Fighter IV"s musical score was primarily composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa. The game's music consisted of new and old material created for it. Several music pieces (such as the themes for the returning "SFII" characters) were rearranged for "SFIV". While previous "Street Fighter" games contained limited voice work, "Street Fighter IV" was the first "Street Fighter" series game to feature extensive voice acting. The game offers a choice between the original Japanese or an English dub.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The game runs on the Taito Type X arcade board inside a Taito Vewlix cabinet. It takes advantage of the Type X's network capabilities and allows players in separate machines within the same LAN to fight each other.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: "Street Fighter IV" was also released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows, featuring additional playable characters and features not found in the arcade game. Capcom later released an iOS version on March 10, 2010. In March 2017 the Xbox 360 version of "Street Fighter IV" became compatible with the Xbox One.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The notable addition in the home versions of "Street Fighter IV" are eight unlockable and playable characters not available in the arcade version. Seth and Gouken, computer-played characters in the arcade, and six characters from other "Street Fighter" games were added, to a total of 25 characters, all of them playable. The introduced characters are Dan, Fei Long, Sakura, Cammy, Gen, and Rose.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Home versions also feature online play, six new stages, downloadable content, a Challenge Mode that acts as a training module for new and experienced players, requiring them to reproduce indicated moves or combos with successive levels of increasing complexity, as well as selectable English or Japanese voices for the characters (similar to the voice option settings in the "Soulcalibur" games), making "Street Fighter IV" the first game in the series since the original "Street Fighter" to feature English voice acting for all the characters. The game also offers a new opening cinematic scene featuring the theme song "The Next Door", by Exile, in both Japanese and English (as "The Next Door -Indestructible-" which featured Flo Rida in the extended version of that version) (depending on language settings), and animated opening and ending sequences for each character's story in Arcade mode.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The iOS version allows for bluetooth-based multiplayer between devices, but features only eight of the console version's characters and stages. The characters consist of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, Blanka, Abel and M. Bison. In an update two more characters were added: Zangief and Cammy. The most recent update features Sagat and an unlockable character, Dee Jay.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The Windows version of "Street Fighter IV" includes all the features found in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and some extras, that Capcom representatives say could make it "the definitive version" of the game. The game features online play via Games for Windows – Live, with built-in voice chat and PC-exclusive achievements, but no cross-platform playability would be available with Xbox 360 players. Also, the game features higher resolutions, and three new freely selectable visual styles, named "Ink", "Watercolor" and "Posterize". There are also two bundles of the game: regular (game only, $39.99) and a bundle that includes the Mad Catz FightPad (with the Ryu design) that is currently sold separately for the Xbox 360 version. Those who pre-ordered the game at Best Buy received a DVD with an Eagle One animated comic (this is not the same as "The Ties That Bind" that comes in the collector's editions of the console versions). Additionally, Svensson has stated on the Capcom Unity forums that the retail version uses disc-based SecuROM as its main form of copy protection for the North American release. The specifications for the game were released on May 15, 2009, and are considered relatively modest.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: For Western markets, three different packages for the game were prepared—the European release, the North American standard package, and the North American "Collector's Edition". The contents of the "Collector's Edition" are nearly identical to those featured in the European version, and are the following:


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Mad Catz produced six controllers for the game, two Arcade sticks and a game pad each for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. These products include a basic model joystick, the ""Street Fighter IV" FightStick"; a heavier and sturdier stick, the ""Street Fighter IV" FightStick Tournament Edition'; and a six-button game pad, the ""Street Fighter IV" FightPad". Meanwhile, peripheral manufacturer Hori also produced two joysticks for the game for the Japanese/Asian markets based on previous joystick models produced by the company.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: An iOS version of the game was released on March 10, 2010. This, and subsequent mobile versions retains many of the console version's features, but contains a simplified combo system and replaces the original game's 3D polygonal fighter models with 2D pre-rendered sprites. In addition the game also includes Bluetooth multiplayer and Game Center achievements, and was released with eight playable characters, though more have been added through free updates. This version is no longer available to download on the iOS store.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Later a version called "Street Fighter IV Volt" was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch on June 30, 2011, which enables online play. Another version called "Street Fighter IV: Champion Edition" was released on July 12, 2017, which features updated graphics and adds Poison, Ibuki and Dudley to the roster, increasing the total number of playable fighters to 25. An additional six fighters (Gouken, Rose, Elena, Juri, Guy, and Evil Ryu) were later added into the roster through free updates.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: On January 5, 2012, a version of the game called "Street Fighter IV HD" was released for LG's Android-powered Nitro HD and Optimus LTE phones. On December 30, 2012, the exclusivity was dropped and the game was re-released on Google Play, this time titled "Street Fighter IV", with a region restriction in place that makes it available only in Japan. On February 21, 2018, an Android port of "Street Fighter IV: Champion Edition" was made available worldwide on Google Play. This version contains 32 playable characters, including Dan as a platform exclusive. This version of the game has had 1 million installs.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The console versions of "Street Fighter IV" support downloadable content (DLC), made available for download via Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace and Sony's PlayStation Network.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The first expansion pack, titled "Championship Mode", was released free of charge on April 24, 2009. It provides players with a replay mode, a new points system and an enhanced tournament matching system. Championship mode is a game mode where a series of players compete against each other for ranking points. The higher the ranking, the harder the contest the player will participate in. The PlayStation 3 version of the download allows the player to vote on the parts of the recorded match they thought were "funny", "awesome", and "beautiful". The Xbox 360 version allows the player to download their recorded fights to the console.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: In addition, five alternate costume packs are available for purchase. These costume packs include the alternate costumes already seen in the arcade version, and were released on separate dates following the game's launch. A single package called the "Complete Alternate Costume Pack", containing alternate costumes for all 25 characters was made available for download on May 5, 2009, in North America, and May 8, 2009, in Europe.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Although initially Capcom stated that there were no plans to add any additional characters to the game, wanting to focus on core gameplay values, Yoshinori Ono later revealed that unfinished versions of Dee Jay and T. Hawk (the only two missing characters from "SSF2T") had been made, and given sufficient fan request for them, they could eventually get added into the game. These characters eventually found their way into "Super Street Fighter IV".


title: Street Fighter IV

text: There was an update for the iOS version that added Zangief and Cammy to the roster. A second update added C. Viper and E. Honda whilst a third added Sagat and Dee Jay—the latter having to be unlocked. DLC is also available. So far Ryu and Chun-Li each have one new costume each. Additional music, 'Street Fighter II Arranged BGM', can also be purchased to provide alternate in-game audio.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: "Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind" is an animated movie directed by Jirō Kanai that was featured in a bonus disc included in the "Collector's Edition" of "Street Fighter IV" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The plot, which takes place before the events of "Street Fighter IV", begins with Cammy's Team Delta Red task force who are investigating an energy anomaly. At the same time, Chun-Li and Guile investigate the disappearance of well-known martial artists. Meanwhile, Crimson Viper is sent to capture Ryu on orders from Seth, who knows about Ryu's Satsui no Hadou and desires it for himself.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: In addition to "The Ties That Bind" animated film included with the collectors edition of the game, UDON also published a four-issue comic mini-series based on "Street Fighter IV", with the first issue being released February 18, 2009. The comic focuses on the new characters (Abel, Viper, El Fuerte, and Rufus) and their interactions with many of the series' mainstays.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: In the PlayStation 3's online community-based service PlayStation Home, Capcom has released a "Street Fighter IV" themed game space called "S.I.N.'s Secret Base from Street Fighter IV". It has such features as Challenge Opponent which lets users do an action based on their fighting level in "Street Fighter IV", as well as a shop with themed costumes and ornaments of all the characters from "Street Fighter IV". This space was released in the Japanese version on July 30, 2009, in the Asian version on September 24, 2009, in the European version on October 9, 2009, and in the North American version on October 23, 2009. In addition to the game space, costumes, and ornaments, "Street Fighter IV" also fully supported Game Launching in PlayStation Home which let users set up multi-player games in Home, with advanced options, and launch into the game from Home. This feature was added on April 23, 2009. Some trophies in "Street Fighter IV" also rewarded Home rewards.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: On October 12, 2011, Enterrise released a pachislot version of the game in Japan. This version features all of the characters from the console release. The player plays as Ryu in the game's story, although other characters such as Ken or Chun-Li can only be played at certain points in the game. New to this version are 3D overworld segments where Ryu travels through some of the game's stages and destinations. The battle segments also return in this version, but unlike the arcade and console versions, the pachislot version's battle segments are now turn-based (similar to" Pokémon Stadium", its sequel and" Pokémon Battle Revolution"). The Reg Bonus in this game features a new door-opening bonus stage that didn't make it into the arcade and console versions of "Street Fighter IV" and its updated versions. A sequel based on "SSFIV: Arcade Edition" was released on March 22, 2016.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Both the home versions of "Street Fighter IV" have received an aggregate rating of "universal acclaim" from Metacritic based on the reviews of critics. The game received an aggregated score of 94 out of 100 from Metacritic for its PlayStation 3 version, 93 out of 100 for its Xbox 360 version, and 91 out of 100 for its Microsoft Windows version.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The arcade version of "Street Fighter IV" was voted Best Game of 2008 in Japan by the editorial staff of "Arcadia" magazine in the February 2009 issue of the publication. The game also won in the categories of "Best Graphics", "Best Production", and the "Reader's Choice Award". The character Ryu took the No. 1 spot in the magazine's "Top 20 Characters of 2008" in the same issue. The February 2009 issue of "" has rated the game 5/5, while the February 2009 issue of the "Official Xbox Magazine" has given "Street Fighter IV" a score of 9.5/10. IGN gave the game a 9.3/10, calling it an "irrevocably deep fighting game", but said that the anime cutscenes are "so poorly animated and tell you almost nothing about the story or the context for each character's participation in the tournament." GameSpot gave it the best Fighting Game of 2009 in the Editor's Choice and Reader's Choice areas. Additionally, GameTrailers named the title as the Best Fighting Game of 2009. "Street Fighter IV" also won "Fighting Game of the Year" at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Giant Bomb gave the game 5 out of 5 stars stating that ""Street Fighter IV" combines old and new in powerful ways, resulting in a game familiar enough to bring retired fans back into the fold while being different enough to appeal to the players who have stuck with the genre since day one." Eurogamer gave the game 10/10 stating that "after over a month of playing "Street Fighter IV" almost daily, what has become quite clear is that it manages to appeal to a huge range of abilities and tastes without ever compromising its fidelity".


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The iOS version has been critically acclaimed as well. Gameplayershub.com gave the game a 97% score, indicating that the game had such polish it should lead the way for future games on the platform.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: "Edge" ranked the game #14 on its list of "The 100 Best Games To Play Today", stating ""SFIV" opens up the genre to all-comers without ever compromising the system's depth or fidelity." In the 2017 version of their all-time top 100, "Ultra Street Fighter IV" was the only fighting game on the list.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The game topped the multi-format charts and set sales records in the UK, with 53% of sales being on the PS3. By March 31, 2009, "Street Fighter IV" had sold over 3 million copies worldwide. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of "Street Fighter IV" sold 3.4million copies. It was also one of the most rented games of 2009.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Released on April 27, 2010, "Super Street Fighter IV" is the first major update to "Street Fighter IV". "Super Street Fighter IV" includes several new online game modes, five new stages, a new announcer and ten additional characters, as well as tweaks and changes to the existing ones, such as new Ultra Combos and additional costumes. Among the added characters are returners T. Hawk, Dee Jay, Adon, Guy, Cody, Ibuki, Makoto, and Dudley. The newly introduced characters are Juri, a Korean taekwondo fighter who works as a spy for Seth's organization, S.I.N., and Hakan, a Turkish oil wrestler. The game also featured new intros and endings for all characters from previous installment.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The game was originally released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, later getting an arcade version with extended content. The arcade version was later backported to consoles in the form of "Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition". A handheld version of "Super Street Fighter IV", titled "", was also released for the Nintendo 3DS in March 2011, including stereoscopic 3D graphics and new features.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: An arcade version of "Super Street Fighter IV" was released by Capcom in December 2010, titled "". "Arcade Edition" added Yun, Yang, Evil Ryu and Oni to the roster, as well as changes to the existing characters. The "Arcade Edition" was later released as both a standalone game and as a downloadable update. In late 2011, a free balance update patch called "Version 2012" was released.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: A new update called "Ultra Street Fighter IV" (ウルトラストリートファイターIV) was announced for release in early 2014 at the 2013 Evolution Championship Series. Before the release of the game, Capcom set up test locations to gather fan feedback that was taken into account for the final product. The game was released in Japanese arcades in April 2014, later being distributed for home platforms as both a paid downloadable update for "Super Street Fighter IV" and "Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition", and as a standalone retail game. The update version for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was released on June 3, 2014, with the full retail versions to follow on August 5. The PC versions (both digital and retail) were released on August 8, the PC port being delayed to get the console versions ready in time for the 2014 Evolution Championship Series. The PC version of "Ultra Street Fighter IV" was the first game in the series to use Steam from day one, following the discontinuation of Games for Windows – Live.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: The update introduces six new stages, a different announcer and five new characters: Rolento, Elena, Hugo and Poison (all four of whom had been featured in "Street Fighter X Tekken"), in addition to Decapre, a member of M. Bison's Dolls, who makes her first playable appearance in the series. It has been revealed that, despite some of the new characters having been recently featured in "X Tekken", their gameplay mechanics are substantially different in order to match the game's pace. This brings the total number of fighters to 44. The game also adds a feature called "Edition Select" which, similarly to "Hyper Street Fighter II", allows players to select different versions of characters, based on their properties in past "Street Fighter IV" iterations. The update also adds a "Ultra Combo W" option, which makes both of the character's Ultra Combos available simultaneously, at the cost of them doing reduced damage.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: Alongside the usual balance changes, the update introduces some new fighting mechanics. The first is a new move called Red Focus, similar to the regular Focus move, but having more invincibility hits. Also new is a "delayed wakeup" technique, which allows a knocked-down player to slightly lengthen the time before the character gets back up. Finally, based on fan feedback, the update removes most unblockable setups.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: On September 21, 2014, it was announced that "Ultra Street Fighter IV" was getting a free DLC pack due for release in October, which, among other things, adds a new Omega variation to the characters, which gives them new moves and properties. For the PC version of the game, improvements were also expected in the online play experience. This download was finally released on December 15, 2014.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: On December 6, 2014, it was announced at the PlayStation Experience that "Ultra Street Fighter IV" would be ported to PlayStation 4 by Other Ocean Interactive; the game was released on May 26, 2015. The port became noted for containing a large number of bugs and glitches; while the PS4 port was originally scheduled to be used at EVO 2015, it was later announced that the tournament would revert to using the Xbox 360 version. On July 18, 2015, the Steam port of the game was free to play (until the next day) in celebration of EVO 2015. Around the time of EVO 2015, Capcom's Peter "Combofiend" Rosas mentioned in a blog that Capcom and Sony have come to a statement that the PS4 port is now the definitive version. He stated that all major issues with the port have been resolved as well as the input lag being on par with the Xbox 360 port. Regarding Capcom Pro Tour events, all Western Capcom Pro Tour events would be migrating over to the PS4 port starting with VSFighting 5. He mentioned that Asian events will continue to use the PS3 port until the PS4 version's release.


title: Street Fighter IV

text: In May 2018, "Ultra Street Fighter IV" was included as a pre-order digital bonus with "Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection", giving a total of 13 games in the original timeline of the series.


title: Gia Scala

text: Gia Scala (born Josephine Grace Johanna Scoglio; March 3, 1934 – April 30, 1972) was a British-American actress.


title: Gia Scala

text: Scala was born March 3, 1934, in Liverpool, England, to Sicilian father Pietro Scoglio, and Irish mother Eileen O'Sullivan. She had one sister, Tina Scala, also an actress.


title: Gia Scala

text: Scala was brought up in Messina and Mili San Marco in Sicily, the latter on the estate of her grandfather, Natale Scoglio, who was one of the largest citrus growers in Sicily. When Scala was 16, she moved to the United States to live with her aunt Agata in Whitestone, Queens, New York City. After graduating from Bayside High School, she moved to Manhattan to pursue acting. Scala supported herself by working at a travel agency.


title: Gia Scala

text: While she worked during the day for airlines and an insurance agency, Scala studied acting at night, with Stella Adler among her teachers. She met Steve McQueen, whom she dated from 1952 to 1954. Scala began to appear on game shows, including "Stop the Music", where she was spotted by Maurice Bergman, an executive of Universal International located in New York City.


title: Gia Scala

text: In 1954, accompanied by her mother, Scala flew to Los Angeles to screen test for the role of Mary Magdalene in "The Gallileans." Although she did not get the part, Peter Johnson at Universal Studios was impressed with Scala's screen test. Scala had her first official job in Hollywood when she was given a non-speaking, uncredited part in the movie "All That Heaven Allows", starring Rock Hudson. Despite her minor role in the movie, Universal Studios signed her to a contract, dyed her hair dark brown, had her four front teeth capped, and gave her the stage name Gia Scala.


title: Gia Scala

text: Songwriter Henry Mancini met Scala on the set of "Four Girls in Town". Inspired by her beauty, he wrote "Cha Cha for Gia", which appeared uncredited in the 1957 film.


title: Gia Scala

text: Scala became emotionally distraught following the death of her mother in 1957. In 1958, she became a naturalized American citizen. Scala soon after landed roles in such films as "Tip on a Dead Jockey" (1957), "The Garment Jungle" (1957), "The Tunnel of Love" (1958), and "The Guns of Navarone" (1961), starring Gregory Peck and David Niven.


title: Gia Scala

text: Scala made frequent appearances on American television during the 1960s, appearing in such series as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Convoy," "The Islanders," "The Rogues," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Twelve O'Clock High", "Tarzan", and "It Takes a Thief" (1969) in the episode "The Artist Is for Framing", her final acting role.


title: Gia Scala

text: On August 21, 1959, Scala married Don Burnett, an actor turned investment banker. After 11 years of marriage they divorced on September 1, 1970, and Burnett married actress Barbara Anderson. Scala had difficulties with alcohol and her career began to wane.


title: Gia Scala

text: In 2015, author/researcher Sterling Saint James wrote a book about Gia Scala's life titled "Gia Scala: The First Gia." Tina Scala provided intimate details about her sister's life.


title: Gia Scala

text: On the night of April 30, 1972, 38-year-old Scala was found dead in her Hollywood Hills home. Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi reported her cause of death was from accidental "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication".


title: Gia Scala

text: Scala is interred next to her mother, Eileen O'Sullivan-Scoglio, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.


title: Project HARP

text: Project HARP, short for High Altitude Research Project, was a joint venture of the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defence created with the goal of studying ballistics of re-entry vehicles and collecting upper atmospheric data for research. Unlike conventional space launching methods that rely on rockets, HARP instead used very large guns to fire projectiles into the atmosphere at extremely high speeds.


title: Project HARP

text: A HARP gun operated by the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (now called the U.S. Army Research Laboratory) at Yuma Proving Ground currently holds the world record for the highest altitude, , that a gun-fired projectile has achieved.


title: Project HARP

text: Project HARP originated as the brainchild of Gerald Bull, a renowned but controversial ballistic engineer specializing in high-velocity guns and gun propulsion systems. In the mid-1950s, Bull was working on Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) research at the Canadian Armaments and Research Development Establishment (CARDE) when he formulated the idea to launch satellites into orbit using an enormous cannon. Bull believed that a large supergun would be significantly more cost-effective at sending objects into space than a conventional rocket. Bull argued it would not need expensive rocket motors, firing a large gun wouldn't require the missile to throw away multiple rocket stages to break through the Earth's atmosphere to reach orbit. In theory, a sabot would protect the payload during firing and later fall away as the satellite inside emerges.


title: Project HARP

text: During the late 1950s, Bull conducted preliminary launch experiments at the CARDE (now known as Defence Research and Development Canada – Valcartier, or DRDC Valcartier) using guns as small as 76mm. These experiments soon caught the attention of the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army's Chief of Army Research and Development, Lieutenant general Arthur Trudeau. At the time, aircraft engineers needed more information on the atmosphere's upper regions to design better jet planes. However, launching rockets into the air to collect data was generally considered costly and inefficient. The U.S. military, in particular, was especially in need of a low-cost launch system that could cover altitudes that conventional aircraft and weather balloons couldn't reach to support the development of new supersonic aircraft and missile systems. By late 1960, CARDE and the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) conducted several feasibility studies surrounding small gun-launched probes' structural integrity. Around the same time, BRL developed a smooth-bore, 5-inch gun system at Aberdeen Proving Ground that successfully launched a probe to altitudes exceeding 220,000 feet.


title: Project HARP

text: In 1961, Bull resigned from CARDE and McGill University hired him as a professor. Working together with Donald Mordell, the university's Dean of Engineering, Bull moved forward with his space gun project and requested funding from various sources. He received a $200,000 loan from McGill University's board of governors. He was given a verbal promise for a $500,000 grant from the Canadian Department of Defence Production (CDDP), which was later reportedly denied due to bureaucratic opposition. In October 1961, Bull met with Charles Murphy, the head of the Ballistic Research Laboratory, to pitch his project for a supergun and was met with overwhelming support. The U.S. Army provided Bull with substantial financial backing and two 16-inch naval gun barrels complete with a land mount and surplus powder charges, a heavy-duty crane, and a $750,000 radar tracking system. Bull and Mordell officially announced the HARP project as a program under McGill University's Space Research Institute at a press conference in March 1962. HARP was presented as a research initiative dedicated to "developing low-orbital capacity for geodetic and atmospheric objectives". However, the project's long-term goal was to place satellites into orbit economically.


title: Project HARP

text: In 1962, Bull and Mordell established a McGill University research station on Barbados (then still a British colony and part of the West Indies Federation) as HARP's main base of operations for its 16-inch super gun. The site location was first suggested by Mordell, who believed that a launch site closer to the equator would allow the projectile to procure extra velocity from the earth's rotation to reach higher altitudes. In addition, the site's close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean made for the safe impact of re-entry projectiles. As a result of McGill University's close connections with the island's Democratic Labour Party, Bull met with the Barbados Prime Minister Errol Barrow to arrange the construction of a firing site at Foul Bay, St. Philip. HARP reportedly received enthusiastic support from the Barbados government due to expectations that the island nation would become heavily involved in space exploration research.


title: Project HARP

text: The installation of the 16-inch gun began at the newly established High Altitude Research Facility in April 1962. A gun pit was dug into the island's coral base, and a concrete emplacement was built on a plateau so that the gun barrel could stand vertically. The 16-inch naval gun barrels provided by the U.S. Army served as the barrels of the HARP gun. They had to be transported to the site on the U.S. Army landing ship, the Lieutenant Colonel John D. Page, with the U.S. Army Transportation Corps assistance, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Office of the Chief of Research and Development. Hundreds of people from Barbados were employed to transport the two 140-ton gun tubes from the coast to the designated emplacement 2 miles from the beach using a temporary purpose-built railway. By late 1962, the HARP 16-inch gun was set up, and construction on workshops, storage buildings, radar installations, and other facilities neared completion. Around this time, the U.S. Army Research Office increased its financial support of the project to $250,000 per year. The first test shot from the 16-inch gun on Barbados was fired on January 20, 1963, marking the first time that a gun of this caliber was fired at a near-vertical angle. The 315 kg test slug reached an altitude of 3000 meters in 58 seconds with a launch velocity of 1,000 m/s before coming down a kilometer off-shore.


title: Project HARP

text: The projectiles fired by the 16-inch HARP gun on Barbados belonged to a family of cylindrical, finned missiles called Martlets, named after the martin bird that appeared on the McGill University crest. Inside the gun barrel, the Martlet was surrounded by a sabot. This machined wooden casing protected the projectile as it traveled through the barrel by absorbing the combustive energy and then splitting apart in the air after the Martlet exited the barrel. The Martlets also carried payloads of metallic chaff, chemical smoke, or meteorological balloons to gather atmospheric data as well as telemetry antennas for tracking the missile's flight. The Harry Diamond Laboratories designed several telemetry systems used in the HARP program. The firing of these Martlet missiles was always accompanied by a huge explosion that shook the houses within close proximity, leading to cracks in several areas. Since the Barbados government refused to recognize householders' damage claims, HARP fell into ill favor by much of the Barbados population.


title: Project HARP

text: From late January to early February 1963, the 16-inch gun on Barbados conducted its first test series using the Martlet 1, the first of which flew for 145 seconds and reached an altitude of 26 km. It was the first Martlet flight to feature a radio transmitter beacon that tracked the vehicle's flight. The second test series was conducted in April 1963 with the new Martlet 2 missiles, which set the world's new gun-launched altitude record of 92 km. Around the same time, development for the Martlet 3A began in the spring, with test launches commencing in September. By the end of 1963, approximately 20 Martlet 2 missiles were launched and regularly reached altitudes of 80 km. From these tests, researchers obtained a significant amount of atmospheric data as well as the internal ballistics of the 16-inch gun and the flight performance of the Martlet 2, 3A, and 3B. Impressed with the HARP program's initial results, the U.S. Army agreed to provide $250,000 per year in funding.


title: Project HARP

text: In 1964, the HARP gun on Barbados continued to primarily launch Martlet 2 missiles that carried a wide variety of payloads. Part of the reason was its low cost, since the firing of the Martlet 2 cost from $2500 to $3000 and took only half an hour to load. The new results from HARP convinced the U.S. Army to increase the annual funding of the project from $250,000 to $1.5 million per year. By March 1964, Canada's Department of Defence Production (DDP) agreed to provide joint funding for the HARP program for a total of $3 million per year. However, HARP funding reportedly faced several obstacles in the form of bureaucratic sabotage due to opposition in the Canadian government. The funding promised by the DDP for July 1, 1964, to June 30, 1965, did not arrive until May 1965. During this period, McGill University covered the funds to the best of its ability, although changes had to be made to the original plan. For each subsequent funding periods, the DDP repeatedly delayed HARP funding late into the fiscal year.


title: Project HARP

text: The first attempts to improve the performance of the 16-inch gun at Barbados were made in 1964, primarily by increasing the barrel's length. In 1962, the Ballistic Research Laboratory increased the barrel length of a 5-inch gun system by welding a second section of barrel to the first barrel's muzzle, lengthening the barrel to 8.9 meters. The resulting gun system demonstrated a higher muzzle velocity at the muzzle exit. The longer barrel allowed the propellant gases to push on the projectile for a longer period of time. In September 1964, a ten-calibers extension was added to the 16-inch gun based on BRL's experiment with the 5-inch gun. However, while increased velocity and altitude was recorded for test flights, the extension failed in December after the eleventh shot was fired. In 1965, a successful extension of the 16-inch gun was established after enlarging the gun pit to accommodate the equipment's large size. The extension almost doubled the length of the gun to 120 feet and weighed nearly 200 tons, making the 16-inch Barbados gun the largest operational artillery piece in the world at the time.


title: Project HARP

text: By the end of 1965, Project HARP had fired more than one hundred missiles at heights over 80 km high into the ionosphere. At this point, the project starting planning the launch of the Martlet 4, a projectile that used rocket jets that would ignite mid-flight to send the missile into orbit. For this endeavor, BRL designed the telemetry system that utilized sun sensors to determine the projectile's altitude. This telemetry system would serve as an early precursor to the U.S. Army's Aeroballistic Dynamic Fuze (DFuze).


title: Project HARP

text: By 1966, the HARP program had established several different launch sites around the United States and Canada, including a second 16-inch HARP gun at the Highwater Range in Quebec and a third 16-inch HARP gun at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.


title: Project HARP

text: On November 18, 1966, the HARP gun operated by BRL at Yuma Proving Ground launched an 84-kg Martlet 2 missile at 2,100 m/s, sending it briefly into space and setting a world altitude record of 179 km. This feat has remained the world altitude record for any fired projectile.


title: Project HARP

text: Throughout 1966, the HARP program experienced a series of funding delays caused by immense opposition from critics in the Canadian government and growing bureaucratic pressures. Upon the end of the Canadian government's participation in June 1967, the Canadian government had contributed $4.3 million and the US Army $3.7 million.


title: Project HARP

text: On the American side, growing political and financial pressure caused by the Vietnam war and NASA's focus on large-scale traditional rockets strained funding for the project as well, exacerbating the program's problems even further. In November 1966, the Canadian government announced that it would pull all Project HARP funding after June 30, 1967. Despite Bull's attempts to resuscitate the program, the Canadian government withdrew its support in 1967. This decision promptly caused the U.S. Army to withdraw its funding as well, leading to the program's complete termination. Both the HARP guns at Barbados and at Highwater Range were shut down, though the HARP guns under the jurisdiction of the U.S. military remained operational. Project HARP's assets were transferred to Bull, who started a Space Research Corporation commercial operation to salvage his project. After HARP was cancelled, the 16-inch gun on Barbados remained on its emplacement, where it remains to this day, gradually rusting away.


title: Project HARP

text: The guns used for Project HARP consisted of smooth-bore 5 inch, 7-inch, and 16-inch guns, all of which were designed to launch sub-caliber saboted projectiles into the upper atmosphere. In addition to the High Altitude Research Laboratory at Barbados, a 16-inch HARP gun was constructed at the Highwater Range in Quebec and at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Smooth-bore 5-inch and 7-inch guns were set up at several different test sites, including Fort Greely, Alaska, Wallops Island, Virginia, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The data collected from the projectiles fired from these gun systems were measured by radar chaff, aluminized balloons, trimethylaluminum trails, and sensors ranging from sun sensors to magnetometers.


title: Project HARP

text: The 5-inch HARP guns were based on a modified 120 mm T123 service gun and used by the Ballistic Research Laboratory before the HARP program in order to fulfill the needs of the U.S. military's Meteorological Rocket Network, a program dedicated to collecting atmospheric wind and temperature data. They were designed to carry a 0.9 kg payload to an altitude of 65 km, which consisted of radar reflective chaff to collect wind data and small radiosondes that returned radio telemetry of information like temperature and humidity as they drifted back down under large parachutes. This initial design for the 5-inch HARP gun reached an altitude of 130,000 ft when tested in 1961. The 5-inch L70 smoothbore guns was the first vertical firing gun system developed under Project HARP. In 1962, a 10-ft extension was implemented for the 5-inch HARP gun by welding a second barrel section to the first, allowing it to launch projectiles at muzzle velocities of 1554 m/s (5,100 ft/sec) to altitudes of 73,100 m (240,000 ft). Throughout HARP, further modifications were made to the 5-inch gun, such as adding three sets of stiffening wires to maintain barrel alignment. Due to their small size, they were easily transported from their initial site at Aberdeen Proving Ground to different launch sites across North America and the Caribbean. One of the 5-inch HARP guns was acquired by the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory (which consolidated into the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in 1992) to measure the stratosphere's winds. The 5-inch gun was deemed successful as a low-cost launch system, costing only around $300 to $500 per launch. By May 1966, a total of the HARP program's 5-inch guns launched 162 flights at Wallops Island, 47 flights at White Sands Missile Range, 30 flights at Barbados, and 24 flights at Fort Greeley.


title: Project HARP

text: The 7-inch HARP guns functioned as scaled-up versions of the 5-inch HARP guns that could carry three times the payload with an altitude capacity of 350,000 ft. The 7-inch gun system was constructed from a 175 mm M113 gun whose barrel was smooth-bored and extended by 26 ft. In general, its projectiles were 1.6 m long and weighed 27 kg. However, it was also capable of firing 5 kg slugs at a muzzle velocity of 2,880 m/s. The 7-inch HARP gun also incorporated the use of gun-boosted rockets to increase payload and altitude capacity. Unlike the 5-inch HARP guns, all vertical high-performance flights for the 7-inch HARP guns were conducted at NASA's Wallops Island facility, where 34 vehicles were launched by May 1966.


title: Project HARP

text: The 16-inch HARP gun in Barbados held the largest gun record globally, with a barrel length of 119 ft (36 m) and weighing 200 tons. It consisted of two 16-inch U.S. Navy gun barrels welded together and smooth-bored to 16.4-inch diameter. It was capable of firing at a muzzle velocity of 2,164 m/s (7,100 ft/s) with a maximum acceleration at launch of 15,000 g. It launched a 181-kg shot with an 84-kg payload that could reach an altitude of 181 km (595,000 ft). For propellants, the 16-inch gun used either the solvent type WM/M.225 or the solventless M8M.225, both manufactured by Canadian Arsenals Limited. During testing, a camera station set up on the islands of Barbados, Saint Vincent, and Grenada were used to photograph the trimethylaluminium trails released from the projectile during launch, which provided data on upper atmosphere wind velocities for different altitudes.


title: Project HARP

text: The 16-inch HARP gun at Highwater Range was established in 1964 near McGill University to conduct flight tests and other general research on the HARP guns without traveling all the way to the launch site at Barbados. Although the Highwater 16-inch gun was only capable of horizontal test flights and could not be elevated higher than 10 degrees, it was frequently used to test new and experimental launch vehicles and gun systems under each gun loads and in free flight. The Highwater 16-inch gun was primarily used for missile-sabot structural integrity tests, charge development, rocket grain tests, and for testing vehicle performance inside the gun and during the critical muzzle exit. In 1965, the barrel of the Highwater 16-inch gun was extended to a length of 176 ft, holding the record for the longest big-bore artillery piece in the world.


title: Project HARP

text: The 16-inch HARP gun at Yuma Proving Ground was constructed in 1966 in order to establish a functional 16-inch gun on American soil and holds the record for achieving the highest projectile launched. It was almost identical to the 16-inch gun on Barbados, being 119 ft long, but was limited by a 35-mile range restriction. However, unlike the Barbados gun, its projectiles could be recovered since they were not lost in the ocean upon their journey back down. The Yuma 16-inch gun was primarily used for flight tests, such as those testing altitude control and telemetry components. In 1966, the 16-inch Yuma gun underwent three firing series using wooden slugs, Martlet 2C's, and a Low Altitude High-Velocity cone.


title: Project HARP

text: Several models of test projectiles were fired or designed during Project HARP: These projectiles were fired on the island of Barbados and some were fired by the US Army's Ballistic Research Lab. The tube's slender design, which contained the rocket's payload, was very narrow and long, limiting what objects could be inserted into the tube. This limitation on size was extremely inconvenient when considering the future proposed payloads of Martlet rockets, including satellites and space probes. The cannon-like design also eliminated the capacity for crewed space travel as well as the launching of satellites carrying extremely sensitive scientific instruments and payloads due to the extreme acceleration placed on the projectile during firing.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 1 was the first test projectile of the HARP program. Designed in 1962, it was a 16-inch (406 mm) gun bore that weighed 450 lb (200 kg), was 6.6 inches (170 mm) in diameter and 70 inches (1,800 mm) long. Only four were manufactured, two of which were fired during the January and June 1963 test series.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 2A, 2B, and 2C represented the earliest of the Martlet 2 16-inch (406 mm) test projectiles. Martlet 2A was designed simultaneously with the Martlet 1 with a range of interest being 70 to 200 kilometers. Most carried multi-type research payloads studying the upper atmosphere and near-space conditions. Due to their low cost per missile launch, they were used to test out single payloads. Despite similarities in missile airframe, the Martlet 2A, 2B, and 2C featured differences in their structural materials and mechanical details. For the Martlet 2A, the liquid payload was loaded into an aluminum, tapered liner inside the missile body. But by the development of the Martlet 2C series, the aluminum insert was abandoned altogether to allow the liquid payload to be housed in contact with the steel body, increasing the quantity of the liquid payload that could be carried.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 2G was an advanced test projectile with nearly all of its total 350 lb (160 kg) weight in the projectile. It was tested successfully with the Highwater gun and the Barbados gun but never proceeded beyond the engineering flight testing stage. The Martlet 2G-1 was a proposed space launch vehicle variant of Martlet 2G, which had a solid rocket motor in the projectile. The follow-on 2G-2 proposal was to have had a second rocket motor to place the second stage in orbit, though with little or no payload. After development, it underwent horizontal development firings from the Highwater gun in 1966 but failed to be properly tested in time.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 3 series consisted of advanced rocket-propelled projectiles. They were built and tested for the HARP project but were ultimately not successful due to restrictions in funding and a severe lack of technical information regarding large rocket grains' behaviour under high acceleration loading. When testing these projectiles, the danger of in-bore detonation was considered a severe potential problem.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 3A was an diameter, gun-fired rocket projectile that theoretically could reach 500 km altitude. As HARP's first attempt at a low-cost sabotted rocket system, the projectile was built with fiberglass or aluminum bodies. A standard 6-inch rocket was bonded to an aluminum case. The rocket nozzle was supported by a pusher plate, which would impart the missile's acceleration through the aluminum wall casing. Fiberglass limited acceleration to 3600 g (corresponding to a velocity of at rocket ignition). The Martlet 3A's original objective was to carry a 40-lbs payload to an altitude of 500 km, which theoretically was feasible if the system could be launched at full gun pressures. The rocket motors' solid propellant deformed during firing and the design was never successful, despite several test firings.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 3B was similar to the Martlet 3A but using steel casings and attempting to solve some of the 3A model's other problems. The casings survived , but the propellant failed at . This was solved for later rockets by filling the propellant cavity with liquid, but only after developing the 3B model had ended.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 3D model was planned as a suborbital test rocket, using the first stage of the Martlet 4 solid rocket version. As the Martlet 4 was never built, no Martlet 3Ds were produced either.


title: Project HARP

text: The Martlet 3E was a solid suborbital rocket designed to be fired from a smaller, 7-inch (180 mm) cannon used in the HARP project. Its basic concept revolved around packaging the rocket grain in a case with elastic properties to transmit the lateral strain to the gun tube. The 3E model utilized a new rocket grain construction technique that consisted of laminating sheet double-base propellant grain under hydraulic pressure.


title: Project HARP

text: By July 1964, the Marlet 4 program pursued developing an orbit capable multi-stage rocket system to be launched from the 16" Barbados gun. Two versions of full-scale orbital launch vehicle projectiles were proposed in the Martlet 4 series. The first was to have used three solid rocket motor stages and was planned to orbit approximately 50 pounds of payload. The second used liquid rocket motors and was planned to have orbited 200 pounds of payload. Both were about long and in diameter, weighing about at launch. However, no Martlet 4 vehicles were built; the project was halted before the design was completed.


title: Project HARP

text: A guidance and control system were developed for the orbital mission by Aviation Electric Limited of Montreal under the direction of McGill-BRL-Harry Diamond Laboratory group. Infrared horizon sensors and sun sensors were included in calculating vehicle attitude. Information for on-board sensors was to be processed by the logic module, which provided commands to a cold gas thruster system which in turn adjusted the vehicle's orientation. The components of the guidance and control assembly were integrated into a 6.25-inch diameter test projectile. Sun sensors, horizon sensors, telemetry packs, receiving/transmitting antenna, hydraulic systems, logic modules, and gas thruster attitude control systems were all test-fired to approximately 10,000 g's.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: The Legend of Billie Jean is a 1985 American drama film, directed by Matthew Robbins. It stars Helen Slater, Keith Gordon, Christian Slater, Dean Stockwell, Richard Bradford and Peter Coyote.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Billie Jean Davy, a teenager from Corpus Christi, Texas, is riding with her younger brother, Binx, on his Honda Elite Scooter to a local lake to go swimming. Stopping for a milkshake, they have to deal with Hubie Pyatt, a rowdy local teen, and his friends hitting on Billie Jean, but Binx humiliates Hubie by throwing a milkshake in his face. Later on at the lake, as Billie Jean tells Binx about the weather in Vermont, a place he has always wanted to visit, Hubie steals Binx's scooter.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: As Binx goes to retrieve his scooter later that night, Billie Jean goes to the authorities with her friends Putter and Ophelia. They report the theft to Detective Ringwald, who is sympathetic but urges them to wait and see how things play out. When Billie Jean returns home, she finds Binx beaten, and his scooter severely damaged. The next day, Billie Jean, Binx, and Ophelia go to Mr. Pyatt's shop to get the amount of $608 to repair the scooter. While initially appearing helpful and understanding, Pyatt propositions Billie Jean and then attempts to rape her.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Meanwhile, Binx has found a gun in the shop's cash register, and when Billie Jean flees from the back of the store, clearly distressed, he turns it on Mr. Pyatt, who tells him the gun is unloaded, but Binx fires it, wounding Pyatt in the shoulder. They race away from the shop and become fugitives.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: By the time Ringwald realizes that he made a mistake not listening to Billie Jean, the situation is spinning out of control. Billie Jean wants only the cash to fix her brother's scooter and an apology from Pyatt. With help from Lloyd Muldaur, the teenage son of the district attorney, who voluntarily becomes her "hostage", Billie Jean makes a video of her demands, featuring herself with her long, blonde hair chopped into a crew cut, inspired after watching a movie about Joan of Arc on TV (the 1957 film "Saint Joan") and a revolutionary-style wardrobe including combat boots, fatigue pants, and a wetsuit top with the sleeves torn off. As media coverage increases, Billie Jean becomes a teen icon, and young fans follow her every movement. Facing uncertain dangers, both physical and legal, Billie Jean is forced to turn in her friends Putter and Ophelia to the cops for their safety. When Ringwald arrives at the abandoned miniature golf course where the group has taken refuge and demands to know where Billie Jean is, Ophelia defiantly replies, "Everywhere!"


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Pyatt issues a bounty for her apprehension, but Ringwald counters with a more peaceful offer and a promise to repair Binx's scooter. Billie Jean realizes the best plan is to turn herself in. During a rally being held, where a brand new scooter is offered for Billie Jean to turn in herself and Lloyd, Binx puts on a dress and pretends to be Billie Jean, walking behind Lloyd. However, Hubie starts yelling that it isn't Billie Jean, and the police shoot Binx.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Billie Jean runs to catch the ambulance taking Binx away but doesn't make it. She suddenly sees a booth with Billie Jean merchandise, run by Mr. Pyatt. Billie Jean confronts Pyatt and gets him to admit the actions that led to him being shot. He gives Billie Jean the money, but she refuses to take it all and rams her knee into his crotch, sending him sprawling to the ground and knocking over a nearby torch. She then tells him to keep his money and to go buy somebody else, throwing the money back in his face. Pyatt gets to his feet as the overturned torch begins to set his merchandise stands on fire. The onlookers (including Hubie), seeing how Billie Jean was exploited and their indirect involvement in it, throw all the Billie Jean merchandise into the rapidly growing fire and leave in disgust. As the merchandise stands burn down, Billie Jean departs as well, but not before thanking Ringwald and giving Lloyd a kiss. Later, Billie Jean and Binx (in an arm sling) are hitchhiking in Vermont. Binx, after complaining about the cold, admires a red snowmobile.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Craig Safan produced the original score for the film writing a couple of synthpop-styled instrumental tracks. Furthermore, some rock songs were added to the soundtrack which had never been officially released. The movie's theme song "Invincible" by Pat Benatar peaked at number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in September 1985, while the reissue of Billy Idol's single "Rebel Yell" climbed up to number six on the UK Singles Chart in October 1985.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Jay Boyar of the "Orlando Sentinel" stated that the film "has quite a lot going for it" and "doesn't get many points for finesse, but it has energy, good performances and more wit than you'd expect." He added, "One reason that sections of the movie are effective is that Helen Slater has enough style and presence to be believable as a young woman who is taken for a modern Joan of Arc. As Billie Jean, she's got the clear eyes of a dreamer and the toughness of a winner." Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" said that the film is "competently made, sometimes attractively acted (particularly by Peter Coyote)... and bankrupt beyond belief. It's hard to imagine that even the film makers, let alone audiences, can believe in a sweet, selfless heroine who just can't help becoming a superstar." The film holds a 46% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 13 reviews.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: In 2009, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released in Europe a Spanish-titled DVD "La Leyenda de Billie Jean", with 4:3 open matte image, but without any bonus material. A remastered NTSC DVD including commentary by Helen Slater and Yeardley Smith was released on November 1, 2011, via their manufactured on demand service.


title: The Legend of Billie Jean

text: Mill Creek Entertainment released a retail version of the DVD, along with a Blu-ray edition on July 22, 2014.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: Ramesh Sippy (born 23 January 1947) is an Indian film director and producer in Hindi cinema. He is particularly known for directing "Sholay" (1975), which is regarded as one of the most influential Indian film ever made. The Government of India honoured him with Padma Shri in 2013.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: Sippy's father was producer G. P. Sippy. Ramesh Sippy has been married twice; his current wife is actress Kiran Juneja. With his first wife, Geeta, he has 3 children. His son Rohan Sippy is a film director. His daughter Sheena was once married to Shashi Kapoor's son, Kunal Kapoor until they divorced in 2004.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: Ramesh Sippy visited the sets of the film "Sazaa", his father's first film, when he was 6 years old. His first film job came at age nine, when he played Achala Sachdev's son in the 1953 film "Shahenshah". He worked in both the production and direction departments in films like "Johar-Mehmood in Goa" and "Mere Sanam", which his father was producing. He worked for 7 years as an assistant before becoming the director of "Andaz", in 1971 which starred Shammi Kapoor, Hema Malini and Rajesh Khanna and was a box office success. His second film "Seeta Aur Geeta" (1972), featuring Hema Malini playing dual roles was highly successful and propelled Malini to superstardom


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: In 1975, he directed "Sholay" featuring an ensemble cast including Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar and Amjad Khan in his most iconic role as the dacoit Gabbar Singh. After a lukewarm start the box office, the film went on to become the biggest blockbuster in Bollywood film history. "Sholay" still remains one of the most iconic films in Hindi film history and a favourite for Hindi film audiences globally.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: None of his later films were able to match the success of "Sholay". While "Sholay" was a tribute to the Westerns, his next film "Shaan" in 1980 was inspired by the James Bond films but was only a moderate success. In 1982, he brought together veteran actor Dilip Kumar and the reigning superstar of that era Amitabh Bachchan in "Shakti". While the film was only moderately successful, it won the Filmfare Best Movie Award. In 1985, he directed Saagar, which starred Rishi Kapoor, Kamal Haasan and marked Dimple Kapadia's comeback to films after 12 years since her debut film "Bobby".


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: He directed a successful television serial titled "Buniyaad" which focused on the Partition of India and aired on Indian television channel Doordarshan from 1986 to 1987. The last three films he directed, "Bhrashtachar" (1989), "Akayla" (1991), and "Zamana Deewana" (1995) were box office flops and he did not direct any film for 20 years and focused on producing.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: His string of hits with Amitabh Bachchan made him one of the golden directors who had a special working relationship with the actor (Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee being the other four). In 2005 he received the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years award for his legendary film, "Sholay".


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: He has produced films directed by his son Rohan Sippy, such as "Kuch Naa Kaho" (2003), "Bluffmaster" (2005) and "Dum Maro Dum" (2011). In 2006 he produced "Taxi No. 9211" which was directed by Milan Luthria. In 2008 he produced Kunaal Roy Kapur's "The President is Coming" as well as the Akshay Kumar-Deepika Padukone film, "Chandni Chowk to China", directed by Nikhil Advani.


title: Ramesh Sippy

text: In 2015, he returned to directing after 20 years with his next film, "Shimla Mirchi", a comedy film starring Rajkummar Rao, Rakul Preet Singh and Hema Malini. The film had difficulty attracting buyers and remained unreleased for five years. In January 2020, it was finally released on Netflix.