IN: Ernest Edward "Ernie" Kovacs (January 23, 1919 - January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer. Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Many individuals and shows, such as Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Dave Garroway, Uncle Floyd, and many others have credited Kovacs as an influence. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.

A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his simple refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams. His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take A Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less memorable movie roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton, pilot episode titled "A Pony For Chris"). Kovacs's role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs's estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media. Some of the issues regarding Kovacs's tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs." Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs's death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. Saying "I can take care of my own children", and being determined to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents, Adams managed to pay all of Kovacs' debts.
QUESTION: Was he convicted of tax evasion?
IN: Daniel Barenboim (born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor who is a citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine, and Spain. He is the general music director of the Berlin State Opera, and the Staatskapelle Berlin; he previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Barenboim has received many awards and prizes, including an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, France's Legion d'honneur both as a Commander and Grand Officier, and the German Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz and Willy Brandt Award.

Daniel Barenboim was born in 1942 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Argentinian-Jewish parents Aida (nee Schuster) and Enrique Barenboim. He started piano lessons at the age of five with his mother, continuing to study with his father, who remained his only teacher. On 19 August 1950, at the age of seven, he gave his first formal concert in his hometown, Buenos Aires. In 1952, Barenboim's family moved to Israel. Two years later, in the summer of 1954, his parents took him to Salzburg to take part in Igor Markevitch's conducting classes. During that summer he also met and played for Wilhelm Furtwangler, who has remained a central musical influence and ideal for Barenboim. Furtwangler called the young Barenboim a "phenomenon" and invited him to perform the Beethoven First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, but Barenboim's father considered it too soon after the Second World War for a child of Jewish parents to be performing in Berlin. In 1955 Barenboim studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. On 15 June 1967, Barenboim and British cellist Jacqueline du Pre were married in Jerusalem at a Western Wall ceremony, Du Pre having converted to Judaism. Acting as one of the witnesses was the conductor Zubin Mehta, a long-time friend of Barenboim. Since "I was not Jewish I had to temporarily be renamed Moshe Cohen, which made me a 'kosher witness'," Mehta recalled. Du Pre retired from music in 1973, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). The marriage lasted until du Pre's death in 1987. In the early 1980s, Barenboim began an affair with the Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova, with whom he had two sons born in Paris before du Pre's death: David Arthur, born 1983, and Michael, born 1985. Barenboim worked to keep his relationship with Bashkirova hidden from du Pre, and believed he had succeeded. He and Bashkirova married in 1988. Both sons are part of the music world: David is a manager-writer for the German hip-hop band Level 8, and Michael Barenboim is a classical violinist.
QUESTION:
What did Wilhelm Furtwangler teach him?