IN: For the theatre adaptation, see Shakespeare in Love (play). Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 American romantic period comedy-drama film directed by John Madden, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. The film depicts an imaginary love affair involving Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) and playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) while he was writing Romeo and Juliet. Several characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays.

After the film's release, certain publications, including Private Eye, noted strong similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, which also features Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a subsequent edition of No Bed for Bacon (which traded on the association by declaring itself "A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love") Ned Sherrin, Private Eye insider and former writing partner of Brahms', confirmed that he had lent a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team, but that the basic plot of the film had been independently developed by Marc Norman, who was unaware of the earlier work. The film's plot can claim a tradition in fiction reaching back to Alexandre Duval's "Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude" (1804), in which Shakespeare falls in love with an actress who is playing Richard III. The writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued in 1999 by bestselling author Faye Kellerman. She claimed that the plotline was stolen from her 1989 novel The Quality of Mercy, in which Shakespeare romances a Jewish woman who dresses as a man, and attempts to solve a murder. Miramax Films spokesman Andrew Stengel derided the claim, filed in the US District Court six days before the 1999 Academy Awards, as "absurd", and argued that the timing "suggests a publicity stunt". An out-of-court settlement was reached but the sum agreed between the parties indicates that the claim was "unwarranted".

was it successful?

OUT: An out-of-court settlement was reached but the sum agreed between the parties indicates that the claim was "unwarranted".

IN: Leonard Guy Ford Jr. (February 18, 1926 - March 14, 1972) was an American football player from 1944 to 1958. He played college football for the University of Michigan and professional football for the Los Angeles Dons, Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1976 and the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1996. Ford was an all-city athlete at his high school in Washington, D.C., and attended Morgan State University after graduating in 1944.

Despite his accomplishments in college, Ford was passed over in all 32 rounds of the 1948 NFL Draft during a time when most professional teams did not employ African-Americans. (The following year, George Taliaferro became the first African-American to be selected in an NFL draft.) He was selected, however, by the Los Angeles Dons of the rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in the third round of its 1948 draft. He signed with the Dons in April 1948. Playing as a right end opposite Joe Aguirre, Ford had 31 catches for 598 yards and seven touchdowns in 1948. As was the case at Michigan, Ford also worked on defense and was one of the AAFC's most successful pass-rushers. The Dons, meanwhile, finished the regular season with a 7-7 record, good for third place in the AAFC West. Ford played basketball in the off-season for the New York Renaissance, an all-black professional team in the National Basketball League. He did not play basketball at Michigan, the Big Ten Conference having maintained racial segregation of basketball until 1950. Ford had 36 catches for 577 yards and one touchdown in 1949, while the Dons fell to 4-8. The AAFC struggled financially during Ford's time with the Dons. Its teams competed with NFL franchises for fans' attention and player talent - the Dons shared a city with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams. By late 1949, team owners came to an agreement under which the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts joined the NFL and the rest of the league's teams, including the Dons, folded.

Was he a star player?

OUT:

IN: Anton Friedrich Wilhelm (von) Webern (German: ['anton 've:ban] ( listen); 3 December 1883 - 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer and conductor. Along with his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was in the core of those in the circle of the Second Viennese School, including Ernst Krenek and Theodor W. Adorno. As an exponent of atonality and twelve-tone technique, Webern exerted influence on contemporaries Luigi Dallapiccola, Krenek, and even Schoenberg himself.

Webern insisted on lyricism, nuance, rubato, sensitivity, and both emotional and intellectual understanding in performance of music; this is evidenced by anecdotes, correspondence, extant recordings of Schubert's Deutsche Tanze (arr. Webern) and Berg's Violin Concerto under his direction, many such detailed markings in his scores, and finally by his compositional process as both publicly stated and later revealed in the musical and extramusical metaphors and associations everywhere throughout his sketches. As both a composer and conductor he was one of many (e.g., Wilhelm Furtwangler, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Hermann Scherchen) in a contemporaneous tradition of conscientiously and non-literally handling notated musical figures, phrases, and even entire scores so as to maximize expressivity in performance and to cultivate audience engagement and understanding. This aspect of Webern's work had been typically missed in his immediate post-war reception, however, even as it may radically affect the music's reception. For example, Boulez's "complete" recording of Webern's music yielded more to this aesthetic the second time after largely missing it the first; but Eliahu Inbal's rendition of Webern's symphony with the hr-Sinfonieorchester is still far more within the spirit of the late Romantic performance tradition (which Webern seemingly intended for his music), nearly slowing to half-tempo for the whole of first movement and taking care to delineate and shape each melodic strand and expressive gesture throughout the entirety of the work. Gunter Wand's 1966 recording of the Cantata No. 1 (1938-40), op. 29, with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks et al., may likewise be contrasted with both of Boulez's renditions.

What else is he known for?

OUT:
Webern's symphony with the hr-Sinfonieorchester is still far more within the spirit of the late Romantic performance tradition