text:
Peter Weir

Peter Lindsay Weir (born 21 August 1944) is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010). He has received six Academy Award nominations, ultimately being awarded the Academy Honorary Award in 2022 for his lifetime achievement career.

Early in his career as a director, Weir was a leading figure in the Australian New Wave cinema movement (1970–1990). Weir made his feature film debut with Homesdale and continued with the mystery drama Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), the supernatural thriller The Last Wave (1977) and the historical drama Gallipoli (1981). Weir gained tremendous success with the multinational production The Year of Living Dangerously (1982).

After the success of The Year of Living Dangerously, Weir directed a diverse group of American and international films covering most genres–many of them major box office hits–including Academy Award-nominated films such as the thriller Witness (1985), the drama Dead Poets Society (1989), the romantic comedy Green Card (1990), the social science fiction comedy-drama The Truman Show (1998) and the epic historical drama Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). His final feature before his retirement was the well-received The Way Back (2010).

Early life and education
Peter Lindsay Weir was born in Sydney, in 1944, the son of Peggy (née Barnsley Sutton) and Lindsay Weir, a real estate agent. Weir attended The Scots College and Vaucluse Boys High School before studying arts and law at the University of Sydney. His interest in film was sparked by his meeting with fellow students, including Phillip Noyce and the future members of the Sydney filmmaking collective Ubu Films.

1960s
After leaving university in the mid-1960s, he joined Sydney television station ATN-7, where he worked as a production assistant on the groundbreaking satirical comedy program The Mavis Bramston Show. During this period, using station facilities, Weir made his first two experimental short films, Count Vim's Last Exercise and The Life and Flight of Reverend Buck Shotte.

In 1969, the founders of Producers Authors Composers and Talent (now PACT Centre for Emerging Artists) attended a Sydney University Architecture Revue, with sets by Geoffrey Atherden and Grahame Bond. They invited Bond, Atherden, Weir, and Weir's friend, composer Peter Best, a chance to do a show at the National Art School. Sir Robert Helpmann saw the show and took it to the Adelaide Festival. Soon afterward Weir and Best were commissioned to write a Christmas special TV show for ABC Television titled Man on a Green Bike.

1970s
Weir took a position with the Commonwealth Film Unit (later renamed Film Australia), for which he made several documentaries, including a short documentary about an underprivileged outer Sydney suburb, Whatever Happened to Green Valley, in which residents were invited to make their own film segments. Another notable film in this period was the short rock music performance film Three Directions in Australian Pop Music (1972), which featured in-concert colour footage of three of the most significant Melbourne rock acts of the period, Spectrum, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, and Wendy Saddington. He also directed one section of the three-part, three-director feature film 3 to Go (1970), which won an AFI award.

After leaving the CFU, Weir made his first major independent film, the short feature Homesdale (1971), an offbeat black comedy. It co-starred rising young actress Kate Fitzpatrick and musician and comedian Grahame Bond, who came to fame in 1972 as the star of The Aunty Jack Show; Weir also played a small role, but this was to be his last significant screen appearance.

Weir's first full-length feature film was the underground cult classic, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), a low-budget black comedy about the inhabitants of a small country town who deliberately cause fatal car crashes and live off the proceeds. It was a minor success in cinemas but proved very popular on the then-thriving drive-in circuit. The plot had been inspired by a press report Weir had read about two young English women who had vanished while on a driving holiday in France. With this film, along with the earlier Homesdale, Weir set the basic thematic pattern which has persisted throughout his career: nearly all his feature films deal with people who face some form of crisis after finding themselves isolated from society in some way – either physically (Witness, The Mosquito Coast, The Truman Show, Master and Commander), socially/culturally (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Dead Poets Society, Green Card), or psychologically (Fearless).

Weir's major breakthrough in Australia and internationally was the lush, atmospheric period mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), made with substantial backing from the state-funded South Australian Film Corporation and filmed on location in South Australia and rural Victoria. Based on the novel by Joan Lindsay and set at the turn of the 20th century, the film relates the purportedly "true" story of a group of students from an exclusive girls' school who mysteriously vanish from a school picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. Widely credited as a key work in the "Australian film renaissance" of the mid-1970s, Picnic was the first Australian film of its era to gain both critical praise and be given substantial international theatrical releases. It also helped launch the career of internationally renowned Australian cinematographer Russell Boyd. It was widely acclaimed by critics, many of whom praised it as a welcome antidote to the so-called "ocker film" genre, typified by The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Alvin Purple.

Weir's next film, The Last Wave (1977), was a supernatural thriller about a man who begins to experience terrifying visions of an impending natural disaster. It starred American actor Richard Chamberlain, who was well known to Australian and world audiences as the eponymous physician in the popular Dr. Kildare TV series. He later starred in the major series The Thorn Birds, set in Australia. The Last Wave was a pensive, ambivalent work that expanded on themes from Picnic, exploring the interactions between the native Aboriginal and European cultures. It co-starred the Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, whose performance won the Golden Ibex (Oscar equivalent) at the Tehran International Festival in 1977, but it was only a moderate commercial success at the time.

Between The Last Wave and his next feature, Weir wrote and directed the offbeat low-budget telemovie The Plumber (1979). It starred Australian actors Judy Morris and Ivar Kants and was filmed in three weeks. Inspired by an account told to him by friends, it is a black comedy about a woman whose life is disrupted by a subtly menacing plumber.

1980s
Weir scored a major Australian hit and further international praise with his next film, the historical adventure-drama Gallipoli (1981). Scripted by the Australian playwright David Williamson, it is regarded as classic Australian cinema. Gallipoli was instrumental in making Mel Gibson (Mad Max) into a major star, although his co-star Mark Lee, who also received high praise for his role, has made relatively few screen appearances since.

The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multi-national production The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), again starring Gibson, playing opposite top Hollywood female lead Sigourney Weaver in a story about journalistic loyalty, idealism, love and ambition in the turmoil of Sukarno's Indonesia of 1965. It was an adaptation of the novel by Christopher Koch, which was based in part on the experiences of Koch's journalist brother Philip, the ABC's Jakarta correspondent and one of the few western journalists in the city during the 1965 attempted coup. The film also won Linda Hunt (who played a man in the film) an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film was again produced by Hal and Jim McElroy, who had also produced Weir's first three films, The Cars That Ate Paris, Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave.

Weir's first American film was the successful thriller Witness (1985), the first of two films he made with Harrison Ford, about a boy who sees the murder of an undercover police officer by corrupt coworkers and has to be hidden in his Amish community to protect him. Weir directed Ford in his only performance to receive an Academy Award nomination, while child star Lukas Haas also received wide praise for his debut film performance. Witness also earned Weir his first Academy Award nomination as Best Director, and was his first of several films to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, it later won 2 for Best Film Editing & Best Original Screenplay.

It was followed by the darker, less commercial The Mosquito Coast (1986), Paul Schrader's adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel. Ford played a man obsessively pursuing his dream to start a new life in the Central American jungle with his family. These dramatic parts provided Harrison Ford with important opportunities to break the typecasting of his career-making roles in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones series. Both films showed off his ability to play more subtle and substantial characters and he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his work in Witness, the only Academy Awards recognition in his career. The Mosquito Coast is also notable for a performance by the young River Phoenix.

Weir's next film, Dead Poets Society, was a major international success, with Weir again receiving credit for expanding the acting range of its Hollywood star. Robin Williams was mainly known for his anarchic stand-up comedy and his popular TV role as the wisecracking alien in Mork & Mindy; in this film he played an inspirational teacher in a dramatic story about conformity and rebellion at an exclusive New England prep school in the 1950s. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Weir. It won Best Original Screenplay and launched the acting careers of young actors Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard. It became a major box-office hit and is one of Weir's best-known films to mainstream audiences.

1990s
Weir's first romantic comedy Green Card (1990) was another casting risk. Weir chose French screen icon Gérard Depardieu in the lead—Depardieu's first English-language role—and paired him with American actress Andie MacDowell. Green Card was a box-office hit but was regarded as less of a critical success, although it helped Depardieu's path to international fame. Weir received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.

Fearless (1993) returned to darker themes and starred Jeff Bridges as a man who believes he has become invincible after surviving a catastrophic air crash. Though well reviewed, particularly the performances of Bridges and Rosie Perez—who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress—the film was less commercially successful than Weir's two preceding films. It was entered into the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.

After five years, Weir returned to direct his biggest success to date, The Truman Show (1998), a fantasy-satire of the media's control of life starring Jim Carrey. The Truman Show was both a box office and a critical success, receiving positive reviews and numerous awards, including three Academy Award nominations: Andrew Niccol for Best Original Screenplay, Ed Harris for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Weir himself for Best Director. In addition to the Academy Award nominations, the film won the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

2000s
In 2003, Weir returned to period dramas with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe. A screen adaptation from various episodes in Patrick O'Brian's blockbuster adventure series set during the Napoleonic Wars, the film was well received by critics, but only mildly successful with mainstream audiences. Despite another nomination for Best Picture and winning two Oscars—for frequent collaborator Russell Boyd's cinematography and for sound effects editing—the film's box office success was moderate ($93 million at the North American box office). The film grossed slightly better overseas, gleaning an additional $114 million.

Weir had developed several other projects in the 2000s that never came to fruition, including an adaptation of The War Magician with actor Tom Cruise, an adaptation of Robert Kurson's novel Shadow Divers, early development of a proposed Shantaram film starring Johnny Depp, and an adaptation of William Gibson's sci-fi novel Pattern Recognition.

2010s
In 2010, Weir resurfaced with the historical epic The Way Back, about escapees from a Soviet gulag. The film, while generally well-received critically, was not a financial success.

In 2012, it was reported that Weir would direct his own adapted script of Jennifer Egan's gothic thriller The Keep the following year and shoot in Europe. Weir described the project as, "Basically, ... a studio-shoot movie." As the years passed, however, without an official announcement, he started to be described as "retired".

2020s
Speaking in July 2022, speculating about Weir's unannounced retirement, Ethan Hawke said, "I think [Weir] lost interest in movies. He really enjoyed that work when he didn't have actors giving him a hard time. Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp broke him."

In November 2022, Weir received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

On the occasion of this award, he also gave his first interview in many years, to The Sydney Morning Herald. In the interview, he said Hawke's quote "must have been taken out of context. I find it puzzling." However, Weir confirmed his retirement, saying that "for film directors, like volcanoes, there are three major stages: active, dormant and extinct. I think I've reached the latter! Another generation is out there calling "action" and "cut" and good luck to them." He stated that he has enjoyed visiting ancient ruins and battlefields and diving on the WWII shipwrecks of the Truk Lagoon during his retirement.

Personal life
On 14 June 1982, Weir was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his service to the film industry.

title: Peter Weir


text:
Glenn Close

Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. In a career spanning over five decades of screen and stage, she has received numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for eight Academy Awards and three Grammy Awards. She is one of the few performers to be nominated for the Triple Crown of Acting and EGOT. In 2009, she received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.

After her professional debut in the 1974 play Love for Love, she received her first Tony Award nomination for her role in Barnum (1980), and won three for her roles in the plays The Real Thing (1983) and Death and the Maiden (1992), and the musical Sunset Boulevard (1995). Her first three major film roles, in the comedy-dramas The World According to Garp (1982) and The Big Chill (1983) and the sports film The Natural (1984), earned Close three consecutive nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She established herself as a leading lady in ensuing years, with roles in the thriller Fatal Attraction (1987) and the historical film Dangerous Liaisons (1988), earning another two Oscar nominations.

Transitioning to television, Close received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her role in the television film Something About Amelia (1984) and later won threeOutstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for portraying Margarethe Cammermeyer in the television film Serving in Silence (1995) and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series twice consecutively for playing Patty Hewes in Damages (2007–2012). She returned to the Broadway stage in a 2014 revival of A Delicate Balance.

Close portrayed Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and its 2000 sequel, and voiced Kala in Tarzan (1999). She received three additional Oscar nominations for her roles in the dramas Albert Nobbs (2011), The Wife (2017), and Hillbilly Elegy. The Wife won her another Golden Globe for Best Actress.

Close is the president of Trillium Productions and co-founder of the website FetchDog. She has made political donations in support of Democratic politicians and is vocal on issues such as women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health. Married three times, she has one daughter, Annie Starke, from her relationship with producer John Starke.

Early life and education
Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to socialite Elizabeth Mary Hester "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close, a doctor who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as a personal physician to its dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. She has two sisters, Tina and Jessie, and two brothers, Alexander (nicknamed Sandy) and Tambu Misoki, whom Close's parents adopted while living in Congo.

During her childhood, Close lived with her parents in a stone cottage on her maternal grandfather's estate in Greenwich. She began honing her acting abilities in her early years, "I have no doubt that the days I spent running free in the evocative Connecticut countryside with an unfettered imagination, playing whatever character our games demanded, is one of the reasons that acting has always seemed so natural to me." Although Close has an affluent background, she has stated that her family chose not to participate in WASP society. She would also avoid mentioning her birthplace, the wealthy town Greenwich, whenever asked because she did not want people to think she was a "dilettante who didn't have to work."

When Close was seven years old, her parents joined the Moral Re-Armament (MRA), a movement in which her family remained involved for fifteen years. During this period, Close's family lived in communal centers. She has described MRA as a "cult" that dictated every aspect of her life, from the clothes that had to be worn to what she was allowed to say. Close also spent time in Switzerland when studying at St. George's School, and attended Rosemary Hall (now Choate Rosemary Hall), graduating in 1965. She traveled for several years in the mid-to-late 1960s with the nonprofit encouragement singing group Up With People. During her time in Up With People, Close organized a small singing group called the Green Glenn Singers, consisting of herself, Kathe Green, Jennie Dorn, and Vee Entwistle. The group's stated mission was "to write and sing songs which would give people a purpose and inspire them to live the way they were meant to live".

When she was 22, Close broke away from MRA. She once stated that her desire to become an actress allowed her to leave the group, adding, "I have long [ago] forgiven my parents for any of this. They had their reasons for doing what they did, and I understand them. It had terrible effects on their kids, but that's the way it is. We all try to survive, right? And I think what actually saved me more than anything was my desire to be an actress." She attended The College of William & Mary, double majoring in theater and anthropology. During her senior year of college, Close became inspired to pursue a career in acting after watching an interview of Katharine Hepburn on The Dick Cavett Show. It was in the college's theater department that Close began to train as a serious actor under Howard Scammon, William and Mary's long-time professor of theater. During her years at school in Williamsburg, she also starred in the summer-time outdoor drama, The Common Glory, written by Pulitzer Prize author Paul Green. She was elected to membership in the honor society of Phi Beta Kappa. Through the years, Close has returned to William & Mary to lecture and to visit the theater department.

Through her appearance on the first episode of the seventh season of Finding Your Roots, she came to find out that she is related to Princess Diana through her 7 times great-grandparents, is also distantly related to fellow actor Clint Eastwood, and that some of her ancestors were slaveholders. She also has a tangential connection to Marjorie Post who was once married to her grandfather, Edward Bennett Close.

1970s: Early work
Close started her professional career on the stage in 1974 at age 27. In her senior year of college, she called her school's theater department to be nominated for a series of auditions through the University Resident Theatre Association and TCG. Eventually, she was given a callback and hired for one season to do three plays at the Helen Hayes Theatre, one of those plays being Love for Love directed by Hal Prince. She made her television debut in 1975 with a small role in the anthology series Great Performances. In 1976, she played Mary I in the short-lived Broadway musical Rex, with a score by Richard Rodgers and Sheldon Harnick. From September 1978 to April 1979, Glenn appeared on Broadway in The Crucifer of Blood playing the part of Irene St. Claire, with Paxton Whitehead and Dwight Schultz. In 1979, she filmed the television movies Orphan Train and Too Far to Go. The latter film included Blythe Danner and Michael Moriarty in the cast, and Close played Moriarty's lover. Her last major stage role before beginning her motion picture career was playing Chairy, the female lead in the Broadway musical Barnum, from April 1980 to March 1981.

1980s: Breakthrough and rise to prominence
The 1980s proved to be Close's breakthrough in Hollywood. In 1980, director George Roy Hill discovered Close on Broadway and asked her to audition with Robin Williams for a role in The World According to Garp, which would become her first film role, as well as her first Academy Award nominated performance. She played Robin Williams's mother, despite being just four years older. The following year she played Sarah Cooper in The Big Chill, a character that director Lawrence Kasdan said he specifically wrote for her. The movie received positive reviews and was a financial success. Close became the third actor to receive a Tony, Emmy, and Oscar (Academy Award) nomination all in the same calendar year after the release of The Big Chill. Also in 1980, she received her first Tony Award nomination for her performance in the musical Barnum.

In 1984, Close was given a part in Robert Redford's baseball drama The Natural, and although it was a small supporting role, she earned a third consecutive Oscar nomination. Close, to this day, credits her nomination to cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, stating '' That hat was designed so the sunlight would come through. We waited for a certain time of day, so the sun was shining through the back of the stadium. And he had a lens that muted the people around me. It was an incredibly well thought-out shot. And I honestly think that's the reason I got nominated.  Close also starred opposite Robert Duvall in the drama The Stone Boy'' (1984), a film about a family coping after their youngest child accidentally kills his older brother in a hunting accident. She continued to appear in television films in the following years, beginning with The Elephant Man, and in 1984, she starred in the critically acclaimed drama Something About Amelia, a television film about a family destroyed by sexual abuse. She won her first Tony Award in 1984 for The Real Thing, directed by Mike Nichols.

Eventually, Close began to seek different roles to play because she did not want to be typecast as a motherly figure. She starred in the 1985 romantic comedy Maxie, alongside Mandy Patinkin. Close was given favorable reviews and even received her second Golden Globe Award nomination, but the movie was critically panned and under-performed at the box office. In 1985, Close starred in the legal thriller Jagged Edge, opposite Jeff Bridges. Initially, Jane Fonda was attached to the role, but was replaced with Close when she requested changes in the script. Producer Martin Ransohoff was against the casting of Close because he said she was "too ugly" for the part. Close eventually heard about this and said she didn't want Ransohoff on set while she was making her scenes. Director Richard Marquand stood by her side and sent Ransohoff away. Infuriated, Ransohoff went to the studio heads trying to get Close and Marquand fired from the picture. The studio refused, stating they were pleased with their work in the film. Jagged Edge received mixed-to-positive reviews and grossed $40-million on a $15-million budget.

In 1987, Close played the disturbed book editor Alex Forrest in the psychological thriller Fatal Attraction. The film became a huge box-office success, the highest-grossing film worldwide of that year. The film propelled Close to international stardom and the character of Alex Forrest is considered one of her most iconic roles; the phrase "bunny boiler" has even been added to the dictionary, referring to a scene from the movie. During the re-shoot of the ending, Close suffered a concussion from one of the takes when her head smashed against a mirror. After being rushed to the hospital, she discovered, much to her horror, that she was actually a few weeks pregnant with her daughter. Close stated in an interview that, "Fatal Attraction was really the first part that took me away from the Jenny Fields, Sarah Coopers—good, nurturing women roles. I did more preparation for that film than I've ever done." Close received her fourth Oscar nomination for this role, her first in the leading role and also won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actress.

She played a scheming aristocrat, the Marquise de Merteuil, in 1988's period romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons. Close earned stellar reviews for this performance, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition, she received her first BAFTA Award nomination. Also in 1988, she appeared alongside Keith Carradine in Stones for Ibarra, a television film adapted from the book written by Harriet Doerr and produced by the Hallmark company. Close's final film role of the decade was Immediate Family (1989), a drama about a married couple seeking to adopt a child. Producer Lawrence Kasdan had Close star in the film, as he directed her previously in The Big Chill.

1990s: Established actress

In 1990, Close went on to play the role of Sunny von Bülow opposite Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune to critical acclaim. The film drew some controversy since it dealt with the Claus von Bülow murder trial, while the real Sunny von Bülow was still in a vegetative state. Sunny's children publicly criticized the movie. In the same year, Close played Gertrude in Franco Zeffirelli's film adaption of Hamlet. It was the first Shakespeare role that Close had ever attempted on screen (she appeared in 1975 in a stage production of King Lear in Milwaukee). Close would later go on to join the cast of The House of the Spirits, reuniting her with Jeremy Irons. She also had a cameo appearance in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) as a pirate. In 1991, she starred in the highly rated Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie Sarah, Plain and Tall, as well as its two sequels. In 1992, Close starred in Meeting Venus for which she received critical acclaim and won Best Actress (Golden Ciak) at the Venice Film Festival. In the same year, Close became a trustee emeritus of The Sundance Institute. She also portrayed the title subject of the fact-based made-for-TV movie Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story in 1995, for which she won her first Primetime Emmy Award. Additionally, she has also provided the voice of Mona Simpson, from The Simpsons, since 1995. Entertainment Weekly named Close one of the 16 best Simpsons guest stars. Close has also hosted Saturday Night Live twice, in 1989 and in 1992. In 1992, she won her second Tony Award for Death and the Maiden.

One of her most notable roles on stage was Norma Desmond in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Sunset Boulevard, for which Close won her third Tony Award, playing the role on Broadway in 1993–94. For her role, Close was met with critical acclaim. David Richards of The New York Times wrote in 1994 that "Glenn is giving one of those legendary performances people will be talking about years from now. The actress takes breathtaking risks, venturing so far out on a limb at times that you fear it will snap. It doesn't." She would later re-team with the show's director, Trevor Nunn, in London for his Royal National Theatre revival of A Streetcar Named Desire in 2002.

Close appeared in the newsroom comedy-drama The Paper (1994), directed by her good friend Ron Howard and in 1996 she acted alongside the cast of Tim Burton's alien invasion satire Mars Attacks! (1996). That same year, she portrayed the sinister Cruella de Vil in the Disney live-action hit of 101 Dalmatians. Her role as Cruella de Vil was universally praised and earned her a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. The film was also a commercial success, grossing $320.6 million in theaters against a $75 million budget. As per Close's contract, she is allowed to keep any costumes from her films. Much to their dismay, the producers attempted to make copies of Close's wardrobe due to the expensive materials being used but she rejected their suggestion and kept the originals. The following year, Close appeared in another box office hit with Air Force One (1997), playing the trustworthy vice president to Harrison Ford's president. Ford stated in an interview that the role of the vice president was already written for a woman and that he personally chose Close for the role after meeting her at a birthday party for then-president Bill Clinton. Close would later star in the war film Paradise Road (1997) as a choir conductor of the women imprisoned by the Japanese in World War II. In 1999, Close provided the voice of Kala in Disney's animated film Tarzan. She later went on to receive great reviews for her comedic role as Camille Dixon in Cookie's Fortune (1999).

2000s: Focus on television
Close began to appear in television movies rather than doing theatrical films in the early 2000s. She returned as Cruella de Vil in 102 Dalmatians (2000). Although the film received mixed reviews, it performed well at the box office. Close later filmed The Safety of Objects which premiered in 2001, a movie about four suburban families dealing with maladies. This was Kristen Stewart's first film role, and Close and Stewart would later reunite in the 2015 film Anesthesia. Close starred in Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her in the same year, this would be one of many future collaborations with director Rodrigo Garcia. In 2004, she played Claire Wellington, an uptight socialite in the comedy The Stepford Wives opposite Nicole Kidman and Christopher Walken. She provided the voice of the Blue Fairy in the English version of Pinocchio (2002) and Granny in the animated film Hoodwinked (2005). Close continued to do smaller films like Le Divorce (2003) and The Chumscrubber (2005). In 2005, she reunited with director Rodrigo Garcia to do Nine Lives; he would later direct Close in the film Albert Nobbs (2011). In the same year, she starred in the film Heights (2005), an independent drama centered on the lives of five New Yorkers. Close's performance was lauded by critics.

In 2001, she starred in a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical South Pacific as Nellie Forbush on ABC. She guest-starred on Will and Grace in 2002, portraying a satirical version of Annie Leibovitz, which earned her an Emmy nomination for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2003, Close played Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Showtime-produced film The Lion in Winter. Close won a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. In 2005, Close joined the FX crime series The Shield, in which she played Monica Rawling, a no-nonsense precinct captain, which became her first TV role in a series. Close stated that she made the right move because television was in a "golden era" and the quality of some programs had already risen to the standards of film. John Landgraf, CEO of FX, stated that network was the "first to bring a female movie star of Glenn Close's stature to television." He also credits her collaboration with the network with promoting roles for women on television, as well as influencing other film actors to switch to the small screen.

In 2007, she appeared in the same film as her previous co-star Meryl Streep in the ensemble drama Evening. This would be Close's final theatrical film role of the decade, since she began to star in her own television series, Damages (2007). Close was asked about her contributions to independent films, to which she responded "I love the casts that gather around a good piece of writing certainly not for the money but because it is good and challenging. Sometimes I've taken a role for one scene that I thought was phenomenal. Also my presence can help them get money, so it's I think a way for me to give back." Shortly after her stint on The Shield, Close was approached by FX executives who pitched a television series for her to star in. Also in 2007, Close began a five-season run playing the ruthless and brilliant lawyer Patty Hewes on Damages. Her portrayal of this character was met with rave reviews and a plethora of award nominations, in addition she went on to win two consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Close's win also made her the first Best Actress winner in a drama series at the Emmy's for a cable show. Throughout the show's run, she became one of the highest-paid actresses on cable, earning $200,000 per episode. Close stated that her role of Patty Hewes was the role of her life. She also kept in contact with her co-star Rose Byrne, and the two have become friends. After the series ended, Close stated that she would not return to television in a regular role, but that she was open to do a miniseries or guest spot. In 2008, Close performed at Carnegie Hall, narrating the violin concerto The Runaway Bunny, a concerto for reader, violin and orchestra, composed and conducted by Glen Roven.

2010s: Return to film and stage

In December 2010, Close began filming Albert Nobbs in Dublin. She had previously won an Obie in 1982 for her role in the play on stage. She had been working on the project, in which she appeared alongside 101 Dalmatians co-star Mark Williams, for almost twenty years, and aside from starring in it, she co-wrote the script and produced the film. Close stated it became more important for her to make the film in order to stimulate discussion on transgender issues, commenting, "There came a point where I asked, 'Am I willing to live the rest of my life having given up on this?' And I said, 'No I won't.' Some people will change their point of view, and those who are either too old, or too blinkered, to accept the beauty of difference will just have to 'die off'." In the film, Close played the title role of Albert Nobbs, a woman living as a man in 19th century Ireland after being sexually assaulted as a young girl.

While the film overall received mixed reviews, Close's performance received critical acclaim, as it was noted for being the most subtle and introverted of her career to that point and a departure from her previous roles. When asked during the film's awards campaign about the fact of not having an Oscar, Close said: "I remember being astounded that I met some people who were really kind of almost hyper-ventilating as to whether they were going to win or not, and I have never understood that. Because if you just do the simple math, the amount of people who are in our two unions, the amount of people who in our profession are out of work at any given time, the amount of movies that are made every year, and then you're one of five [nominees]. How could you possibly think of yourself as a loser?"

She provided the voice of the "Giant" in the Summer 2012 production of the musical Into the Woods at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The production also featured Amy Adams as The Baker's Wife and Donna Murphy as The Witch. In 2014, she starred in a production of the Pirates of Penzance for the Public Theater in New York, playing the role of Ruth. This production featured Kevin Kline, Martin Short and Anika Noni Rose. In October 2014, Close returned to Broadway in the starring role of Agnes in Pam MacKinnon's revival of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance at the John Golden Theatre. Her co-stars were John Lithgow as Tobias, Martha Plimpton as Julia and Lindsay Duncan as Claire. The production grossed $884,596 over eight preview performances during the week ending October 25, setting a new house record at the Golden Theatre. The production received mixed reviews, although the cast was praised. After her television series Damages ended, Close returned to film in 2014, in which she played Nova Prime Rael in the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn. She also appeared in the independent movies 5 to 7 (2014) and Low Down (2014). In 2015, Close made a cameo on Louis C.K.'s Louie on FX, in the season five episode "Sleepover" alongside John Lithgow, Michael Cera, and Matthew Broderick.

In 2016, she appeared in The Great Gilly Hopkins and starred in the British zombie horror drama The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) as Dr. Caldwell, a scientist researching a cure to save humanity. In April 2016, she returned as Norma Desmond in the musical Sunset Boulevard in an English National Opera production in London. Close was met with rave reviews after returning to this same role twenty-three years later. Both The Times and The Daily Telegraph gave the production five stars and praised her performance. During the production Close was forced to cancel three shows due to a chest infection. She was hospitalized but later recovered and finished the remaining shows. Close won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical Performance, and was nominated for her first Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. That same year, she was inducted into American Theater Hall of Fame for her work on the stage.

The ENO London production of Sunset Boulevard transferred to the Palace Theatre on Broadway, with Close reprising her role. It opened on February 9, 2017, in a limited run, selling tickets through June 25, 2017. The production featured a 40-piece orchestra, the largest in Broadway history. Close in particular was lauded by critics for her new incarnation of Norma Desmond. As The New York Times called it "one of the great stage performances of this century." Variety, Parade, The Guardian and Entertainment Weekly also gave the new production positive reviews. That same year, Close starred in a half hour comedy pilot for Amazon, titled Sea Oak. The pilot premiered online with viewers voting to choose if it wanted Amazon to produce the series. Although it received favorable reviews it was not picked up. Also in 2017, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Theatre World Awards. In 2017, Close appeared alongside Noomi Rapace and Willem Dafoe in What Happened to Monday, a science fiction thriller produced by Netflix. Also that year, she was reunited with actors John Malkovich (her co-star in Dangerous Liaisons) and Patrick Stewart (co-star in The Lion in Winter) in the romantic comedy The Wilde Wedding, and co-starred in Crooked House, a film adaptation of the novel by Agatha Christie.

Close garnered widespread critical acclaim for her performance in the 2018 drama The Wife, which had first premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. An adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's novel of the same name, the film stars Close as Joan Castleman, who questions her life choices as she travels with her husband to Stockholm, where he is set to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The film also features Close's daughter, Annie Starke, as a younger version of Castleman. Close won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, and the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress. She received her seventh Academy Award nomination, her fourth nomination in the Best Actress category, which has made her the most nominated actress without a win. She was widely considered to be the frontrunner to win the Oscar—which would be the first of her career—but ultimately lost to Olivia Colman for The Favourite. In addition, Close received a nomination, her second overall, for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which she also lost to Colman. Also in 2018, Close made a return to the stage, where, from September to December, she featured in the Off-Broadway play, Mother of the Maid, at the Public Theater in New York City.

2020s: Continued film work and further acclaim
In 2020, Close starred in Netflix's film adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy, reuniting with Ron Howard and starring alongside Amy Adams. Close played the Mamaw of J.D. Vance. While the film, which was released for streaming on Netflix on November 24, 2020, received mixed-to-negative critical reviews, Close received acclaim for her performance. Richard Roeper praised Close for her "masterful, screen-commanding, pitch-perfect performance", while Peter Travers at ABC News called her "simply sensational" and Owen Gleiberman at Variety wrote that "as long as Close is acting up an award-worthy storm (her performance is actually quite meticulous), "Hillbilly Elegy" is never less than alive". For the role, she received the San Francisco International Film Festival's Award for Acting and another Academy Award, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Close also received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress for Hillbilly Elegy, making her the third performer—after James Coco for Only When I Laugh and Amy Irving for Yentl—to receive both an Oscar nomination and a Razzie nomination for the same performance.

Also in 2020, Close co-starred with Mila Kunis in the drama Four Good Days, directed by Rodrigo García and presented at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2021, Close served as an executive producer alongside Emma Stone for Cruella, a Disney live-action spin-off/prequel of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, directed by Craig Gillespie. Stone plays the younger version of Cruella de Vil (the titular character whom Close portrayed in the 1996 live-action adaptation and its 2000 sequel). The same year, Close appeared opposite Mahershala Ali in the Apple TV+ drama film Swan Song. In 2022, she starred in season two of the Apple TV+ thriller series Tehran. Close learned Persian for her role in Tehran. She also portrayed former Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow in the Apple TV+ series The New Look, reuniting her with Damages creator Todd A. Kessler.

Upcoming projects
Close is set to reprise her stage role of Norma Desmond in a film adaptation of the musical Sunset Boulevard, though the film remains in development. She stars alongside Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage in the upcoming film Brothers, which is slated to be released theatrically on October 11, 2024.

In 2022, it was announced that Close will star alongside Andra Day and Mo'Nique in an upcoming exorcism drama The Deliverance directed by Lee Daniels for Netflix and slated for release in 2024. Close was also cast alongside Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, and Kyle Chandler in the action-comedy Back in Action, also for Netflix. The film is scheduled to be released on Netflix globally on November 15, 2024. In March 2023, it was announced that Close stars in the upcoming film The Summer Book, based on the novel by Tove Jansson, which will directed by Charlie McDowell.

In May 2024, it was announced that Close was reuniting with her Reversal of Fortune costar Jeremy Irons in the upcoming Simon Curtis-directed retirement home comedy Encores, with Henry Winkler and Don Johnson also co-starring. Later that month, Close also joined the cast of the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man, the sequel to Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Other cast members for the film include Daniel Craig, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Josh O'Connor and Kerry Washington.

On June 19, 2024, it was revealed that Close's participation in the filming for Wake Up Dead Man, which by this point in time only occurred for two days, was delayed, with Close revealing that she got "really hit hard" with both COVID-19 and Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Reception, acting style, and legacy

Close is regarded as an extraordinarily versatile actress with an immersive acting style and a considerable range. Vanity Fair remarked how Close is "long considered one of the great actresses of our time." James Lipton described her as an actor who "can find an outstanding number of layers in a role or a single moment; she is a supple actor who performs subtle feats." Close was also professionally trained by acting coach Harold Guskin, who also mentored Kevin Kline, Bridget Fonda, and James Gandolfini. Working with Guskin, Close learned several important lessons, which she said she's applied to her career as well as her life. One such lesson, she claims, was to "read the lines off the page" and remembering to breathe. Close states, "You have to maintain a certain openness, and if you don't maintain that, you lose something vital as an actor. It's how we're wired, and it's not a bad thing." Close says that she went to every rehearsal in order to master her acting skills.

On method acting, Close claims that while she found it an interesting technique, it was not her preferred style. Although Close does extensive research and preparation for her roles, she also relies less on the technicality of a performance saying, "Good acting I think is like being a magician, in that you make people believe; because it's only when they believe that they are moved. And I want people to get emotionally involved. I think technique is important but it isn't everything. You can have a great technical actor who'll leave people cold. That's not my idea of great acting. As audience, I don't want to be aware of acting." Longtime collaborator and playwright Christopher Hampton describes Close as an actress who can very easily convey "a sense of strength and intelligence." Hampton worked on Sunset Boulevard and the stage production of Dangerous Liaisons, later casting Close in the movie version of the latter production. "Glenn is often described as having a glacial or distant quality about her, but in person she's the absolute opposite: warm and intimate," says actor Iain Glen, who co-starred with her in the 2002 stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire. "She was able to bring strength to the role, she was able to completely access that vulnerability. There was a real softness to her."

However, Close is consistently praised for her roles as the villain or antagonist in her performances. Her character in Fatal Attraction was ranked number 7 on AFI's 100 years...100 heroes and villains list. Regarding her role in the series Damages, The New York Times remarked, "There is no actor dead or alive as scary as a smiling Glenn Close." Journalist Christopher Hooton also praised her, saying, "Christopher Walken, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, and many others have a surprising danger in them. They're a little scary to be around, because you feel they might jump you or blow up at you at any time. They are ticking time bombs." Film historian Cari Beauchamp has stated, "When you look at the top 10 actresses of the past 80 years, since sound came in, first you have Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep – but I think Glenn Close is definitely in that list. It's a combination of her guts, in the roles she chooses, and her perseverance. We're talking about 30 years of nominated performances."

On January 12, 2009, Close was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. , films featuring Close have grossed over $1.3 billion in North America. She is also regarded as a gay icon, after having played numerous campy roles on screen and stage. She was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2019.

In 1989, Close was the commencement speaker at William & Mary and received an honorary doctor of arts degree. In 2023, she returned to the college to serve as the grand marshal of their annual homecoming event. She also helped dedicate William & Mary's newly renovated Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall, whose main stage theater was named the Glenn Close Theatre in her honor.

Relationships and family
Close has been married three times, with each marriage ending in divorce. Her first marriage at age 22 — which Close has described as "kind of an arranged marriage" — ended before she attended college. This marriage (from 1969 to 1971) was to Cabot Wade, a guitarist and songwriter with whom she had performed during her time at Up with People. From 1979 to 1983, she lived with actor Len Cariou. She was married to grocery heir James Marlas from 1984 to 1987. Later, Close began a relationship with producer John Starke, whom she had met on the set of The World According to Garp. Their daughter, Annie Starke, was born in 1988 and is an actress. Close and Starke separated in 1991. In 1995, Close was engaged to carpenter Steve Beers, who had worked on Sunset Boulevard; the two never married, and their relationship ended in 1999. In February 2006, Close married executive and venture capitalist David Evans Shaw in Maine, but they divorced in August 2015.

Business ventures and assets
As of 2016, Close primarily resides in Bedford Hills, New York, and also owns a condo in the West Village. She also owns properties in Wellington, Florida, and Bozeman, Montana. In the early 1990s she owned a coffee shop in Bozeman but sold it in 2006. In 2011 Close sold her apartment in The Beresford for $10.2 million. She also runs a 1,000 acre ranch in Wyoming.

Close is the president of Trillium Productions Inc. Her company has produced films like Albert Nobbs, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and South Pacific. With Barbra Streisand she produced the TV film Serving in Silence (1995), for which both were nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie.

In 2007 she co-founded FetchDog, a dog accessories catalog and Internet site. Part of her work was publishing blogs in which she interviewed other celebrities about their relationships with their dogs. She sold the business in 2012.

Interests and views
Close was born into a Democratic family. Her political donations have mostly been made in support of Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Angus King, and Barack Obama. Close also spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election and attended his inauguration. In a 2016 interview with Andrew Marr for the BBC, Close criticized then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, calling his campaign "terribly frightening." She reiterated her sentiments about Trump in 2017, stating that "he doesn't stand for anything I believe in."

Close keeps all of her costumes after completing films and rents them out to exhibits. She lent one of the dresses she wore in Dangerous Liaisons to Madonna for her 1990 VMA performance of "Vogue". In 2017, she donated her entire costume collection to Indiana University Bloomington.

Close is a New York Mets fan, and has sung the national anthem at Shea Stadium and Citi Field numerous times since 1986.

Due to her upbringing, Close has stated that she is a spiritual but irreligious person.

Philanthropy
Close has campaigned for several issues such as women's rights, same-sex marriage, and mental health. In 1989 she attended pro-choice marches in Washington, D.C., with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda. In 1998, Close was a part of a star-studded cast that performed The Vagina Monologues at a benefit. It raised $250,000 in a single evening with proceeds going to the effort to stop violence against women. She was honored with a GLAAD Media Award in 2002 for promoting equal rights among the LGBT community. She volunteered and produced a documentary for "Puppies Behind Bars", an organization that provides service dogs for wounded war veterans.

Close is also a trustee of The Wildlife Conservation Society and volunteers at Fountain House in New York City, a facility dedicated to the recovery of those suffering from mental illness. She is a founding member of the Panthera Conservation Advisory Committee. Panthera is an international nonprofit whose sole mission is conservation of the world's 36 species of wild cats. Close has also been a longtime supporter of late friend Christopher Reeve's foundation. She is also a member of the CuriosityStream Advisory Board.

Mental health initiatives

Close was a founder and is chairperson of Bring Change to Mind, a US campaign to eradicate the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness, supporting her sister Jessie who has bipolar disorder. She contributed chapters to her sister's 2015 book about mental illness, Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness. In 2010, Close announced to the public that she had her DNA sequenced in order to publicize her family's history of mental illness. During the month of July 2013, Close put over 380 designer items up for auction on eBay from the wardrobe of her Damages character Patty Hewes. All proceeds were raised to go to her charity Bring Change to Mind. Close had director and friend Ron Howard direct the foundation's first PSA. John Mayer also lent his song "Say" for the advert.

In 2013, Close delivered an address at the White House urging passage of the Excellence in Mental-Health Act, which was written to expand treatment for the mentally ill and to provide access to mental-health services. The bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama in April 2014, and will provide $1.1 billion in funding to help strengthen the mental-health-care system in the US. She was awarded the WebMD Health Hero award in 2015 for her contributions to mental-health initiatives. On June 16, 2016, Close donated $75,000 to the Mental-Health Association of Central Florida in order to fund counseling and other assistance to victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. She frequently promotes her charitable causes on her Instagram account.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Glenn Close


text:
Interpretation of dreams

Interpretation of dreams may refer to:
 * Dream interpretation, the process of assigning meaning to dreams
 * Oneiromancy, a form of divination based upon dreams
 * Interpretation of Dreams (Antiphon), a classical work by Antiphon, surviving only in fragments
 * Oneirocritica (Greek for "The Interpretation of Dreams"), a classical work by Artemidorus
 * The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud's 1899 book about psychoanalysis and dreams
 * Interpretation of Dreams (film), 1990 documentary film released by Andrei Zagdansky

title: Interpretation of dreams


text:
Talk:Ken Kesey

Reading in Boulder with Ginsberg?
I found two sources recounting the performance of Twister in Boulder that I hoped would clear up the cn tag. Unfortunately, neither mentions Ginsberg reading with Kesey: Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:23, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Kesey flees Boulder after play brouhaha
 * A report from Naropa
 * Never mind, found it. — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ken Kesey


text:
Sophia Loren

Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress, active in her native country and the United States. With a career spanning over 70 years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of classical Hollywood cinema, and is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age 16 in 1950. She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career. Her film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples. During the 1950s, she starred in films as a sexually emancipated persona and was one of the best known sex symbols of the time.

Loren's performance as Cesira in the film Two Women (1960) directed by Vittorio De Sica won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first performer to ever win an Oscar for a non-English-language performance. She holds the record for having earned seven David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964, for which she was nominated for a second Oscar); Sunflower (1970); The Voyage (1974); A Special Day (1977) and The Life Ahead (2020). She has won five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.

At the start of the 1980s, Loren chose to make rarer film appearances. Since then, she has appeared in films such as Prêt-à-porter (1994), Grumpier Old Men (1995), Nine (2009), and The Life Ahead (2020). In June 1996, Loren was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (OMRI).

Family and childhood
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone was born on September 20, 1934, in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Kingdom of Italy, the daughter of Romilda Villani (1910–1991) and Riccardo Scicolone Murillo (1907–1976). Her mother was a piano teacher and aspiring actress, her father a failed engineer who worked temporarily for the national railway Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane. Loren claimed in her autobiography that he was of noble descent, by virtue of which she is entitled to call herself "Viscountess of Pozzuoli, Lady of Caserta, a title given by the House of Hohenstaufen, Marchioness of Licata Scicolone Murillo".

Loren's father refused to marry her mother, leaving her without financial support. Loren met her father three times, at age five, age seventeen and in 1976 at his deathbed, stating that she forgave him but had never forgotten his abandonment of her mother. Loren's parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938. Scicolone did not want to formally recognise Maria as his daughter. When Loren became successful, she paid her father in order to have her sister Maria take the Scicolone last name. Loren has two younger paternal half-brothers, Giuliano and Giuseppe. Romilda, Sofia, and Maria lived with Loren's grandmother in Pozzuoli, near Naples.

During the Second World War, the harbour and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the Allies. During one raid, as Loren ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel and wounded in the chin. After that, the family moved to Naples, where they were taken in by distant relatives. After the war, Loren and her family returned to Pozzuoli. Loren's grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their living room, selling homemade cherry liquor. Romilda played the piano, Maria sang, and Loren waited on tables and washed dishes. The place was popular with the American GIs stationed nearby.

Pageantry
At age 15, Loren as Sofia Lazzaro entered the Miss Italia 1950 beauty pageant and was assigned as Candidate No. 2, being one of the four contestants representing the Lazio region. She was selected as one of the last three finalists and won the title of Miss Elegance 1950, while Liliana Cardinale won the title of Miss Cinema and Anna Maria Bugliari won the grand title of Miss Italia. She returned in 2001 as president of the jury for the 61st edition of the pageant. In 2010, Loren crowned the 71st Miss Italia pageant winner.

Early roles
Sofia Lazzaro enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the national film school of Italy and appeared as an uncredited extra in Mervyn LeRoy's 1951 film Quo Vadis, when she was 16 years old.

That same year, Loren appeared in the Italian film Era lui... sì! sì!, in which she played an odalisque, and was credited as Sofia Lazzaro. In the early part of the decade, she played bit parts and had minor roles in several films, including La Favorita (1952).

Carlo Ponti changed her name and public image to appeal to a wider audience as Sophia Loren, being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Märta Torén and suggested by Goffredo Lombardo. Her first starring role was in Aida (1953), for which she received critical acclaim.

After playing the lead role in Two Nights with Cleopatra (1953), her breakthrough role was in The Gold of Naples (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica. Too Bad She's Bad, also released in 1954, and La Bella Mugnaia (1955) became the first of many films in which Loren co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni. Over the next three years, she acted in many films, including Scandal in Sorrento, Lucky to Be a Woman, Boy on a Dolphin, Legend of the Lost and The Pride and the Passion (1957), the latter film a Napoleonic era war-epic set in Spain starring Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra.

International stardom
Loren became an international film star following her five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures in 1958. Among her films at this time were Desire Under the Elms with Anthony Perkins, based upon the Eugene O'Neill play; Houseboat, a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant; and George Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights, in which she appeared as a blonde for the first time. In 1960, Loren starred in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a stark, gritty story of a mother who is trying to protect her 12-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy. The two end up gang-raped inside a church as they travel back to their home city following cessation of bombings there. Originally cast as the daughter, Loren fought against type and was eventually cast as the mother (actress Eleonora Brown would portray the daughter). Loren's performance earned her many awards, including the Cannes Film Festival's best performance prize, and an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first major Academy Award for a non-English-language performance or to an Italian actress. She won 22 international awards for Two Women. The film was extremely well received by critics and a huge commercial success. Though proud of this accomplishment, Loren did not show up to this award, citing fear of fainting at the award ceremony. Nevertheless, Cary Grant telephoned her in Rome the next day to inform her of the Oscar award. During the 1960s, Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, and continued to make films in the United States and Europe, starring with prominent leading men. In 1961 and 1964, her career reached its pinnacle when she received $1 million to appear in El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1965, she received a second Academy Award nomination for her performance in Marriage Italian-Style opposite Marcello Mastroianni.

Among Loren's best-known films of this period are Samuel Bronston's epic production of El Cid with Charlton Heston, The Millionairess (1960) with Peter Sellers, It Started in Naples (1960) with Clark Gable, Vittorio De Sica's triptych Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) with Marcello Mastroianni, Peter Ustinov's Lady L (1965) with Paul Newman, Arabesque (1966) with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando.

Loren received four Golden Globe Awards between 1964 and 1977 as "World Film Favorite – Female".

Continued success
Loren appeared in fewer movies after becoming a mother in 1968. During the next decade, most of her roles were in Italian features. During the 1970s, she was paired with Richard Burton in the last De Sica-directed film, The Voyage (1974), and a remake of the film Brief Encounter (1974). The film had its premiere on US television on 12 November 1974 as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC. In 1976, she starred in The Cassandra Crossing. It fared extremely well internationally, and was a respectable box office success in the US market. She co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni again in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). This movie was nominated for 11 international awards such as two Oscars (best actor in leading role, best foreign picture). It won a Golden Globe Award and a César Award for best foreign movie. Loren's performance was awarded with a David di Donatello Award, the seventh in her career. The movie was extremely well received by American reviewers. Following this success, Loren starred in an American thriller Brass Target. This movie received mixed reviews, although it was moderately successful in the United States and internationally. In 1978, she won her fourth Golden Globe for "world film favorite". Other movies of this decade were Academy Award nominee Sunflower (1970), which was a critical success, and Arthur Hiller's Man of La Mancha (1972), which was a critical and commercial failure despite being nominated for several awards, including two Golden Globes. Peter O'Toole and James Coco were nominated for two NBR awards, in addition the NBR listed Man of La Mancha in its best ten pictures of 1972 list. Loren headlined the action thriller Firepower (1979) co-starring James Coburn and O. J. Simpson, whom she had previously worked with on The Cassandra Crossing.

In 1980, after the international success of the biography Sophia Loren: Living and Loving, Her Own Story by A. E. Hotchner, Loren portrayed herself and her mother in a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography, Sophia Loren: Her Own Story. Ritza Brown and Chiara Ferrari each portrayed the younger Loren. In 1981, she became the first female celebrity to launch her own perfume, 'Sophia', and a brand of eyewear soon followed.

In 1982, while in Italy, she made headlines after serving an 18-day prison sentence on tax evasion charges – a fact that failed to hamper her popularity or career. In 2013, the supreme court of Italy cleared her of the charges.

Loren acted infrequently during the 1980s, preferring to devote more time to raising her sons. In 1981 she turned down the role of Alexis Carrington in the television series Dynasty. Although she was set to star in 13 episodes of CBS's Falcon Crest in 1984 as Angela Channing's half-sister Francesca Gioberti, negotiations fell through at the last moment and the role went to Gina Lollobrigida instead. She played the title role in the 1984 TV movie Aurora, in which she acted alongside her 11-year-old real-life son Edoardo Ponti.

Loren has recorded more than two dozen songs throughout her career, including a best-selling album of comedic songs with Peter Sellers; reportedly, she had to fend off his romantic advances. Partly owing to Sellers's infatuation with Loren, he split with his first wife, Anne Howe. Loren has made it clear to numerous biographers that Sellers's affections were reciprocated only platonically. This collaboration was covered in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers where actress Sonia Aquino portrayed Loren. The song "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" by Peter Sarstedt was said to have been inspired by Loren.

Later career
In 1991, Loren received an Academy Honorary Award, which described her as "One of the genuine treasures of world cinema who, in a career rich with memorable performances, has added permanent luster to our art form." In 1995, she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, a similar honorary award, bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.

She presented Federico Fellini with his honorary Oscar in April 1993. In 2009, Loren stated on Larry King Live that Fellini had planned to direct her in a film shortly before his death in 1993. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Loren was selective about choosing her films and ventured into various areas of business, including cookbooks, eyewear, jewelry, and perfume. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Robert Altman's film Ready to Wear (1994), co-starring Julia Roberts.

In 1994, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her.

In Grumpier Old Men (1995), Loren played a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Ann-Margret. The film was a box-office success and became Loren's biggest US hit in years. At the 20th Moscow International Film Festival in 1997, she was awarded an Honorable Prize for contribution to cinema. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Loren among the greatest female stars of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. In 2001, Loren received a Special Grand Prix of the Americas Award at the Montreal World Film Festival for her body of work. She filmed two projects in Canada during this time: the independent film Between Strangers (2002), directed by her son Edoardo and co-starring Mira Sorvino, and the television miniseries Lives of the Saints (2004).In 2009, after five years off the set and 14 years since she starred in a prominent US theatrical film, Loren starred in Rob Marshall's film version of Nine, based on the Broadway musical that tells the story of a director whose midlife crisis causes him to struggle to complete his latest film; he is forced to balance the influences of numerous formative women in his life, including his deceased mother. Loren was Marshall's first and only choice for the role. The film also stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, and Nicole Kidman. As a part of the cast, she received her first nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award.

In 2010, Loren played her own mother in a two-part Italian television miniseries about her early life, directed by Vittorio Sindoni with Margareth Madè as Loren, entitled La Mia Casa È Piena di Specchi (), based on the memoir by her sister Maria. In July 2013 Loren made her film comeback in an Italian short-film adaptation of Jean Cocteau's 1930 play The Human Voice (La Voce Umana), which charts the breakdown of a woman who is left by her lover – with her younger son, Edoardo Ponti, as director. Filming took under a month during July in various locations in Italy, including Rome and Naples. It was Loren's first theatrical film since Nine. She returned to feature-length film, as Holocaust survivor Madame Rosa, in Ponti's 2020 feature film The Life Ahead. In 2021 she received AARP Best Actress and AWFJ Grand Dame awards for her role.

Loren received a star on 16 November 2017, at Almeria Walk of Fame in Spain for her work on Bianco, rosso e.... She received the Almería Tierra de Cine award.

Personal life
Loren is a Roman Catholic. Her primary residence has been in Geneva, Switzerland, since late 2006. She owns homes in Naples and Rome.

Loren is an ardent fan of the football club S.S.C. Napoli. In May 2007, when the team was third in Serie B, she (then aged 72) told the Gazzetta dello Sport that she would do a striptease if the team won.

Loren posed for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar.

In February 2021, she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and chose a pizza oven as her luxury item. Her musical choices included Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" as sung by Ella Fitzgerald, and Debussy's "Clair de lune" as played by Tamás Vásáry. She revealed that fellow actor Richard Burton was furious with her for cheating at Scrabble.

On September 24, 2023, Loren received emergency surgery following fractures to her hip and femur sustained from a fall at her home in Switzerland.

Marriage and family
Loren first met Carlo Ponti in 1950, when she was 15 and he was 37. Though Ponti had been long separated from his first wife, Giuliana, he was not legally divorced when Loren married him by proxy (two male lawyers stood in for them) in Mexico on 17 September 1957. The couple had their marriage annulled in 1962 to escape bigamy charges, but continued to live together. In 1965, they became French citizens after their application was approved by then French Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. Ponti then obtained a divorce from Giuliana in France, allowing him to marry Loren on 9 April 1966. The marriage lasted until Ponti's death on 10 January 2007 from pulmonary complications, aged 94.

The couple had two sons, Carlo Ponti Jr., born on 29 December 1968, and Edoardo Ponti, born on 6 January 1973. Loren's daughters-in-law are Sasha Alexander and Andrea Meszaros. Loren has four grandchildren. In 1962, Loren's sister Maria married the youngest son of Benito Mussolini, Romano, with whom she had two daughters, Alessandra, a former MP and MEP, and Elisabetta.

Affair with Cary Grant
Loren and Cary Grant co-starred in Houseboat (1958). Grant's wife Betsy Drake wrote the original script, and Grant originally intended that she would star with him. After he began an affair with Loren while filming The Pride and the Passion (1957), Grant arranged for Loren to take Drake's place with a rewritten script for which Drake asked to not receive credit. The affair ended in bitterness before The Pride and the Passion's filming ended, causing problems on the Houseboat set. Grant hoped to resume the relationship, but Loren decided to marry Carlo Ponti instead.

Lawsuits
In September 1999, Loren filed a lawsuit against 79 adult websites for posting altered nude photos of her on the internet.

Box office rating
In The Motion Picture Herald, both British and American exhibitors voted for Loren within the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll:
 * 1960 – most popular actress (3rd most popular star in UK)
 * 1961 – 2nd most popular actress (2nd most popular star in UK)
 * 1962 – 3rd most popular actress (7th most popular star in UK)
 * 1964 – most popular actress in UK, 24th most popular star in America
 * 1965 – 4th most popular star in UK
 * 1966 – 14th most popular star in America

Singles

 * 1955 – "Mambo Bacan" (from La Fille du Fleuve) / "Nyves" (RCA 18.350 10" 78rpm)
 * 1956 – "Che m'e 'mparato a fà" / "I wanna a guy" (RCA, A25V-0473, 10" 78rpm)
 * 1957 – "S'agapò" / "Adoro te" (with Paola Orlandi) (RCA, A25V 0585, 10" 78rpm)
 * 1958 – "Bing! Bang! Bong!" (from Houseboat) / "Almost in Your Arms" (Philips PB 857 10" 78rpm)
 * 1960 – "Goodness Gracious Me" / "Grandpa's Grave" (with Peter Sellers) (Parlophone, 45-R.4702 7" 45rpm)
 * 1961 – "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo" / "Bangers and Mash" (with Peter Sellers) (Parlophone 45-R.4724 7" 45rpm)

Albums

 * 1958 – Houseboat (Philips – BBL 7292) – With George Duning and Cary Grant
 * 1960 – Escandalos Imperiales (Heliodor – 610 800) – With Maurice Chevalier
 * 1960 – Peter and Sophia (Parlophone – PCSM 3012, LP) – with Peter Sellers
 * 1963 – Poesie di Salvatore Di Giacomo (CAM, LP)
 * 1972 – Man of La Mancha (United Artists Records, LP) with Peter O'Toole, James Coco, Mitch Leigh, Joe Darion

Compilations

 * 1992 – Le canzoni di Sophia Loren (CGD, 2xCD)
 * 2006 – Secrets of Rome (Traditional Line, CD)
 * 2009 – Τι Είναι Αυτό Που Το Λένε Αγάπη – Το Παιδί Και Το Δελφίνι (it:Δίφωνο, CD)

Russian National Orchestra

 * Prokofiev – Peter and the Wolf, Jean-Pascal Beintus – Wolf Tracks. Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, Sophia Loren. Russian National Orchestra – Kent Nagano. Pentatone PTC 5186011 (2003)
 * Prokofiev – Pedro y el lobo, Jean-Pascal Beintus – Las Huellas del Lobo. Antonio Banderas, Sophia Loren, Russian National Orchestra – Kent Nagano. Pentatone PTC 5186014 (2004).

title: Sophia Loren


text:
Imereti

Imereti (Georgian: იმერეთი) is a region of Georgia situated in the central-western part of the republic along the middle and upper reaches of the Rioni River. Imereti is the most populous region in Georgia. It consists of 11 municipalities and the city of Kutaisi, which is the capital of the region.

Subdivisions
The Imereti region has one self governing city (Kutaisi) and 11 municipalities with 163 administrative communities (temi), totalling to 549 populated settlements:
 * Eleven cities: Baghdati, Chiatura, Khoni, Kutaisi, Sachkhere, Samtredia, Terjola, Tkibuli, Tsqaltubo, Vani and Zestaponi;
 * Three dabas: Kharagauli, Kulashi and Shorapani;
 * Villages: 535

Economy
Aside from the capital Kutaisi, significant towns and regional centres include Samtredia, Chiatura (manganese production centre), Tkibuli (coal mining centre), Zestaponi (known for metals production), Vani, Khoni, and Sachkhere. Traditionally, Imereti is an agricultural region, known for its mulberries and grapes.

Demographics
The 800,000 Imeretians speak the Imeretian dialect, one of the Northwest dialects of the Georgian language. It is itself subdivided into Upper and Lower Imeretian. They are one of the local culture-groups of the ethnically subdivided Georgian people.

History
In ancient times, the region was a part of the Kingdom of Colchis, until it was conquered by the Kingdom of Pontus. After the Third Mithridatic War, Colchis was under loose Roman control, and unsuccessfully revolted in 69 AD under Anicetus. After the collapse of Colchis, the kingdom of Lazica was established in 131 AD as a Roman vassal. Tzath I was the first Christian king of Lazica, being baptized in Constantinople in 523 AD, and fighting alongside Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I in the Iberian War. In 541 AD, the region became the theatre of the Lazic War between Justinian I and Sasanian Persian emperor Khosrow I.

Between 750 and 985, Imereti was ruled by a dynasty of native princes, but was devastated by hostile incursions, reviving only after it became united to Georgia. After the Mongol invasions of Georgia, Imereti was intermittently part of the independent Kingdom of Western Georgia, until being reunited in 1415 as the Duchy of Samokalako under the united Georgian Kingdom. Since that kingdom's disintegration in the 15th century, Imereti was an independent kingdom from 1466 onwards.

In the 17th–18th centuries, the kingdom of Imereti experienced frequent invasions by the Turks and paid patronage to the Ottoman Empire until 1810, when it was invaded and annexed by the Russian Empire. The last King of Imereti was Solomon II (1789–1810).

From 1918 to 1921, Imereti was part of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia. Within the USSR, the region was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR from 1922 to 1936, and part of the Georgian SSR from 1936 to 1991. Since Georgian independence in 1991, Imereti has been a region of Georgia with Kutaisi as the regional capital.

title: Imereti


text:
Talk:Audio compression (data)

Lossless compression technologies
There's an interesting aside here relating to midi and pianola. Both these techniques are extremely effective lossless compression technologies but solve the problem in a quite different way. User:Rjstott

Move
I have moved the page Audio compression to Audio data compression because I believe it more accurately describes the topic of discussion and leaves the original page for a discussion of audio compression in recording. -- Jul 7, 2003 Ap

 * Audio compression is now a disambig, as it should be. - Omegatron 23:02, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Lossy conversion to frequency-domain
Under the section titled "Lossless compression", it is said "...audio waveforms, which are generally difficult to simplify without a (necessarily lossy) conversion to frequency information...". I dispute that conversion to frequency-domain is necessarily lossy. 57.66.65.38 13:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC) Andrew Steer (www.techmind.org)

Latency
"In general, latency must be 15 ms or lower for transparent interactivity." This is nonsense. Transaltanic telephones calls always have a latency significantly greater than this, thanks to the distances involved: 15,000,000 round trip / 300,000,000 metres per sec = 50 ms. With modern telephone systems it is difficult to impossible to notice any latency. I have chopped out the above sentence. -- Psychofox 16:45, August 23, 2005

And I think that the sentence should be added back. Wieslaw W's work at McGill shows that very short latency is utterly essential for good "tightness" of a band. A conversation is a completely different ballgame, and even then, latency is shown to cause user confusion. Btw, telephones do not propagate at anything close to the speed of light, the cables are about 1/2c, and there is lots of buffering, etc, in the middle that adds even more latency. Then there's synchronous satellite delays for satellite carried calls... Woodinville (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. The latency that occurs over transatlantic telephone calls (or on-location news reporters on TV), is very noticeable, and therefore not transparent. Just because people can work around it if they have to doesn't mean it's not a source of annoyance. SharkD (talk) 07:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

lzw compression of wav file
I don't know where user Xhamlliku  went but I know of no reason lzw compression wouldn't work with a .wav file.. Charlie 11:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, ZLW won't work with a .wav file unless you compress truly enormous volumes of data. LZW regards the sequence 8 4 2 1 as a different sequence than 24 12 6 3. Any kind of linear predictor regard them as a single initial value with the same predictor coefficients. ZLW doesn't consider that kind of source model in the short term, and any of LPC or high-resolution frequency analysis will do very well with such a sequence. Since nearly all audio consists of autoregressive sequences like this, this shows why ZLW won't work so well on reasonable-sized files. Woodinville (talk) 22:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Compression ratios are similar to what?
"The primary users of lossless compression have been audio engineers, audiophiles and those consumers who want to preserve an exact copy of their audio files, in contrast to the irreversible changes from lossy compression techniques such as Vorbis and MP3. Compression ratios are similar to those for lossless data compression (around 50-60% of original size)."

I'm wondering if the second sentence could perhaps be more precisely worded? If the compression ratios are similar for lossy and lossless compression, that would seem to remove the primary incentive to go with lossy compression, which is to save space. My observation is that there is a fairly significant difference in storage space requirements between WM9 lossless compression and the highest quality WMA lossy settings when ripping CDs, which implies the compression ratios aren't all that similar. JohnMajerus 05:51, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

How about something along these lines:

"Lossless audio compression is used by those, if they know what they're doing, who want an exact binary copy of an uncompressed digital audio recording, in less file space. Lossy audio compression is used by those who want a recording that will occupy even less file space (at the expense of irreversible changes to sound quality, which may or may not be appreciated by the user) and / or an ability to playback a recording in a consumer device (in-car audio player, mobile phone, etc.) that only supports the playback of certain lossy audio compression formats (e.g. not being capable of playing .wav files, etc., and / or audio CDs, but being capable of playing MP3, WMA, etc., files). Lossless audio compression ratios are similar to those of lossless data compression ratios (around 50-60% of the original size). Lossless audio compression has an advantage over lossless data compression in that it can be played and / or mixed directly in some audio players and / or software applications, and that it occupies even less space (about a 30% reduction) than lossless data compression alone can offer."

86.150.22.131 (talk) 09:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Simplify
Can anyone simplify this article for simple people, by explaining what formats are most popular (MP3/4, WMA, etc.) and their estimated market share, when a given format is at its optimum (see note below) fixed bit rate (64kbps, etc.), and what formats use in terms of power consumption on playback (when recorded at their optimum). I've been told that audio CDs can be encoded in MP3 at 256kbps with the latest LAME engine, with no perceivable psycho-acoustic difference, is this true, and if it is, then why are there so many new formats? What would be helpful is a comparison chart, detailing the pros and cons of the most popular formats, including some of the lossless ones.

Other important points that the article hasn't addressed is that it's almost impossible to make an exact binary copy of an audio CD (I personally feel that CD ripping is best described as a mystical artform), why lossless compression isn't a wise resort, as it needs to be decompressed first before being playable again (especially if only about a 55% decrease in file size is attained), and why so many portable devices won't play .wav files, but will play MP3s and WMAs.

Note: what I mean here by optimum is the best compromise between data size and sound quality when in competitive comparison with other popular formats, e.g. I've been lead to believe that WMAs at 64kbps sound almost as good as a compact cassette recording, but increasing the rate to 128kbps, which is a 100% increase in file size, will not give a 100% increase in sound quality (more like a 25% increase), so it could be argued that WMAs only have an edge over other formats, when at a rate of 64kbps.

86.150.22.131 (talk) 10:02, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

86.149.72.143 (talk) 09:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Synthesized music?
Does (very simple) synthesized music compress better than recordings of live performances? I ask because I know that computer rendered images sometimes compress better than photographs (at least, when using the PNG lossless format). I'm also not referring to music data formats, such as MIDI, which could I suppose be compared to vector-based image formats, which have a minimal file size. SharkD (talk) 07:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Lead copied
There's a word-for-word copy of the lead at. The date on this is 2009. The article history here shows that the text was in place here at Wikipedia in 2008. --Kvng (talk) 13:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Audio compression (data)