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Talk:Sedevacantism

Counter-sedevacantist arguments
Nobody "forgets" that there is a period of sede vacante between the death of a pontiff and the election of the new one. But such a period is not part of the ordinary constitution of the Church. The longest sede vacante was three years in length, and was protracted as it was simply because the Cardinals could not decide on a single Pontiff. Iceberg3k 03:11, 26 June 2005 (UTC)

Bp. Mendez and sedevacantism
Hello. I am disputing that Bp. Alfredo Méndez-Gonzalez was a sedevacantist as is claimed in the page.

1. There is no evidence that he was a sedevacantist.

2. Although he consecrated the sedevacantist Fr. Clarence Kelly, Bp. Kelly, defending Bp. Mendez, in response to the then-Fr. Donald Sanborn, admits that Bp. Mendez probably may not have been a sedevacantist. He writes:

"If Bishop Mendez considered John Paul II to be a valid pope, he increasingly came to regard him as a bad pope. If he used his name in the Canon of the Mass, it was not to stay in the good graces of his superiors or to keep a position of importance, as was the case with Fr. Sanborn. Bishop Mendez did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He did not do it out of expediency. Fr. Sanborn should realize by now that Catholics who do not agree with his position on the status of John Paul II, whatever that position might be at any given moment, are still Catholics if they have the true Faith. It is simply wrong to elevate one's opinion on the subject to the level of unchangeable dogmatic truth." (Bp. Kelly. "The Sacred and the Profane". 1997.)

3. As stated, this was in response to the then-Fr. Sanborn who wrote:

"He [Bp. Kelly] consents, however, to be consecrated by a bishop [Bp. Mendez] who is in open communion with the Novus Ordo, which Fr. Kelly has repeatedly called a non-catholic sect." (Fr. Sanborn. "Letter to the Catholic People". April 1995.)

Both sides then do not claim that Bp. Mendez was a sedevacantist, though it would have been beneficial to Bp. Kelly, who personally knew well and was consecrated by Bp. Mendez, if Bp. Kelly claimed that Bp. Mendez was a sedevacantist if he knew it to be true. King Pius (talk) 02:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * if no RS states what Mendez's religion was, then it is better not to say anything anout his religion. Veverve (talk) 04:44, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. King Pius (talk) 07:45, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Ambiguity
The view of sedevacantists is ambiguously described in the first sentence of the article: "the present occupier of the Holy See is not a valid pope due to the mainstream Catholic church's alleged espousal of modernism and that, for lack of a valid pope, the See of Rome is vacant." This could mean "the main body of believers is modernist, so the Pope, a traditionalist, lacks authority", or "the main body of believers and the Pope they've appointed are modernists who've abandoned the true faith, so he cannot claim to be a true Catholic."

Ok, reading further into the article, I realise the latter meaning is intended. But it would be good to have it made clear in the lead. Maproom (talk) 08:12, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

 * 90% of people only read the lead (or something like that) so if it isn't clear just in the lead I support improving the phrasing. Santacruz  ⁂  Please ping me!  08:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I have tried to improve the lede. Veverve (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I would re-add "alleged" (or other alternatives), as it is important to point out that it is in the sedevacantist's opinion that the current Pope espouses heresies. Removing the alleged makes it be said in wiki-voice. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought about it, but it is redundant with the "which holds that" which clearly states it is the position's opinion. Veverve (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's fair enough, . In any case, if it becomes an issue I guess we'll hear about it in the talk page sooner or later :P. For now this works. Thanks for making the edits ^u^ A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

"Catholic Resistance" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Catholic Resistance and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 7 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Veverve (talk) 22:00, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theory
The first sentence would be more clear if it expressed that Sedevacantists believe the doctrinal offices of the church have been subverted to spread heresy. My proposed edit would read "Sedevacantism is a Conspiracy Theory which holds that there has been no Pope since the Second Vatican Council. Theories vary if Pius XII or John XXIII was the last Pope, but Sedevacantists agree that the Pope loses his office by expressing heresy." "Conspiracy Theory" is the best term I can think of but maybe someone has a better idea. Thoughts? JacobMaximilian (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

 * I oppose.
 * What reliable sources describe Sedevacantism as such? Otherwise, it is OR and therefore unacceptable. We can only describe something the way other reliable source describe it.
 * How is it a conspiracy theory and not simply a form of Restorationism, or of conservative split (like the Old Catholics)?
 * Veverve (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I must oppose.
 * I do not believe this fits the definition of conspiracy theory, but instead is best described as a doctrinal position, as the current article states. While many groups adhering to sedevacantism may also hold conspiracy theories regarding how this situation came to be, the two are fundamentally separate, as I hope the two following examples will show. The Siri Thesis, held by some sedevacantists, states that Giuseppe Siri was in fact elected Pope and was suppressed by hostile forces, and that this is why the See is vacant today. Starkly different is the Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church which did recognize Benedict XVI and all those before him, only to declare Benedict excommunicated in 2011 and only then declare a state of sedevacantism. Both of these are clearly sedevacantist in nature, yet have differing conspiracy theories to explain how and when the state of sedevacantism occurred. Count Cherokee (talk) 02:51, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Schismatic character and other disputed terms
Veverve, how is the movement not schismatic? It is for all intents and purposes separated from the main body of the currently existing Catholic Church with the seat in Rome. The fact that it denies that this church is a legitimate Catholic Church does not make the problem go away - compare the Arsenite Schism.

The phrase "alleged occupiers" needs to be changed to "occupiers" because this is a factual issue, not one of recognition. The current Pope does sit in Rome, whether he is perceived as legitimate or not.

I also do not see any reason for removing the reference in the intro to the Second Vatican Council since it is its doctrine that is being repudiated - it is central to the existence of the movement and needs to be mentioned from the outset.

Finally, since you have written that the sources "absolutely" do not say what I have added to the article, here are two relevant leads for you to consider verifying: (By the way, both chapters ought to be cited appropriately, not by volume but by contribution, which I had overlooked to correct.) Is your disagreement with me that sedevacantists need an unbroken connection to the pre-1958 hierarchy, or that they need any pope at all (which I am not saying except for the fact that it makes things more difficult), or that it poses a difficulty? And is it with my characterisation of Thuc as an exceptionally staunch anti-Communist, or with making him the single most important figure of origin for episcopal continuity?
 * (1) "Closely aligned with the sedevacantist issue is the question of episcopal succession. This concern highlights the problem of legitimation faced by traditionalist Catholics..." (Dinges, ""We Are What You Were"", in Being Right, 257) (to any thinking person this is an immediate question - where does authority come from in the movement? who are its leading figures?);
 * (2) "Principal among this [i.e. the entire] sedevacantist segment are priests ordained bishops by the former Vietnamese archbishop Pierre Martin Ngo-Dinh-Thuc" (Dinges, "Roman Catholic Traditionalism", in Fundamentalisms Observed, 88).

Please let me know any objections - if I don't hear back from you I shall go with your version of the introductory definition with the three corrections as above, and restore the deleted sections on succession and archbishop Thuc.

VampaVampa (talk) 09:28, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

 * Your first paragraph is OR, I have nothing else to say, WP:BURDEN.
 * The phrase "alleged occupiers" needs to be changed to "occupiers" because this is a factual issue, not one of recognition: it is a theological issue so "alleged occupiers" is better.
 * A mention of Vatican II, like anything, needs sources.
 * here are two relevant leads for you to consider verifying: what you wrote on the WP article is absolutely not what you have quoted there.
 * Is your disagreement with me that [...]: my issue is using reliable sources and faithfully stating what they say on a WP article.
 * Veverve (talk) 11:10, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @Veverve, kindly be specific. I have no clue what you are disputing and will not keep guessing. If "alleged occupiers" is a specialised theological term then please provide a source to illustrate to a mere mortal. Vatican II does not need a source - that is already there at the start of the next section ("Origins"). The purpose of the intro is to cover the defining issues. VampaVampa (talk) 14:12, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * kindly be specific. I have no clue what you are disputing and will not keep guessing: on what do you require more details?
 * alleged occupiers" is a specialised theological term: it is not a specialised term.
 * Vatican II does not need a source - that is already there at the start of the next section ("Origins"): I agree on that and I have added the information to the lede.
 * Veverve (talk) 14:51, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I would require more details if there is no schism, if the principal source of the continuity of episcopal succession is not Thuc, and if his politics is not relevant to the movement.
 * With regard to "alleged occupiers" my issue is that it is used in Wikipedia's voice. If you look at the sentence, it presents "alleged occupiers" as a neutral descriptor, whereas it is rather part of the sedevacantist position and needs to be reported as such. Theology may not be politics, but PRC and ROC not recognising each other seems a decent analogy. Which is why from a neutral point of view it is a schism, a splitting into two incompatible parts of which each repudiates the other, which nonetheless affects them both. VampaVampa (talk) 15:32, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I would require more details if there is no schism, if the principal source of the continuity of episcopal succession is not Thuc, and if his politics is not relevant to the movement: again, this is but your own reflexion and criteria. Whatever you claim must be supported by a reliable source, not by your original research.
 * it presents "alleged occupiers" as a neutral descriptor, whereas it is rather part of the sedevacantist position and needs to be reported as such: I get what you mean. However, the issue is already difficult to explain to the common reader with this wording. Do you have a better wording that would not confuse the common reader?
 * Veverve (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The current definition unnecessarily repeats the terms "Holy See/See of Rome" and "valid pope". My proposal would be:
 * Sedevacantism is a traditionalist Catholic movement which holds that the Holy See has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII due to the espousal of one or more heresies by his alleged successors in Rome.
 * With regard to Thuc, I will hold off on this until I have verified the lineages of sedevacantism, but I insist that the principal figures of the movement should be named in the introductory section. VampaVampa (talk) 17:36, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Your definition proposal is more confusing than the current one (Vatican City is not the Holy See and even less the Italian city of Rome). Sometimes, it is better to add redundancy than to be unclear. Veverve (talk) 19:53, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps some nuance eludes me but Rome is the metonymy of the Holy See for all I know, and Vatican, while sovereign, is just an enclave within Rome. Then I propose (as I originally intended):
 * Sedevacantism is a traditionalist Catholic movement which holds that the Holy See has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII due to the espousal of one or more heresies by his alleged successors
 * You do realise that to say "the alleged occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes" is logically circular? If they are alleged (and your understanding of "alleged" amounts to "not valid"), then that is the same as not being valid. You only make the redundancy worse by saying that the seat is vacant because, well, the occupiers are only alleged. There is no real explanation happening there, just beating of the drum. VampaVampa (talk) 02:07, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You do realise that to say "the alleged occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes" is logically circular?: yes, but I hold that it is better to be redundant than to risk a miscomprehension. Veverve (talk) 08:57, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You do realise that to say "the alleged occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes" is logically circular?: yes, but I hold that it is better to be redundant than to risk a miscomprehension. Veverve (talk) 08:57, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sedevacantism


text:
Integrase

Retroviral integrase (IN) is an enzyme produced by a retrovirus (such as HIV) that integrates (forms covalent links between) its genetic information into that of the host cell it infects. Retroviral INs are not to be confused with phage integrases (recombinases) used in biotechnology, such as λ phage integrase, as discussed in site-specific recombination.

The macromolecular complex of an IN macromolecule bound to the ends of the viral DNA ends has been referred to as the intasome; IN is a key component in this and the retroviral pre-integration complex.

Structure
All retroviral IN proteins contain three canonical domains, connected by flexible linkers:

 * an N-terminal HH-CC zinc-binding domain (a three-helical bundle stabilized by coordination of a Zn(II) cation),
 * a catalytic core domain (RNaseH fold),
 * a C-terminal DNA-binding domain (SH3 fold).

Crystal and NMR structures of the individual domains and 2-domain constructs of integrases from HIV-1, HIV-2, SIV, and Rous Sarcoma Virus (RSV) have been reported, with the first structures determined in 1994. Biochemical data and structural data suggest that retroviral IN functions as a tetramer (dimer-of-dimers), with all three domains being important for multimerization and viral DNA binding. In addition, several host cellular proteins have been shown to interact with IN to facilitate the integration process: e.g., the host factor, human chromatin-associated protein LEDGF, tightly binds HIV IN and directs the HIV pre-integration complex towards highly expressed genes for integration.

Human foamy virus (HFV), an agent harmless to humans, has an integrase similar to HIV IN and is therefore a model of HIV IN function; a 2010 crystal structure of the HFV integrase assembled on viral DNA ends has been determined.

Function and mechanism
Integration occurs following production of the double-stranded linear viral DNA by the viral RNA/DNA-dependent DNA polymerase reverse transcriptase.

The main function of IN is to insert the viral DNA into the host chromosomal DNA, an essential step for HIV replication. Integration is a "point of no return" for the cell, which becomes a permanent carrier of the viral genome (provirus). Integration is in part responsible for the persistence of retroviral infections. After integration, the viral gene expression and particle production may take place immediately or at some point in the future, the timing depends on the activity of the chromosomal locus hosting the provirus.

Retroviral INs catalyzes two reactions:

 * 3'-processing, in which two or three nucleotides are removed from one or both 3' ends of the viral DNA to expose an invariant CA dinucleotide.
 * the strand transfer reaction, in which the processed 3' ends of the viral DNA are covalently ligated to host chromosomal DNA.

Both reactions are catalyzed in the same active site, and involve transesterification without involving a covalent protein-DNA intermediate (in contrast to Ser/Tyr recombinase-catalyzed reactions.

In HIV

HIV integrase is a 32kDa viral protein consisting of three domains- N-terminus, catalytic core domain, and C-terminus, which each have distinct properties and functions contributing to the efficacy of HIV integrase.

The N-terminus is composed of 50 amino acid residues which contain a conserved histidine, histidine, cytosine, cytosine sequence which chelates zinc ions, furthermore enhancing the enzymatic activity of the catalytic core domain. As metal chelation is vital in integrase efficacy, it is a target for the development of retroviral therapies.

The catalytic core domain, like the N-terminus, contains highly conserved amino acid residues -Asp64, Asp116, Glu152- as the conserved DDE (Asp-Asp-Glu) motif contributes to the endonuclease and polynucleotide transferase functions of integrase. Mutations in these regions inactivates integrase and prevents genome integration.

The C-terminus domain binds to host DNA non-specifically and stabilizes the integration complex.

Integration mechanism
Following synthesis of HIV's doubled stranded DNA genome, integrase binds to the long tandem repeats flanking the genome on both ends. Using its endonucleolytic activity, integrase cleaves a di or trinucleotide from both 3' ends of the genome in a processing known as 3'-processing. The specificity of cleavage is improved through the use of cofactors such as Mn2+ and Mg2+ which interact with the DDE motif of the catalytic core domain, acting as cofactors to integrase function.

The newly generated 3'OH groups disrupt the host DNA's phosphodiester linkages through SN2-type nucleophilic attack. The 3' ends are covalently linked to the target DNA. The 5' over hangs of the viral genome are then cleaved using host repair enzymes, those same enzymes are believed to be responsible for the integration of the 5' end into the host genome forming the provirus.

Antiretroviral therapy
In November 2005, data from a phase 2 study of an investigational HIV integrase inhibitor, MK-0518, demonstrated that the compound has potent antiviral activity. On October 12, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (U.S.) approved the integrase inhibitor Raltegravir (MK-0518, brand name Isentress). The second integrase inhibitor, elvitegravir, was approved in the U.S. in August 2012.

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

title: Integrase


text:
Mercia

Mercia (, Miercna rīċe, "kingdom of the border people"; Merciorum regnum) was one of the three main Anglic kingdoms founded after Sub-Roman Britain was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlands of England.

The royal court moved around the kingdom without a fixed capital city. Early in its existence Repton seems to have been the location of an important royal estate. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was from Repton in 873–874 that the Great Heathen Army deposed the King of Mercia. Slightly earlier, King Offa seems to have favoured Tamworth. It was there where he was crowned and spent many a Christmas.

For 300 years (between 600 and 900), known as Mercian Supremacy or the "Golden Age of Mercia", having annexed or gained submissions from five of the other six kingdoms of the Heptarchy (East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex), Mercia dominated England south of the Humber estuary. During King Offa's reign, a dyke was created as the boundary between Mercia and the Welsh kingdoms. Nicholas Brooks noted that "the Mercians stand out as by far the most successful of the various early Anglo-Saxon peoples until the later ninth century", and some historians, such as Sir Frank Stenton, believe the unification of England south of the Humber estuary was achieved during Offa's reign.

King Peada converted to Christianity around 656. The Diocese of Mercia was founded in this year, with the first bishop (Diuma) based at Repton. The religion was firmly established in the kingdom by the late 7th century. After 13 years at Repton, 669 AD, Saint Chad (the fifth bishop) moved the bishopric to Lichfield and, in 691 AD, the Diocese of Mercia became the Diocese of Lichfield. There has been a diocese based in the city ever since. For a brief period between 787 and 799 or 803 the diocese was an archbishopric. The current bishop, Michael Ipgrave, is the 99th since the diocese was established.

At the end of the 9th century, following the invasions of the Vikings and their Great Heathen Army, Danelaw absorbed much of the former Mercian territory. Danelaw at its height included London, all of East Anglia and most of the North of England.

The final Mercian king, Ceolwulf II, died in 879 with the kingdom appearing to have lost its political independence. Initially, it was ruled by a lord or ealdorman under the overlordship of Alfred the Great, who styled himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The kingdom had a brief period of independence in the mid-10th century and in 1016, by which time it was viewed as a province with temporary independence. Wessex conquered and united all the kingdoms into the Kingdom of England. The kingdom became an earldom until 1071.

Early history

Mercia's exact evolution at the start of the Anglo-Saxon era remains more obscure than that of Northumbria, Kent, or even Wessex. Mercia developed an effective political structure and was Christianised later than the other kingdoms. Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the 6th century. The name "Mercia" is Mercian Old English for "boundary folk" (see Welsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However, Peter Hunter Blair argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier between Northumbria and the inhabitants of the Trent river valley.

Although its earliest boundaries remain obscure, a general agreement persists that the territory that was called "the first of the Mercians" in the Tribal Hidage covered much of south Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and northern Warwickshire.

The earliest person named in any records as a king of Mercia is Creoda, said to have been the great-grandson of Icel. Coming to power around 584, he built a fortress at Tamworth which became the seat of Mercia's kings. His son Pybba succeeded him in 593. Cearl, a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage to Edwin, king of Deira, whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince.

The Mercian kings were the only Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy ruling house known to claim a direct family link with a pre-migration Continental Germanic monarchy.

Penda and the Mercian Supremacy

The next Mercian king, Penda, ruled from about 626 or 633 until 655. Some of what is known about Penda comes from the hostile account of Bede, who disliked him – both as an enemy to Bede's own Northumbria and as a pagan. However, Bede admits that Penda freely allowed Christian missionaries from Lindisfarne into Mercia and did not restrain them from preaching. In 633 Penda and his ally Cadwallon of Gwynedd defeated and killed Edwin, who had become not only ruler of the newly unified Northumbria, but bretwalda, or high king, over the southern kingdoms. When another Northumbrian king, Oswald, arose and again claimed overlordship of the south, he also suffered defeat and death at the hands of Penda and his allies – in 642 at the Battle of Maserfield. In 655, after a period of confusion in Northumbria, Penda brought 30 sub-kings to fight the new Northumbrian king Oswiu at the Battle of Winwaed, in which Penda in turn lost the battle and his life.

The battle led to a temporary collapse of Mercian power. Penda's son Peada, who had converted to Christianity at Repton in 653, succeeded his father as king of Mercia; Oswiu set up Peada as an under-king; but in the spring of 656 he was murdered and Oswiu assumed direct control of the whole of Mercia. A Mercian revolt in 658 threw off Northumbrian domination and resulted in the appearance of another son of Penda, Wulfhere, who ruled Mercia as an independent kingdom (though he apparently continued to render tribute to Northumbria for a while) until his death in 675. Wulfhere initially succeeded in restoring the power of Mercia, but the end of his reign saw a serious defeat by Northumbria. The next king, Æthelred, defeated Northumbria in the Battle of the Trent in 679, settling once and for all the long-disputed control of the former kingdom of Lindsey. Æthelred was succeeded by Cœnred, son of Wulfhere; both these kings became better known for their religious activities than anything else, but the king who succeeded them in 709, Ceolred, is said in a letter of Saint Boniface to have been a dissolute youth who died insane. So ended the rule of the direct descendants of Penda.

At some point before the accession of Æthelbald in 716 the Mercians conquered the region around Wroxeter, known to the Welsh as Pengwern or as "The Paradise of Powys". Elegies written in the persona of its dispossessed rulers record the sorrow at this loss.

The next important king of Mercia, Æthelbald, reigned from 716 to 757. For the first few years of his reign he had to face two strong rival kings, Wihtred of Kent and Ine of Wessex. But when Wihtred died in 725, and Ine abdicated in 726 to become a monk in Rome, Æthelbald was free to establish Mercia's hegemony over the rest of the Anglo-Saxons south of the Humber. Æthelbald suffered a setback in 752, when the West Saxons under Cuthred defeated him, but he seems to have restored his supremacy over Wessex by 757.

In July 2009, the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was discovered by Terry Herbert in a field at Hammerwich, near Brownhills and close to Lichfield in Staffordshire. Lichfield functioned as the religious centre of Mercia. The artefacts have tentatively been dated by Svante Fischer and Jean Soulat to around AD 600–800. Whether the hoard was deposited by Anglo-Saxon pagans or Christians remains unclear, as does the purpose of the deposit.

Reign of Offa and rise of Wessex
After the murder of Æthelbald by one of his bodyguards in 757, a civil war broke out which concluded with the victory of Offa, a descendant of Pybba. Offa (reigned 757 to 796) had to build anew the hegemony which his predecessor had exercised over the southern English, and he did this so successfully that he became the greatest king Mercia had ever known. Not only did he win battles and dominate Southern England, but also he took an active hand in administering the affairs of his kingdom, founding market towns and overseeing the first major issues of gold coins in Britain; he assumed a role in the administration of the Catholic Church in England (sponsoring the short-lived archbishopric of Lichfield, 787 to 799), and even negotiated with Charlemagne as an equal. Offa is credited with the construction of Offa's Dyke, which marked the border between Wales and Mercia.

Offa exerted himself to ensure that his son Ecgfrith of Mercia would succeed him, but after Offa's death in July 796 Ecgfrith survived for only five months, and the kingdom passed to a distant relative named Coenwulf in December 796. In 821 Coenwulf's brother Ceolwulf succeeded to the Mercian kingship; he demonstrated his military prowess by his attack on and destruction of the fortress of Deganwy in Gwynedd. The power of the West Saxons under Egbert (King of Wessex from 802 to 839) grew during this period, however, and in 825 Egbert defeated the Mercian king Beornwulf (who had overthrown Ceolwulf in 823) at Ellendun.

The Battle of Ellendun proved decisive. At this point, Mercia lost control of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and possibly also Essex. Beornwulf was slain while suppressing a revolt amongst the East Angles, and his successor, a former ealdorman named Ludeca (reigned 826–827), met the same fate. Another ealdorman, Wiglaf, subsequently ruled for less than two years before Egbert of Wessex drove him out of Mercia. In 830 Wiglaf regained independence for Mercia, but by this time Wessex had clearly become the dominant power in England. Circa 840 Beorhtwulf succeeded Wiglaf.

Arrival of the Danes

In 852, Burgred came to the throne, and with Ethelwulf of Wessex subjugated North Wales. In 868 Danish invaders occupied Nottingham. The Danes drove Burgred from his kingdom in 874 and Ceolwulf II took his place. In 877 the Danes seized the eastern part of Mercia, which became part of the Danelaw. Ceolwulf, the last king of Mercia, left with the western half, reigned until 879. From about 883 until his death in 911 Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, ruled Mercia under the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred changed his title from 'king of the West Saxons' to 'king of the Anglo-Saxons' to reflect the acceptance of his overlordship of all southern England not under Danish rule. All coins struck in Mercia after the disappearance of Ceolwulf in c. 879 were in the name of the West Saxon king. Æthelred had married Æthelflæd (c. 870 – 12 June 918), daughter of Alfred the Great of Wessex ((r. 871 – 899)), and she assumed power when her husband became ill at some time in the last ten years of his life.

After Æthelred's death in 911 Æthelflæd ruled as "Lady of the Mercians", but Alfred's successor as King of the Anglo-Saxons, Edward the Elder ((r. 899 – 924)), took control of London and Oxford, which Alfred had placed under Æthelred's control. Æthelflæd and her brother continued Alfred's policy of building fortified burhs, and by 918 they had conquered the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and Danish Mercia.

Loss of independence
When Æthelflæd died in 918, Ælfwynn, her daughter by Æthelred, succeeded as "Second Lady of the Mercians", but within six months Edward had deprived her of all authority in Mercia and taken her to Wessex. Edward was succeeded as king of the Anglo-Saxons by his eldest son Æthelstan ((r. 924 – 939)), who had been brought up in Mercia, and he was immediately accepted as king, but not in Wessex until the following year. In 927 he conquered Northumbria and thus became the first king of all England. Mercia briefly regained a political existence separate from Wessex in 955–959, when Edgar became king of Mercia, and again in 1016, when Cnut and Edmund Ironside divided the English kingdom between themselves, with Cnut taking Mercia. Mercia maintained its separate identity as an earldom until the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Mercian Old English
The name 'Mercia' is a Latinisation of an Old English word derived from the Mercian Old English, Merce, meaning "borderland". The dialect thrived between the 8th and 13th centuries and was referred to by John Trevisa, writing in 1387:

"For men of the est with men of the west, as it were undir the same partie of hevene, acordeth more in sownynge of speche than men of the north with men of the south, therfore it is that Mercii, that beeth men of myddel Engelond, as it were parteners of the endes, understondeth better the side langages, northerne and southerne, than northerne and southerne understondeth either other..."

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect of Old English and introduced various Mercian terms into his legendarium – especially in relation to the Kingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as the Mark (a name cognate with Mercia). The Mercian dialect is the basis of Tolkien's language of Rohan, and a number of its kings are given the same names as monarchs who appear in the Mercian royal genealogy, e.g., Fréawine, Fréaláf and Éomer (see List of kings of the Angles).

Mercian religion
The first kings of Mercia were pagans, and they resisted the encroachment of Christianity longer than other kingdoms in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.

Mercian rulers remained resolutely pagan until the reign of Peada in 656, although this did not prevent them joining coalitions with Christian Welsh rulers to resist Northumbria. The first appearance of Christianity in Mercia, however, had come at least thirty years earlier, following the Battle of Cirencester of 628, when Penda incorporated the formerly West Saxon territories of Hwicce into his kingdom.

The conversion of Mercia to Christianity occurred in the latter part of the 7th century, and by the time of Penda's defeat and death, Mercia was largely surrounded by Christian states. Diuma, an Irish monk and one of Oswiu's missionaries, was subsequently ordained a bishop – the first to operate in Mercia. Christianity finally gained a foothold in Mercia when Oswiu supported Peada as sub-king of the Middle Angles, requiring him to marry Oswiu's daughter, Alchflaed, and to accept her religion.

Decisive steps to Christianise Mercia were taken by Chad (Latinised by Bede as Ceadda), the fifth bishop to operate in Mercia. This controversial figure was given land by King Wulfhere to build a monastery at Lichfield. Evidence suggests that the Lichfield Gospels were made in Lichfield around 730. As in other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the many small monasteries established by the Mercian kings allowed the political/military and ecclesiastical leadership to consolidate their unity through bonds of kinship.

Subdivisions of Mercia

For knowledge of the internal composition of the Kingdom of Mercia, we must rely on a document of uncertain age (possibly late 7th century), known as the Tribal Hidage – an assessment of the extent (but not the location) of land owned (reckoned in hides), and therefore the military obligations and perhaps taxes due, by each of the Mercian tribes and subject kingdoms by name. This hidage exists in several manuscript versions, some as late as the 14th century. It lists a number of peoples, such as the Hwicce, who have now vanished, except for reminders in various placenames. The major subdivisions of Mercia were as follows:

 * South Mercians
 * The Mercians dwelling south of the River Trent. Folk groups within included the Tomsæte around Tamworth and the Pencersæte around Penkridge (roughly corresponding to southern Staffordshire and northern Warwickshire).

 * North Mercians
 * The Mercians dwelling north of the River Trent (roughly corresponding to eastern Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire).

 * Outer Mercia
 * An early phase of Mercian expansion, possibly 6th century (roughly corresponding to southern Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire).

 * Lindsey
 * Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed with Northumbria in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control (roughly corresponding to the historic riding of Lindsey in Lincolnshire).

 * Middle Angles
 * A collection of many smaller folk groups under Mercian control from the 7th century, including the Spaldingas around Spalding, the Bilmingas and Wideringas near Stamford, the North Gyrwe and South Gyrwe near Peterborough, the West Wixna, East Wixna, West Wille and East Wille near Ely, the Sweordora, Hurstingas and Gifle near Bedford, the Hicce around Hitchin, the Cilternsæte in the Chilterns and the Feppingas near Thame (roughly corresponding to Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and southern Oxfordshire).

 * Hwicce
 * Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed with Wessex in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control. Smaller folk groups within included the Stoppingas around Warwick and the Arosæte near Droitwich (roughly corresponding to Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and southern Warwickshire).

 * Magonsæte
 * A people of the Welsh border, also known as the Westerna, under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included the Temersæte near Hereford and the Hahlsæte near Ludlow (roughly corresponding to Herefordshire and southern Shropshire).

 * Wreocansæte
 * A people of the Welsh border under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included the Rhiwsæte near Wroxeter and the Meresæte near Chester (roughly corresponding to northern Shropshire, Flintshire and Cheshire).

 * Pecsæte
 * An isolated folk group of the Peak District, under Mercian control from the 7th century (roughly corresponding to northern Derbyshire).

 * Land Between Ribble and Mersey
 * A disorganised region under Mercian control from the 7th century (roughly corresponding to Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Lancashire south of the River Ribble). It was the most northern extent of the kingdom, and at certain times was claimed by Northumbria and Danelaw.

 * Middle Saxons
 * Taken over from Essex in the 8th century, including London (roughly corresponding to Greater London, Hertfordshire, and Surrey).

After Mercia was annexed by Wessex in the early 10th century, the West Saxon rulers divided it into shires modelled after their own system, cutting across traditional Mercian divisions. These shires survived mostly intact until 1974, and even today still largely follow their original boundaries.

Modern uses of the name Mercia
The term "midlands" is first recorded (as mydlonde-shiris) in 1475. John Bateman, writing in 1876 or 1883, referred to contemporary Cheshire and Staffordshire landholdings as being in Mercia. The most credible source for the idea of a contemporary Mercia is Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels. The first of these appeared in 1874 and Hardy himself considered it the origin of the conceit of a contemporary Wessex. Bram Stoker set his 1911 novel The Lair of the White Worm in a contemporary Mercia that may have been influenced by Hardy, whose secretary was a friend of Stoker's brother. Although 'Edwardian Mercia' never had the success of 'Victorian Wessex', it was an idea that appealed to the higher echelons of society. In 1908 Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of Birmingham University, wrote to his counterpart at Bristol, welcoming a new university worthy of "...the great Province of Wessex whose higher educational needs it will supply. It will be no rival, but colleague and co-worker with this university, whose province is Mercia...".

The British Army has made use of several regional identities in naming larger, amalgamated formations. After the Second World War, the infantry regiments of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire were organised in the Mercian Brigade (1948–1968). Today, "Mercia" appears in the titles of two regiments, the Mercian Regiment, founded in 2007, which recruits in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Worcestershire, and parts of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, and the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry, founded in 1992 as part of the Territorial Army. In 1967, the police forces of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire were combined into the West Mercia Constabulary, which changed its name to West Mercia Police in 2009.

Telephone directories across the Midlands include a large number of commercial and voluntary organisations using "Mercia" in their names, and in 2012 a new football league was formed called the Mercian Regional Football League.

Free Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, a commercial radio station, was originally launched in 1980 as Mercia Sound, later becoming Mercia FM, and then Mercia.

Symbolism and attributed heraldry

There is no authentic indigenous Mercian heraldic device, as heraldry did not develop in any recognizable form until the High Middle Ages.

The saltire as a symbol of Mercia may have been in use since the time of King Offa. By the 13th century, the saltire had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia. The arms are blazoned Azure, a saltire Or, meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The arms were subsequently used by the Abbey of St Albans, founded by King Offa of Mercia. With the dissolution of the Abbey and the incorporation of the borough of St Albans the device was used on the town's corporate seal and was officially recorded as the arms of the town at an heraldic visitation in 1634.

The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown from Tamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, to this day.

The flag also appears on street signs welcoming people to Tamworth, the "ancient capital of Mercia". It was also flown outside Birmingham Council House during 2009 while the Staffordshire Hoard was on display in the city before being taken to the British Museum in London. The cross has been incorporated into a number of coats of arms of Mercian towns, including Tamworth, Leek and Blaby. It was recognised as the Mercian flag by the Flag Institute in 2014.

The silver double-headed eagle surmounted by a golden three-pronged Saxon crown has been used by several units of the British Army as a heraldic device for Mercia since 1958, including the Mercian Regiment. It is derived from the attributed arms of Leofric, Earl of Mercia in the 11th century. It is worth noting, however, that Leofric is sometimes attributed a black, single-headed eagle instead.

The wyvern, a type of dragon, came to have a strong association with Mercia in the 19th century. The Midland Railway, which used a white (silver) wyvern sans legs (legless) as its crest, having inherited it from the Leicester and Swannington Railway, asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Kingdom of Mercia", and that it was "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester". The symbol appeared on numerous stations and other company buildings in the region, and was worn as a silver badge by all uniformed employees. However, in 1897 the Railway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia". It has been associated with Leicester since the time of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster and Leicester (c. 1278–1322), the most powerful lord in the Midlands, who used it as his personal crest, and was recorded in a heraldic visitation of the town in 1619.

In Bram Stoker's 1911 novel The Lair of the White Worm, explicitly set in Mercia (see above), the Mercian white wyvern sans legs of the Midland Railway was transformed into a monstrous beast, the eponymous worm of the title. The word "worm" is derived from Old English wyrm and originally referred to a dragon or serpent. "Wyvern" derives from Old Saxon wivere, also meaning serpent, and is etymologically related to viper.

The ultimate source for the symbolism of white dragons in England would appear to be Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictional work, The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), which recounts an incident in the life of Merlin where a red dragon is seen fighting a white dragon and prevailing. The red dragon was taken to represent the Welsh and their eventual victory over the Anglo-Saxon invaders, symbolised by the white dragon.

The philologist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has suggested that the Middle Kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, a story dominated by a dragon, is based on Mercia, the part of England where Tolkien grew up. This dragon, Chrysophylax, though mostly hostile, eventually helps Giles found a realm of his own, the Little Kingdom. Shippey states further that "the Mark", the land of the Riders of Rohan – all of whom have names in the Mercian dialect of Old English – was once the usual term for central England, and it would have been pronounced and written "marc" rather than the West Saxon "mearc" or the Latinized "Mercia".

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Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone (3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.

Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots. His films include the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); and the Once Upon a Time films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Duck, You Sucker! (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984).

Early life
Born on 3 January 1929 in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone (known as director Roberto Roberti or Leone Roberto Roberti) and silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi (Bice Valerian). During his schooldays, Leone was a classmate of his later musical collaborator Ennio Morricone in third grade. After watching his father work on film sets, Leone began his own career in the film industry at the age of 18 after dropping out of law studies at the university.

Working in Italian cinema, he began as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica during the production for the movie Bicycle Thieves in 1948. Leone began writing screenplays during the 1950s, primarily for the "sword and sandal" (or peplum) historical epics, popular at the time. He also worked as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome, notably Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959), financially backed by the American studios.

When director Mario Bonnard fell ill during the production of the 1959 Italian epic The Last Days of Pompeii (Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei), starring Steve Reeves, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film. As a result, when the time came to make his solo directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes (Il Colosso di Rodi, 1961), Leone was well-equipped to produce low-budget films that looked like larger-budget Hollywood movies.

Career
"Il cinema deve essere spettacolo, è questo che il pubblico vuole. E per me lo spettacolo più bello è quello del mito. Cinema must be spectacle, that's what the public wants. And for me the most beautiful spectacle is that of the myth."

1960s
In the mid-1960s, historical epics fell out of favor with audiences, but Leone had shifted his attention to a subgenre which came to be known as the "spaghetti Western", owing its origin to the American Western. His film A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964) was based upon Akira Kurosawa's Edo-era samurai adventure Yojimbo (1961). Leone's film elicited a legal challenge from the Japanese director, though Kurosawa's film was, in turn, probably based on the 1929 Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest. A Fistful of Dollars is also notable for establishing Clint Eastwood as a star. Until that time, Eastwood had been an American television actor with few credited film roles.

The look of A Fistful of Dollars was established by its Spanish locations, which presented a violent and morally complex vision of the American Old West. The film paid tribute to traditional American Western films, but significantly departed from them in storyline, plot, characterization, and mood. Leone gains credit for one great breakthrough in the Western genre still followed today; in traditional Western films, many heroes and villains looked alike as if they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine, with clearly drawn moral opposites, even down to the hero wearing a white hat and the villain wearing a black hat (except for the most successful of the "traditional western cowboys" – Hopalong Cassidy, who wore a black outfit upon a pale horse). Leone's characters were, in contrast, more "realistic" and complex: usually lone wolves in their behavior; they rarely shaved, looked dirty, and sweated profusely, with a strong suggestion of criminal behavior. The characters were also morally ambiguous by appearing generously compassionate, or nakedly and brutally self-serving, as the situation demanded. Relationships revolved around power and retributions were emotion-driven rather than conscience-driven. Some critics have noted the irony of an Italian director who could not speak English, and had never even visited the United States, let alone the American Old West, almost single-handedly redefining the typical vision of the American cowboy. According to Christopher Frayling's book Something to do with Death, Leone knew a great deal about the American Old West. It fascinated him as a child, which carried into his adulthood and his films.

Leone's next two films, For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966), completed what has come to be known as the Man with No Name trilogy (or the Dollars Trilogy), with each film being more financially successful and more technically accomplished than its predecessor. The films featured innovative music scores by Ennio Morricone, who worked closely with Leone in devising the themes. Leone had a personal way of shooting scenes with Morricone's music ongoing. In addition, Clint Eastwood stayed with the film series, joined later by Eli Wallach, Lee van Cleef, and Klaus Kinski.

Based on the success of the Man with No Name trilogy, Leone was invited to the United States in 1967 to direct Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) for Paramount Pictures. The film was shot mostly in Almería, Spain, and Cinecittà in Rome. It was also briefly shot in Monument Valley, Utah. The film starred Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Claudia Cardinale. Once Upon a Time in the West emerged as a long and violent dreamlike meditation upon the mythology of the American Old West, with many stylistic references to iconic Western films. Audience tension is maintained throughout this nearly three-hour film by concealing both the hero's identity and his unpredictable motivation until the final predictable shootout scene. Perhaps unsurpassed as a retribution drama, the film's script was written by Leone and his longtime friend and collaborator Sergio Donati, from a story by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, both of whom went on to have significant careers as directors. Before its release, it was ruthlessly edited by Paramount, which perhaps contributed to its low box-office results in the United States. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit in Europe, grossing nearly three times its $5 million budget among French audiences, and highly praised among North American film students. It has come to be regarded by many as Leone's best film.

1970s
After Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone directed Duck, You Sucker! (Giù la testa, 1971). Leone was intending merely to produce the film, but due to artistic differences with then-director Peter Bogdanovich, Leone was asked to direct the film, instead. Duck, You Sucker! is a Mexican Revolution action drama, starring James Coburn as an Irish revolutionary and Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit who is conned into becoming a revolutionary.

Leone continued to produce, and on occasion, step in to reshoot scenes, in other films. One of these films was My Name Is Nobody (1973) by Tonino Valerii, a comedy Western film that poked fun at the spaghetti Western genre. It starred Henry Fonda as an old gunslinger facing a final confrontation after the death of his brother. Terence Hill also starred in the film as the young stranger who helps Fonda leave the dying West with style.

Leone's other productions included A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe (1975, another Western comedy starring Terence Hill); The Cat (Il Gatto; 1977, starring Ugo Tognazzi), and A Dangerous Toy (Il Giocattolo; 1979, starring Nino Manfredi). Leone also produced three comedies by actor/director Carlo Verdone, which were Fun Is Beautiful (Un Sacco Bello, 1980), Bianco, rosso e Verdone (White, Red and Verdone – Verdone means "strong green" – a pun referring to the three colors of the Italian flag, the star and to director Verdone, 1981) and Troppo Forte (Great!, 1986). During this period, Leone also directed various award-winning TV commercials for European television.

In 1978, he was a member of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.

1980s
Leone turned down the offer to direct The Godfather, in favor of working on another gangster story he had conceived earlier. He devoted 10 years to this project, based on the novel The Hoods by former mobster Harry Grey, which focused on a quartet of New York City Jewish gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s who had been friends since childhood. The finished four-hour film, Once Upon a Time in America (1984), featured Robert De Niro and James Woods. It was a meditation on another aspect of popular American mythology, the role of greed and violence and their uneasy coexistence with the meaning of ethnicity and friendship. It received a raucous, record-breaking ovation of nearly 20 minutes at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival (reportedly heard by diners at restaurants across the street from the Palais), at a time in Cannes's history before marathon applause became a regular occurrence. Despite such a fawning reception, Warner Brothers felt it was too long. The studio drastically recut it down to two hours for the American market, abandoning its flashback structure for a linear narrative. This version suffered heavy criticism and flopped. The original version, released in the rest of the world, achieved somewhat better box office returns and a mixed critical response. When the original version of the film was released on home video in the US, it gained major critical acclaim, with some critics hailing the film as a magnum opus.

According to biographer Sir Christopher Frayling, Leone was deeply hurt by the studio-imposed editing and poor commercial reception of Once Upon a Time in America in North America. It was his last film.

In 1988, he was head of the jury at the 45th Venice International Film Festival.

Death and unrealized projects

Leone died on 30 April 1989 at his home in Rome of a heart attack at the age of 60. He was buried in the cemetery of Pratica di Mare.

A Place Only Mary Knows
A treatment for an "Americanized" Western was written by Leone, Luca Morsella, and Fabio Toncelli. It is speculated to have been Leone's last Western and was to have starred Mickey Rourke and Richard Gere as the two main leads. Set during the height of the American Civil War, the story focused on a Union drafter, Mike Kutcher from Georgia, whose job is to enroll men into the Union Army. The other is Richard Burns, a Southern shady businessman transplanted to the North after a successful heist with his ex-lover and partner, Mary. They try searching for the buried treasure left behind in an unmarked grave outside Atlanta in "A Place Only Mary Knows". Joined by a freed slave and an Italian immigrant, Francesco, who arrives via the Port of Boston, they try desperately to avoid the battles of the ongoing war between the states.

The film was to have been a homage to classic writers from literature such as Edgar Lee Masters (Spoon River Anthology), Ambrose Bierce (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge), Mark Twain (The Private History of a Campaign that Failed), Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage), and Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), whose novel he had wanted to film a remake of. Although the written treatment never got turned into a full screenplay, Leone's son Andrea had it published in a June 2004 issue of the Italian cinema magazine Ciak. It is not certain if the treatment's publication will ever lead to a full production in America or Italy.

Leningrad: The 900 Days
While finishing work on Once Upon a Time in America in 1982, Leone was impressed with Harrison Salisbury's non-fiction book The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad, and he planned on adapting the book as a war epic. Although no formal script had been completed or leaked, Leone came up with the opening scene and basic plot. According to the documentary Once Upon a Time, Sergio Leone, the film opened in medias res as the camera goes from focusing on a Soviet hiding from the Nazis' artillery fire to panning hundreds of feet away to show the German Army Panzer divisions approaching the walls of the city. The plot was to focus on an American photographer on assignment (whom Leone wanted to be played by Robert De Niro) becoming trapped in Leningrad as the German Luftwaffe begin to bombard the city. Throughout the course of the film, he becomes romantically involved with a Soviet woman, whom he later impregnates, as they attempt to survive the prolonged siege and the secret police, because relationships with foreigners are forbidden. According to Leone, "In the end, the cameraman dies on the day of the liberation of the city, when he is currently filming the surrender of the Germans. And the girl is aware of his death by chance seeing a movie news: the camera sees it explode under a shell".

By 1989, Leone set the film's budget at $100 million, and had secured half of that amount in financing from independent backers from the Soviet Union. He had convinced Ennio Morricone to compose the film score, and Tonino Delli Colli was tapped to be the cinematographer. Shooting was scheduled to begin sometime in 1990. The project was canceled when Leone died two days before he was to officially sign on for the film. Alex Cox offered to replace Leone as director, but was unable to secure the remaining $50 million required to produce the film.

Don Quixote
According to Frayling's biography of Leone, Something to Do with Death, he envisioned a contemporary adaptation of Cervantes' 17th-century novel Don Quixote with Clint Eastwood in the title role and Eli Wallach as Sancho Panza. He had discussed doing the project throughout the 1960s–1970s, and he started seriously considering it toward the end of his life.

Colt
In 1987, Sergio Leone contacted his old collaborators Sergio Donati and Fulvio Morsella, pitching an idea for a TV miniseries about a Colt revolver that passed from owner to owner throughout the Old West, similar to Anthony Mann's film Winchester '73 (1950). Donati indicated that Leone was interested in a more revisionist take on the genre than his earlier works, wanting to show the Old West "like it really was". Leone abandoned this project in favor of A Place Only Mary Knows, though Donati wrote a treatment and the project remained in gestation for years after Leone's death. An adaptation based on Leone's subject is currently in production. Appointed director is Italian film-maker Stefano Sollima.

Other
Leone was also an avid fan of Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind and the 1939 film adaptation. His relatives and close friends stated that he talked about filming a remake that was closer to the original novel, but it never advanced beyond discussions to any serious form of production.

In 1969, Sergio Leone was contracted to direct 99 and 44/100% Dead with Marcello Mastroianni and Charles Bronson starring. He was replaced as director by John Frankenheimer, while Mastroianni was recast with Richard Harris.

Leone was a fan of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel Journey to the End of the Night and was considering a film adaptation in the late 1960s; he incorporated elements of the story into The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Duck, You Sucker! but his idea of adapting the novel itself never got past the planning stages.

Leone was an early choice to direct Flash Gordon (1980). Leone was a fan of the original Alex Raymond comic strip, but turned down the film because the script did not resemble Raymond's work.

Awards and honours

 * David di Donatello
 * 1972: Duck, You Sucker! (Won)
 * British Academy of Film and Television Arts – Award for Best Direction
 * 1984: Once Upon a Time in America (Nomination)
 * Golden Globe Award for Best Director
 * 1984: Once Upon a Time in America (Nomination)

He received the America Award from the Italy–USA Foundation posthumously in 2014.

In 2019, Poste Italiane issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Leone.

Selected filmography
Critical reception to Leone's directorial features.

title: Sergio Leone


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Otto Preminger

Otto Ludwig Preminger (, ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as Laura (1944) and Fallen Angel (1945), while in the 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction (The Man with the Golden Arm, 1955), rape (Anatomy of a Murder, 1959) and homosexuality (Advise & Consent, 1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. He also had several acting roles.

Early life
Preminger was born in 1905 in Wischnitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary (present-day Vyzhnytsia, Ukraine), into a Jewish family. His parents were Josefa (née Fraenkel) and Markus Preminger. The couple provided a stable home life for Preminger and his younger brother Ingwald, known as "Ingo", later the producer of the original film version of M*A*S*H (1970).

After the assassination in 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the Great War, Russia entered the war on the Serbian side. Bukovina was invaded by the Russian Army and the Preminger family fled. His father secured a position as public prosecutor in Graz, capital of Styria. When the Preminger family relocated, Otto was nearly nine, and was enrolled in a school where instruction in Catholicism was mandatory and Jewish history and religion had no place on the syllabus. Ingo, not yet four, remained at home.

After a year in Graz, Markus Preminger claims he was summoned to Vienna and offered an eminent position (roughly equivalent to that of the United States Attorney General), but was told that the position would be his only if he converted to Catholicism, which he refused to do. The next year, he relocated his family to Vienna, where Otto later claimed to have been born.

In 1928, Preminger earned a law degree from the University of Vienna.

Theater
Preminger's first theatrical ambition was to become an actor. In his early teens, he was able to recite from memory many of the great monologues from the international classic repertory, and, never shy, he demanded an audience. Preminger's most successful performance in the National Library rotunda was Mark Antony's funeral oration from Julius Caesar. As he read, watched, and after a fashion began to produce plays, he began to miss more and more classes in school.

When the war came to an end, Markus formed his own law practice. He instilled in both his sons a sense of fair play as well as respect for those with opposing viewpoints. As his father's practice continued to thrive in postwar Vienna, Otto began seriously contemplating a career in the theater. In 1923, when Preminger was 17, his soon-to-be mentor, Max Reinhardt, the renowned Viennese-born director, announced plans to establish a theatrical company in Vienna. Reinhardt's announcement was seen as a call of destiny to Preminger. He began writing to Reinhardt weekly, requesting an audition. After a few months, Preminger, frustrated, gave up, and stopped his daily visit to the post office to check for a response. Unbeknownst to him, a letter was waiting with a date for an audition which Preminger had already missed by two days.

He juggled a commitment to university (attendance of which his parents insisted upon) and to his new position as a Reinhardt apprentice. The two developed a mentor-and-protege relationship, becoming both a confidant and teacher. When the theater opened, on 1 April 1924, Preminger appeared as a furniture mover in Reinhardt's comedic staging of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters. His next appearance came the next month with William Dieterle (who would later move to Hollywood) in The Merchant of Venice. Other notable alumni with whom Preminger would work the same year were Mady Christians, who died of a stroke after having been blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and Nora Gregor, who was to star in Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu (1939).

The following summer, a frustrated Preminger was no longer content to occupy the place of a subordinate and he decided to leave the Reinhardt fold. His status as a Reinhardt muse gave him an edge over much of his competition when it came to joining German-speaking theater. His first theater assignments as a director in Aussig were plays ranging from the sexually provocative Wedekind Lulu plays, to the Berlin-tried, melodramatic, Sergei Tretyakov play Roar China!.

In 1930, a wealthy industrialist from Graz approached Otto with an offer to direct a film called Die große Liebe (The Great Love). Preminger did not have the same passion for the medium as he had for theater. He accepted the assignment nonetheless. The film premiered at the Emperor Theater in Vienna on 21 December 1931, to strong reviews and business. From 1931 to 1935, he directed twenty-six shows.

On 3 August 1931, he wed a Hungarian woman, Marion Mill. The couple married only thirty minutes after her divorce from her first husband had been finalized.

Hollywood
In April 1935, as Preminger was rehearsing a boulevard farce, The King with an Umbrella, he received a summons from American film producer Joseph Schenck to a five o'clock meeting at the Imperial Hotel. Schenck and partner, Darryl F. Zanuck, co-founders of Twentieth Century-Fox, were on the lookout for new talent. Within a half-hour of meeting Schenck, Preminger accepted an invitation to work for Fox in Los Angeles.

Preminger's first assignment was to direct a vehicle for Lawrence Tibbett. Preminger worked efficiently, completing the film well within the budget and well before the scheduled shooting deadline. The film opened to tepid notices in November 1936. Zanuck gave Preminger the task of directing another B-picture screwball comedy film Danger – Love at Work. Simone Simon was cast but later fired by Zanuck and replaced with Ann Sothern. The premise was that eight members of an eccentric, wealthy family have inherited their grandfather's land, and the protagonist is a lawyer tasked with persuading the family to hand the land over to a corporation that believes there is oil on the property. One of the female members of the wealthy family provides the romantic interest.

In November 1937, Zanuck's perennial emissary Gregory Ratoff brought Preminger the news that Zanuck had selected him to direct Kidnapped, which was to be the most expensive feature to date for Twentieth Century-Fox. Zanuck himself had adapted the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. After reading Zanuck's script, Preminger knew he was in trouble since he would be a foreign director directing in a foreign setting. During the shooting of Kidnapped, while screening footage of the film with Zanuck, the studio head accused Preminger of making changes in a scene; in particular, one with child actor Freddie Bartholomew and a dog. Preminger, composed at first, explained, claiming he shot the scene exactly as written.

Zanuck insisted that he knew his own script. The confrontation escalated and ended with Preminger exiting the office and slamming the door. Days later, the lock to Preminger's office was changed, and his name was removed from the door. Later, a representative of Zanuck offered Preminger a buyout deal which he rejected: Preminger wanted to be paid for the remaining eleven months of his two-year contract. He searched for work at other studios, but received no offers – only two years after his arrival in Hollywood, he was unemployed in the film industry. He returned to New York, and began to re-focus on the stage. Success came quickly on Broadway for Preminger, with long-running productions, including Outward Bound with Laurette Taylor and Vincent Price, My Dear Children with John and Elaine Barrymore and Margin for Error, in which Preminger played a shiny-domed villainous Nazi. Preminger was offered a teaching position at the Yale School of Drama and began commuting twice a week to Connecticut to lecture on directing and acting.

20th Century Fox purchased the screen rights of Margin for Error for approximately $25,000 in the spring of 1941, and William Goetz, who was running Fox in Zanuck's absence, was soon impressed with Preminger and offered him a new seven-year contract calling on his services as both a director and actor. Preminger took full measure of the temporary studio czar, and accepted. He completed production on schedule, although with a slightly increased budget, by November 1942. Critics were dismissive upon the film's release the following February, noting the bad timing of the release, coinciding with the war. Before his next assignment with Fox, Preminger was asked by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Nazi once more, this time in a Bob Hope comedy, They Got Me Covered.

Preminger hoped to find possible properties he could develop before Zanuck's return, one of which was Vera Caspary's suspense novel Laura. Before production would begin on Laura, Preminger was given the green light to produce and direct Army Wives, another B-picture morale booster for a country at war. Its focus was on showing the sacrifices made by women as they send their husbands off to the front.

Laura
Zanuck returned from the armed services with his grudge against Preminger intact. Preminger was not granted permission to direct Laura, only to serve as producer. Rouben Mamoulian was selected to direct. Mamoulian began ignoring Preminger and started to rewrite the script. Although Preminger had no complaints about the casting of the relatively unknown Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, he balked at their choice for the film's villain, Waldo, actor Laird Cregar. Preminger explained to Zanuck that audiences would immediately identify Cregar as a villain, especially after Cregar's role as Jack the Ripper in The Lodger.

Preminger wanted stage actor Clifton Webb to play Waldo and persuaded his boss to give Webb a screen test. Webb was cast and Mamoulian was fired for creative differences, which also included Preminger wanting Dana Andrews to be a more classy detective instead of a gumshoe detective. Laura started filming on 27 April 1944, with a projected budget of $849,000. After Preminger took over, the film continued shooting well into late June. When released, the film was an instant hit with audiences and critics alike, earning Preminger his first Academy Award nomination for direction.

Peak years
Preminger expected acclaim for Laura would promote him to work on better pictures, but his professional fate was in the hands of Zanuck, who had Preminger take over for the ailing Ernst Lubitsch on A Royal Scandal, a remake of Lubitsch's own silent Forbidden Paradise (1924), starring Pola Negri as Catherine the Great. Before he suffered a heart attack, Lubitsch had spent months in preparation, and had already cast the film. Preminger cast Tallulah Bankhead, whom he had known since 1938 when he was directing on Broadway.

Bankhead learned that Preminger's family would be barred from emigrating to the U.S. due to immigration quotas, and she asked her father (who was Speaker of the House) to intervene to save them from the Nazis. He did, which earned Bankhead Preminger's loyalty. Thus when Lubitsch wanted to make the film into a vehicle for Greta Garbo, Preminger, although he would have been eager to direct the film that brought Garbo out of retirement, refused to betray Bankhead. They became good friends and got along well during filming. The film received generally lackluster reviews as the Ruritanian romance genre had become outdated, and it failed to earn back its cost of production.

Fallen Angel (1945) was exactly what Preminger had been anticipating. In Fallen Angel, a con man and womanizer ends up by chance in a small California town, where he romances a sultry waitress and a well-to-do spinster. When the waitress is found killed, the drifter, played by Dana Andrews, becomes the prime suspect. Linda Darnell played the doomed waitress. Centennial Summer (1946), Preminger's next film, would be his first shot entirely in color. The reviews and box office draw were tepid when the film was released in July 1946, but by the end of that year Preminger had one of the most sumptuous contracts on the lot, earning $7,500 a week.

Forever Amber, based on Kathleen Winsor's internationally popular novel Forever Amber, published in 1944, was Zanuck's next investment in adaptation. Preminger had read the book and disliked it immensely. Preminger had another bestseller aimed at a female audience in mind, Daisy Kenyon. Zanuck pledged that if Preminger did Forever Amber first, he could make Daisy Kenyon afterwards. Forever Amber had already been shooting for nearly six weeks when Preminger replaced director John Stahl. Zanuck had already spent nearly $2 million on the production.

Only after turning to his revised script did Preminger learn Zanuck had recast star Peggy Cummins with Linda Darnell. Zanuck was convinced that whoever played Amber would become a big star, and he wanted that woman to be one of the studio's own. Zanuck had bought the book because he believed its scandalous reputation promised big box-office returns, and he was not surprised when the Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the film for glamorizing a promiscuous heroine who has a child out of wedlock; they successfully lobbied 20th Century Fox to make changes to the film. Forever Amber opened to big business in October 1947 and garnered decent reviews. Preminger called the film "the most expensive picture I ever made and it was also the worst".

Preminger maintained a busy schedule, working with writers on scripts for two planned projects, Daisy Kenyon (1947) and The Dark Wood; the latter was not produced. Joan Crawford starred in Daisy Kenyon alongside Dana Andrews, Ruth Warrick and Henry Fonda. Variety proclaimed the film "high powered melodrama surefire for the femme market". After the modest success of Daisy Kenyon, Preminger saw That Lady in Ermine as a further opportunity. Betty Grable was cast opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The film had previously been another Lubitsch project, but after Lubitsch's sudden death in November 1947, Preminger took over. His next film was a period piece based on Lady Windermere's Fan. Over the spring and early summer of 1948 Preminger turned Oscar Wilde's play into The Fan (1949), which starred Madeleine Carroll; the film opened to poor notices.

Challenging taboos and censorship
Several of his films in this period dealt with controversial and taboo themes, thereby challenging both the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code of censorship and the Hollywood blacklist. The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the comedy The Moon Is Blue (1953) on the grounds of moral standards. The film was based on a Broadway play which had inspired mass protests for its use of the words "virgin" and "pregnant". Refusing to remove the offending words, Preminger had the film released without the Production Code Seal of Approval. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with heroin addiction.

Later, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), with its frank courtroom discussions of rape and sexual intercourse led to the censors objecting to the use of words such as "rape", "sperm", "sexual climax" and "penetration". Preminger made but one concession (substituting "violation" for "penetration") and the picture was released with MPAA approval, marking the beginning of the end of the Production Code. With Exodus (1960) Preminger struck a first major blow against the Hollywood blacklist by acknowledging banned screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. The film is an adaptation of the Leon Uris bestseller about the founding of the state of Israel. Preminger also acted in a few movies including the World War II Luft-Stalag Commandant, Oberst von Scherbach of the German POW camp Stalag 17 (1953), directed by Billy Wilder.

From the mid-1950s, most of Preminger's films used animated titles designed by Saul Bass, and many had jazz scores. At the New York City Opera, in October 1953, Preminger directed the American premiere (in English translation) of Gottfried von Einem's opera Der Prozeß, based on Franz Kafka's novel The Trial. Soprano Phyllis Curtin headed the cast. Preminger also adapted two operas for the screen during the decade. Carmen Jones (1954) is a reworking of the Bizet opera Carmen to a wartime African-American setting while Porgy and Bess (1959) is based on the George Gershwin opera. His two films of the early 1960s were Advise & Consent (1962), a political drama from the Allen Drury bestseller with a homosexual subtheme, and The Cardinal (1963), a drama set in the Vatican hierarchy for which Preminger received his second Best Director Academy Award nomination.

Later career
Beginning in 1965, Preminger made a string of films in which he attempted to make stories that were fresh and distinctive, but the films he made, including In Harm's Way (1965) and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), became both critical and financial flops. One exception was Such Good Friends (1971), which earned a Golden Globe nomination for its star Dyan Cannon.

Preminger made a guest appearance as "Mr. Freeze" on the Batman television series, succeeding George Sanders and preceding Eli Wallach in the role of the supervillain.

Preminger's Hurry Sundown (1967) is a lengthy drama set in the U.S. South and was partly intended to break cinematic racial and sexual taboos. However, the film was poorly received and ridiculed for a heavy-handed approach, and for the dubious casting of Michael Caine as an American Southerner. It was followed by several other films which were critical and commercial failures, including Skidoo (1968), a failed attempt at a hip sixties comedy (and Groucho Marx's last film), and Rosebud (1975), a terrorism thriller which was also widely ridiculed. Several publicized disputes with leading actors did further damage to Preminger's reputation. His last film, an adaptation of the Graham Greene espionage novel The Human Factor (1979), had financial problems and was barely released.

Directing style and personality
As noted above, both as a director and (later in his career) as the producer of his own films, Preminger repeatedly broke new ground, by challenging long-established norms and taboos in Hollywood films. He was also known for his efficiency as a filmmaker—for most of his career he routinely completed his films on time and on budget. He frequently favoured long takes, often filmed dialogue in two-shots, rather than intercutting, and preferred minimal cuts. John Ford was also known for similar techniques, filming as few takes as possible, and "cutting in the camera", and it is likely that Preminger preferred these methods for the same reasons as Ford, who had learned from hard experience that shooting as little footage as possible reduced costs, while also minimising the ability of studio executives to recut their films against their wishes.

However, despite his liberal social outlook, Preminger became notorious for his domineering and abrasive personality, his explosive temper, and his dictatorial manner on set, which earned him nicknames like "Otto the Terrible" and "Otto the Ogre"—although it has been speculated that (like his contemporary John Ford) Preminger's tyrannical persona and abusive behaviour were to some extent a calculated pose, intended to garner publicity, keep his cast and crew under his control, and keep interfering studio executives at bay.

Preminger evidently had relatively few conflicts with the major stars with whom he worked, although there were notable exceptions. Lana Turner (originally cast in the role that subsequently went to Lee Remick) quit Anatomy of a Murder a month before filming was due to start, over a dispute about her wardrobe, with Turner telling the press that she couldn't deal with Preminger's domineering personality, and renowned British actor Paul Scofield reportedly quit Saint Joan after he got into a heated argument with Preminger during the first cast read-through of the script.

Laurence Olivier, who played a police inspector in the psychological thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), shot in England, recalled in his autobiography Confessions of an Actor that he found Preminger a "bully". Adam West, who portrayed the lead in the 1960s Batman television series, echoed Olivier's opinion. He remembered Preminger as being rude and unpleasant, especially when he disregarded the typical thespian etiquette of subtly cooperating when being helped to his feet, in a scene by West and Burt Ward.

Preminger became notorious for his abusive and bullying behaviour towards his crews, and he was especially intolerant of less experienced actors—he reputedly completely memorised every line of each script before shooting began, and would fly into a rage at any actor who struggled to remember their lines. He is said to have grabbed one nervous young actor by the shoulders and screamed in his face "Relax! Relax!" Composer Elmer Bernstein, who scored The Man with the Golden Arm recalled, "He was a scary character. I thought he was going to throw me out of the office when I told him that what I had in mind was to do a jazz-based score. But he said that that was what I had been hired for, and that was what I should go away and do."

Linda Darnell was another famous target of Preminger's temper—he reportedly screamed at her almost every day for two months during the filming of Forever Amber. She came to loathe him, and the combination of the long hours of filming, heavy dieting and Preminger's constant harangues caused Darnell to collapse twice on set, and she was ordered to take ten days off by a doctor. During rehearsals for the Herman Wouk play "A Modern Primitive", Preminger screamed so violently at an actor who struggled to remember his lines that the man allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown, and one witness later commented, "I had never seen such terrifying rage in anyone," describing the director as having "veins standing out on his forehead" and "literally foaming at the mouth".

One of the most infamous examples of his mistreatment of inexperienced actors was Jean Seberg, whom he plucked from obscurity and directed in Saint Joan and Bonjour Tristesse. Seberg later commented: "With him, I became a nervous wreck, crying and jumping when the phone started ringing, incapable of walking calmly across a room." Preminger imposed an intense, constant and minute level of control over Seberg throughout their association, and her co-star Richard Widmark later characterised Preminger's behaviour towards her as "sadistic". Tom Tryon, the star of Preminger's 1963 feature The Cardinal, received similar treatment—Preminger would scream at him, zoom in on his shaking hands, and repeatedly fired and rehired him, with the result that Tryon was hospitalised with a body rash and peeling skin, due to nerves. Interviewed some 30 years later, Tryon admitted that he still hated talking about the experience, and his brother Bill Tryon told the same interviewer: "I'll never watch that movie again the rest of my life, knowing what Tom went through."

Preservation
The Academy Film Archive has preserved several of Otto Preminger's films, including The Man With the Golden Arm, The Moon is Blue, The Cardinal and Advise & Consent.

Personal life
Preminger and his wife Marion became increasingly estranged. He lived like a bachelor, as was the case when he met the burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee and began an open relationship with her.

Lee had already attempted to break into movie roles, but she was not taken seriously as anything more than a stripper. She appeared in B pictures in less-than-minor roles. Preminger's liaison with Lee produced a child, Erik. Lee rejected the idea of Preminger's helping to support the child and instead elicited a vow of silence from Preminger: he was not to reveal Erik's paternity to anyone, including Erik himself. Lee called the boy Erik Kirkland after her husband, Alexander Kirkland, from whom she was separated at the time. It was not until 1966, when Preminger was 60 years old and Erik was 22, that father and son finally met.

In May 1946, Marion asked for a divorce, after meeting a wealthy (and married) Swedish financier, Axel Wenner-Gren. The Premingers' divorce ended smoothly and speedily. Marion did not seek alimony, only personal belongings. Axel's wife, however, was unwilling to grant a divorce. Marion returned to Otto and resumed appearances as his wife, and nothing more. Preminger had begun dating Natalie Draper, a niece of Marion Davies.

From 1951 to 1960, Preminger was married to model Mary Gardner. However, while filming Carmen Jones (1954), Preminger began an affair with the film's star, Dorothy Dandridge, which lasted four years. During that period he advised her on career matters, including an offer made to Dandridge for the featured role of Tuptim in The King and I (1956). Preminger advised her to turn it down, as he believed it unworthy of her. She later regretted taking his advice.

In 1970, Preminger was a subject of ridicule in Tom Wolfe's essay Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's, where he was portrayed verbally dueling with Black Panther Field Marshal Donald Cox.

In 1971, he married Hope Bryce, a costume designer, who remained his spouse until his death. They had two children: twins Mark William and Victoria Elizabeth.

Death
Preminger died in his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1986, aged 80, from lung cancer. Some of Preminger's associates, including his son Erik, have claimed that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his final years, though Hope Bryce denied that Preminger was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease when interviewed by Foster Hirsch. He was survived by his wife, Hope, and three children: his son, Erik, and twins Mark William and Victoria Elizabeth. Preminger was cremated and his ashes are in a niche in the Azalea Room of the Velma B. Woolworth Memorial Chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Awards
Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. As the producer of the film, he received the nomination. He was twice nominated for Best Director: for Laura and for The Cardinal. He won the Bronze Berlin Bear award for the film Carmen Jones at the 5th Berlin International Film Festival.

title: Otto Preminger


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Don Siegel

Donald Siegel (October 26, 1912 – April 20, 1991) was an American film and television director and producer.

Siegel was described by The New York Times as "a director of tough, cynical and forthright action-adventure films whose taut plots centered on individualistic loners". He directed the science-fiction horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), as well as five films with Clint Eastwood, including the police thriller Dirty Harry (1971) and the prison drama Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He also directed John Wayne's final film, the Western The Shootist (1976).

Early life
Siegel was born in 1912 to a Jewish family in Chicago; his father was Samuel Siegel, a mandolin player. Siegel attended schools in New York and later graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge in England. For a short time, he studied at Beaux Arts in Paris, but left at age 20 and later went to Los Angeles.

Career
Siegel found work in the Warner Bros. film library after meeting producer Hal Wallis, and later rose to head of the montage department, where he directed thousands of montages, including the opening montage for Casablanca. In 1945, two shorts he directed, Star in the Night and Hitler Lives, won Academy Awards, which launched his career as a feature director.

Siegel directed whatever material came his way, often transcending the limitations of budget and script to produce interesting and adept works. He made the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), described by The Guardian in 2014 as a "fatalistic masterpiece" and "a touchstone for the sci-fi genre" which spawned three remakes. For television, he directed two episodes of The Twilight Zone, "Uncle Simon" (1963) and "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" (1964), and was the producer of The Legend of Jesse James (1965). He worked with Eli Wallach in The Lineup, Elvis Presley and Dolores del Río in Flaming Star (1960), with Steve McQueen in Hell Is for Heroes, and Lee Marvin in the influential The Killers (1964) before directing five of Eastwood's films that were commercially successful in addition to being well received by critics. These included the action films Coogan's Bluff and Dirty Harry, the Albert Maltz-scripted Western Two Mules for Sister Sara, the American Civil War melodrama The Beguiled, and the prison-break picture Escape from Alcatraz. He was a considerable influence on Eastwood's own career as a director, and Eastwood's film Unforgiven is dedicated "for Don and Sergio".

Siegel had a long collaboration with composer Lalo Schifrin, who scored five of his films: Coogan's Bluff, The Beguiled, Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, and Telefon. Schifrin composed and recorded what would have been his sixth score for Siegel on Jinxed! (1982), but it was rejected by the studio despite Siegel's objections. This conflict was one of several fights Siegel had on his last film.

Siegel was also important to the career of director Sam Peckinpah. In 1954, Peckinpah was hired as a dialogue coach for Riot in Cell Block 11. His job entailed acting as an assistant to the director, Siegel. The film was shot on location at Folsom Prison. Siegel's location work and his use of actual prisoners as extras in the film made a lasting impression on Peckinpah. He worked as a dialogue coach on four additional Siegel films: Private Hell 36 (1954), An Annapolis Story (1955), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Crime in the Streets (1956). Twenty-five years later, Peckinpah was all but banished from the industry due to his troubled film productions. Siegel gave the director a chance to return to filmmaking. He asked Peckinpah if he would be interested in directing 12 days of second unit on Siegel's Jinxed! film. Peckinpah immediately accepted, and his earnest collaboration with his longtime friend was noted within the industry. While Peckinpah's work was uncredited, it led to his hiring as the director of his final film The Osterman Weekend (1983).

Cameos
Siegel had a small role as a bartender in Eastwood's Play Misty for Me, and in Dirty Harry. In Philip Kaufman's 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a remake of Siegel's 1956 film, he appears as a taxi driver. In Charley Varrick starring Walter Matthau (a film slated for Eastwood, but ultimately turned down by the actor), he has a cameo as a ping-pong player. He also appears in the 1985 John Landis film Into the Night. Siegel also has a small role in The Killers.

Personal life and death
Siegel and actress Viveca Lindfors were married from 1948 to 1953. They had a son, Kristoffer Tabori. Siegel married Doe Avedon in 1957. They adopted four children and then divorced in 1975. Siegel married Carol Rydall, a former secretary to Clint Eastwood. Siegel and Rydall remained together until he died at age 78 from cancer in Nipomo, California. Siegel is buried near Highway 1 in the coastal Cayucos-Morro Bay District Cemetery. He was reportedly an atheist.

Filmography

 * Now, Voyager (1942) (montage by)
 * Across the Pacific (1942) (montage director)
 * Casablanca (1942) (montage director)
 * The Hard Way (1943) (montage director)
 * Star in the Night (1945 short)
 * Hitler Lives (1945 documentary short, uncredited)
 * The Verdict (1946)
 * Night Unto Night (1949)
 * The Big Steal (1949)
 * The Duel at Silver Creek (1952)
 * No Time for Flowers (1952)
 * Count the Hours (1953)
 * China Venture (1953)
 * Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
 * Private Hell 36 (1954)
 * The Blue and Gold (1955)
 * Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
 * Crime in the Streets (1956)
 * Baby Face Nelson (1957)
 * Spanish Affair (1957)
 * The Gun Runners (1958)
 * The Lineup (1958)
 * Hound-Dog Man (1959)
 * Edge of Eternity (1959) - Man at Motel Pool (uncredited)
 * Flaming Star (1960)
 * Hell Is for Heroes (1962)
 * The Killers (1964)
 * The Hanged Man (1964)
 * Stranger on the Run (1967)
 * Coogan's Bluff (1968)
 * Madigan (1968)
 * Death of a Gunfighter (credited as Alan Smithee) (1969)
 * Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
 * The Beguiled (1971)
 * Dirty Harry (1971)
 * Charley Varrick (1973)
 * The Black Windmill (1974)
 * The Shootist (1976)
 * Telefon (1977)
 * Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
 * Rough Cut (1980)
 * Jinxed! (1982)

title: Don Siegel