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John Osborne

John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a journalist before starting out in theatre as a stage manager and actor. He lived in poverty for several years before his third produced play, Look Back in Anger (1956), brought him national fame.

Based on Osborne's volatile relationship with his first wife, Pamela Lane, it is considered the first work of kitchen sink realism, initiating a movement which made use of social realism and domestic settings to address disillusion with British society in the waning years of the Empire. The phrase “angry young man”, coined by George Fearon to describe Osborne when promoting the play, came to embody the predominantly working class and left-wing writers within this movement. Osborne was considered its leading figure due to his often controversial left-wing politics, though critics nevertheless noted a conservative strain even in his early writing.

The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), and Inadmissable Evidence (1964) were also well-received, Luther winning the 1964 Tony Award for Best Play, though reception to his later plays was less favourable. During this period Osborne began writing and acting for television and appearing in films, most notably as crime boss Cyril Kinnear in Get Carter (1971).

In 1958 Osborne joined Look Back in Anger director Tony Richardson and film producer Harry Saltzman to form Woodfall Film Productions, in order to produce Richardson's 1959 film adaptation of Anger and other works of kitchen sink realism, spearheading the British New Wave. This included Osborne-penned adaptations of the Entertainer (1960) (co-written by Nigel Kneale), and Inadmissible Evidence (1968), as well as the period comedy Tom Jones (1963), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay.

Osborne was married five times, but the first four were marred by affairs and his mistreatment of his partners. In 1978 he married Helen Dawson, and from 1986 they lived in rural Shropshire. He wrote two volumes of autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost a Gentleman (1991), and a collection of his non-fiction writing, Damn You, England, was published in 1994. He died from complications of diabetes on 24 December of that year at the age of 65.

Early life
Osborne was born on 12 December 1929 in London, the son of Thomas Godfrey Osborne, a commercial artist and advertising copywriter of South Welsh ancestry, and Nellie Beatrice Grove, a Cockney barmaid.

In 1936 the family moved to the north Surrey suburb of Stoneleigh, where Thomas's mother had already settled. Osborne, however, would regard it as a cultural desert – a school friend declared subsequently that "he thought [we] were a lot of dull, uninteresting people." He adored his father but hated his mother, whom he described as "hypocritical, self-absorbed, calculating and indifferent."

Thomas Osborne died in 1940, leaving the young boy an insurance settlement which he used to pay for a private education at Belmont College, a minor public school in Barnstaple. He entered the school in 1943, but was expelled in the summer term of 1945. Osborne claimed this was for hitting the headmaster, who had struck him for listening to a broadcast by Frank Sinatra, but another former pupil asserted that Osborne was caught fighting with other pupils and did not assault the headmaster. A School Certificate was the only formal qualification he acquired.

Career
After school, Osborne went home to his mother in London and briefly tried trade journalism. A job tutoring a touring company of junior actors introduced him to the theatre. He soon became involved as a stage manager and actor and joined Anthony Creighton's provincial touring company. Osborne tried his hand at writing plays, co-writing his first, The Devil Inside Him, with his mentor Stella Linden, who directed it at the Theatre Royal in Huddersfield in 1950. In June 1951 Osborne married Pamela Lane. His second play, Personal Enemy, was written with Anthony Creighton, with whom he later wrote Epitaph for George Dillon, staged at the Royal Court in 1958. Personal Enemy was staged in regional theatres before he submitted Look Back in Anger.

Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger was written in 17 days in a deck chair on Morecambe pier where Osborne was performing in Hugh Hastings' play Seagulls over Sorrento in a repertory theatre. Osborne's play is largely autobiographical, based on his time living, and arguing, with Pamela Lane in cramped accommodation in Derby, while she had an affair with a local dentist. It was submitted to several agents in London, who rejected it. In his autobiography, Osborne writes: "The speed with which it had been returned was not surprising, but its aggressive dispatch did give me a kind of baffled relief. It was like being grasped at the upper arm by a testy policeman and told to move on". Finally it was sent to the newly formed English Stage Company at London's Royal Court Theatre.

Formed by actor-manager and artistic director George Devine, the company had seen its first two productions perform disappointingly. Devine was prepared to gamble on this play because he saw in it a powerful articulation of a new post-war spirit. Osborne was living on a houseboat with Creighton at Cubitts Yacht Basin in Chiswick on the River Thames at the time and eating stewed nettles from the riverbank. When Devine accepted the play, he had to row out to the houseboat to speak to Osborne. The play was directed by Tony Richardson and starred Kenneth Haigh, Mary Ure and Alan Bates. George Fearon, a press officer at the theatre, used the phrase "angry young man" when promoting Look Back in Anger. He told Osborne that he disliked the play and feared it would be impossible to market.

Reviews of Look Back in Anger were mixed: most of the critics who attended the first night felt it was a failure. Positive reviews from Kenneth Tynan and Harold Hobson, however, plus a TV broadcast of Act 2, helped create interest, and the play transferred successfully to the Lyric Theatre (Hammersmith) and to Broadway, later touring to Moscow. A film version was released in May 1959 with Richard Burton and Mary Ure in the leading roles. The play brought Osborne fame and won him the Evening Standard Drama Award as the most promising playwright of 1956.

During production Osborne, then married, began a relationship with (Eileen) Mary Ure, and would divorce his wife, Pamela Lane, to marry Ure in 1957. Ure died in 1975.

The Entertainer and into the 1960s
When he first saw Look Back in Anger, Laurence Olivier had a poor opinion of the play. At the time, Olivier was making a film of Rattigan's The Prince and the Showgirl co-starring Marilyn Monroe, and she was accompanied to London by her husband Arthur Miller. Olivier asked the American dramatist what plays he might want to see in London. Based on its title, Miller suggested Osborne's work; Olivier tried to dissuade him, but the playwright was insistent and the two of them saw it together.

Miller found the play revelatory, and they went backstage to meet Osborne. Olivier was impressed by the American's reaction and asked Osborne for a part in his next play. George Devine, artistic director of the Royal Court, sent Olivier the incomplete script of The Entertainer. Olivier eventually took the central role as failing music-hall performer Archie Rice, playing successfully both at the Royal Court and in the West End.

The Entertainer uses the metaphor of the dying music hall tradition and its eclipse by early rock and roll to comment on the declining influence of the British Empire and its eclipse by the increasing influence of the United States, as illustrated during the Suez Crisis of November 1956 which forms the backdrop to the play. The Entertainer found critical acclaim.

Osborne followed The Entertainer with The World of Paul Slickey (1959), a musical that satirizes the tabloid press; the televised documentary play A Subject of Scandal and Concern (1960); and the double bill Plays for England, comprising The Blood of the Bambergs and Under Plain Cover (1962).

Luther, depicting the life of Martin Luther, was first performed in 1961; it transferred to Broadway and won Osborne a Tony Award. Inadmissible Evidence was first performed in 1964. In between these plays, Osborne won an Oscar for his 1963 screenplay adaptation of Tom Jones. His 1965 play, A Patriot for Me, draws on the Austrian Redl case, involving themes of homosexuality and espionage, and helped to end the system of theatrical censorship under the Lord Chamberlain.

Both A Patriot For Me and The Hotel in Amsterdam (1968) won Evening Standard Best Play of the Year awards. The Hotel in Amsterdam features three showbiz couples in a hotel suite, having fled a tyrannical movie producer, referred to as "K.L." Osborne's biographer John Heilpern asserts that "K.L." was meant to represent director and producer Tony Richardson.

1970s and later life
John Osborne's plays in the 1970s included West of Suez, starring Ralph Richardson; 1975's The End of Me Old Cigar; and Watch It Come Down, starring Frank Finlay. Theatre historian Phyllis Hartnoll wrote that Osborne's work of this period "failed to enhance his reputation": his fellow playwright Alan Bennett recalled "frozen embarrassment" at the premiere of Watch It Come Down, though Richard Ellmann, reviewing an early performance, noticed unintentional audience laughter.

Perhaps his most harshly received work from this era was A Sense of Detachment (1972), which has no plot and features a scene where an elderly lady recites at length from a hardcore porn catalogue. Part of the play involves actors planted in the audience pretending to protest, though after this began to trigger actual heckling, actress Rachel Kempson leapt into the stalls and assaulted some of the troublemakers in a much publicised incident. A representative review in the Financial Times declared, "This must surely be an end to his career in the theatre".

During that decade Osborne played the role of gangster Cyril Kinnear in Get Carter (1971). Later, he appeared in Tomorrow Never Comes (1978) and Flash Gordon (1980).

Osborne's later public image differed from his 'angry young man' persona of the 1950s. From 1986, he lived in a cottage in rural Shropshire. Increasingly his life resembled that of an old-fashioned country gentleman. He wrote a diary for conservative British magazine The Spectator, a publication that when young he had been contemptuous of. He raised money for the local church roof by opening his garden to the public, and threatened to withdraw funding for this unless the vicar restored the Book of Common Prayer (Osborne had returned to the Church of England in about 1974). Ferdinand Mount draws a contrast between this devotion to Anglican ritual and the opening of Look Back in Anger, with Jimmy Porter railing against the sound of church bells.

In the last two decades of his life Osborne published two volumes of autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost a Gentleman (1991). Reviewing the first of these books, Alan Bennett wrote, "It is immensely enjoyable, is written with great gusto and Osborne has had better notices for it than for any of his plays since Inadmissible Evidence." A Better Class of Person was filmed by Thames Television in 1985, featuring Eileen Atkins and Alan Howard as his parents, and Gary Capelin and Neil McPherson as Osborne. It was nominated for the Prix Italia.

Osborne's last play was Déjàvu (1992), a sequel to Look Back in Anger. Various of his newspaper and magazine writings appeared in a collection entitled Damn You, England (1994), while his two autobiographical volumes were reissued as Looking Back – Never Explain, Never Apologise (1999).

Inspiration
Osborne described his childhood home as a place "where books... were almost completely disregarded". One of the role models he identified was not a literary figure but a popular entertainer. Osborne was a great fan of comic Max Miller, and saw parallels between them:

"I love him (Max Miller), because he embodied a kind of theatre I admire most. 'Mary from the Dairy' was an overture to the danger that (Max) might go too far. Whenever anyone tells me that a scene or a line in a play of mine goes too far in some way then I know my instinct has been functioning as it should. When such people tell you that a particular passage makes the audience uneasy or restless, then they seem (to me) as cautious and absurd as landladies and girls-who-won't."

He claimed that it was his childhood memories of music hall that inspired The Entertainer, "not, as I was told authoritatively by others, the influence of Bertolt Brecht".

Impact
Osborne's work transformed British theatre. He helped to make it artistically respected again, throwing off the formal constraints of the former generation, and turning public attention once more to language, theatrical rhetoric, and emotional intensity. As a young man he decided 'it was a beholden duty at all times for me to kick against the pricks'; he saw theatre as a weapon with which ordinary people could break down class barriers. He wanted his plays to be a reminder of real pleasures and real pains. David Hare said in his memorial address:

"John Osborne devoted his life to trying to forge some sort of connection between the acuteness of his mind and the extraordinary power of his heart."

Osborne did change the world of theatre, influencing playwrights such as Edward Albee and Mike Leigh. However, work of his kind of authenticity and originality would remain the exception rather than the rule. This did not surprise Osborne; nobody understood the tackiness of the theatre better than the man who had played Hamlet on Hayling Island. In 1992 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain.

Politics
In A Better Class of Person, Osborne describes the emotional appeal that socialism had to him as a schoolboy and how he and his closest friends "all attended the local Labour Party meetings" as youths. He carried these affiliations with him into adult life, alienating fellow commuters and colleagues by regularly bringing a copy of the Daily Worker into the office as a young journalist. Given a platform to express his views in the 1957 anthology Declaration, he took the opportunity to criticize monarchy: "I have called Royalty religion the 'national swill' because it is poisonous... the leader-writers and the bribed gossip mongers have only to rattle their sticks in the royalty bucket for most of their readers to put their heads down in this trough of Queen-worship... My objection to the Royalty symbol is that it is dead; it is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay."

He also protested about "the Christmas Island explosion" and what he perceived as the blindly supportive response of the British media. Osborne joined the CND in 1959, and in the early '60s was a member of the Committee of 100 who engaged in civil disobedience to protest against nuclear weapons.

In 1961, in the aftermath of the Berlin Wall being built, the left-wing magazine Tribune published Osborne's "Letter to My Fellow Countrymen", addressing those politicians the author considered responsible for nuclear proliferation: "My favourite fantasy is four minutes or so non-commercial viewing as you fry in your democratically elected hot seats... I would willingly watch you all die for the West... you could all go ahead and die for Berlin, for Democracy, to keep out the red hordes or whatever you like... damn you, England. You're rotting now, and quite soon you'll disappear... I write this from another country, with murder in my brain and a knife carried in my heart for every one of you. I am not alone. If WE had just the ultimate decency and courage, we would strike at you - now, before you blaspheme the world in our name. There is nothing I should not give for your blood on my head."

The letter caused controversy. Conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne expressed concern about its "murderous language" and the possibility that the "resentment that John Osborne so virulently articulated" might be shared by many others, while the trade unionist Jack Jones commented, "every true Socialist should roar with applause".

In his public letter, however, Osborne had denounced Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell as well as Conservative PM Harold Macmillan. The following year, he told the Daily Herald that he would not be voting Labour at the next election, adding "Barrenness is preferable to rape by one of two monsters." His play Time Present (1968) contains a mocking caricature of a female Labour MP. Critics saw a conservative attitude to empire reflected in West of Suez,  and later in the 1970s he expressed support for Enoch Powell. In the words of Osborne's biographer Michael Ratcliffe, "he drifted to the libertarian, unorganized right"; even his friend David Hare acknowledged that he passed "from passion to prejudice. He was forced back into a position which, finally, for most writers is undignified and unproductive: the pretence that the past is always, necessarily, superior to the present". Several commentators have argued that a conservative and nostalgic strain was apparent in Osborne's work from an early stage. As early as 1957, Kenneth Tynan had noticed "a deeply submerged nostalgia" for Britain's pre-WW1 past in The Entertainer.

Relationships
Osborne had many affairs and frequently mistreated his wives and lovers. He was married five times, all except the last being unhappy unions. The first four were marred by frequent affairs and mistreatment of his partners. He outlived three of his wives, being survived only by the first and the last, both of whom have since died. His final marriage, from 1978 until his death, was to the journalist Helen Dawson.

Pamela Lane (1951–57)
Source:

In A Better Class of Person, Osborne describes feeling an immediate and intense attraction towards his first wife, Pamela Lane. The pair were both members of an acting troupe in Bridgwater. "She had just recently shorn her hair down to a defiant auburn stubble and I was impressed by the hostility she had created by this self-isolating act. I was unable to take my eyes from her hair, her huge green eyes which must mock or plead affection, preferably both, at least… She startled and confused me… There was no calculation in my instant obsession."

Though Alison Porter in Look Back in Anger was based on Pamela, Osborne describes Lane's respectable middle-class parents – her father a successful draper, her mother of a family of minor rural gentry – as "much coarser", and how at one point they hired a private detective to follow him after a fellow actor was seen 'fumbling' with his knee in a tea shop.

Lane and Osborne married in nearby Wells and then left Bridgwater the following Sunday amidst an uneasy truce with Lane's parents (Osborne's hated mother was not aware of the union until the couple were divorcing), spending their first night as a married couple together in the Cromwell Road in London.

The two lived a fairly itinerant and reasonably happy married existence at first, living at a number of places around London and finding work there at first, then touring, staying in Kidderminster in Osborne's case. While Lane's acting career flourished in Derby, Osborne's struggled, and she began an affair with Joe Selby, a dental surgeon.

Osborne spent much of the next two years before their divorce hoping they would reconcile. In 1956, after the opening of Look Back in Anger, Osborne met Lane at the railway station in York, where she told Osborne of her recent abortion and enquired after his relationship with Mary Ure. In April 1957, Osborne was granted a divorce from Lane, on the grounds of his adultery. It later emerged that in the 1980s, Lane and Osborne corresponded frequently and met in secret until he became angered by her request for a loan.

Mary Ure (1957–1963)
Osborne began a relationship with Ure shortly after meeting her when she was cast as Alison in Look Back in Anger in 1956, while he was married to Pamela Lane. The affair swiftly progressed; and the two moved in together in Woodfall Road, Chelsea, London. He wrote later:

"Mary was one of those unguarded souls who can make themselves understood by penguins or the wildest dervishes .. I was not in love. There was fondness and pleasure, but no groping expectations, just a feeling of fleeting heart's ease. For the present we were both content enough."

Eventually, Osborne became jealous and somewhat contemptuous of Ure's stable family background and her relationship with them. He also began to lose regard for her acting abilities.

"I had stopped concealing from myself, if I ever had, that Mary was not much of an actress. She had a rather harsh voice and a tiny range."

There was infidelity on both sides; and, after an affair with Robert Webber, Ure eventually left Osborne for the actor and novelist Robert Shaw.

Osborne described visiting her after she had left him and having sex with her while she was pregnant with the first of four children she would bear to Shaw. Of their divorce, Osborne wrote of being surprised that she repeatedly refused to return to him treasured postcards drawn for him by his father, but is circumspect about her early death in 1975: "Destiny dragged her so pointlessly from a life better contained by the softly lapping waters of the Clyde."

Penelope Gilliatt (1963–68)
Osborne met his third wife, writer Penelope Gilliatt, initially through social connections, and then through an interview she conducted with him: "It was not so much chastity that troubled me, but the withdrawal of feminine intimacy. And now, here I was, giving a routine interview to a young, animated woman, seemingly very informed and quick to laugh… I was already engaged in the prospect of mild and easy flirtation. I hadn't marked Penelope down in any appraising way as a future sportive fancy, but I had always been addicted to flirtation as a game worth playing for itself."

One great attraction Penelope held for Osborne was her red hair: "Penelope was a redhead, as was Pamela... I took red hair to be the mantle of goddesses". Despite her being married and Osborne knowing her husband, Gilliatt set out to seduce Osborne and succeeded in doing so. "Penelope's behaviour and my own during the weeks that followed were probably grotesquely indefensible", he wrote.

Osborne and Gilliatt were together for seven years, five of which they spent married, and became the parents of his only biological child, Nolan. Osborne had an abusive relationship with his daughter and cast her out of his house when she was 17; they never spoke again. Osborne and Gilliatt's marriage suffered through what Osborne perceived to be an unnecessary obsession on her part with her work, writing film reviews for The Observer. "I tried to point out that it seemed an inordinate amount of time and effort to expend on a thousand-word review to be read by a few thousand film addicts and forgotten almost at once." Osborne wanted Gilliatt to give up her multiple careers and move with him to a country house where she would tend his needs. Osborne had put a refrigerator in the couple's bedroom and filled it with champagne to alleviate his night terrors. Both began to have struggles with alcoholism.

He treated with contempt what he saw as Gilliatt's growing pretentiousness. "She was to become increasingly obsessed with fripperies and titles … She took to calling herself 'Professor Gilliatt'." Strains in the marriage led to Osborne conducting numerous affairs behind her back, including one with his future wife, Jill Bennett.

Jill Bennett (1968–1977)
Osborne had a turbulent nine-year marriage to the actress Jill Bennett. Their marriage degenerated into mutual abuse with Bennett insulting Osborne, calling him impotent and homosexual in public as early as 1971. Osborne showed similar cruelty towards her, breaching a court order by harassing her with abusive messages after their divorce. Bennett committed suicide in 1990 (having expressed suicidal thoughts for decades): some have blamed this on Osborne's treatment of her. He said of Bennett, "She was the most evil woman I have come across", and showed open contempt for her suicide.

"She was a woman so demoniacally possessed by Avarice that she died of it… This final, fumbled gesture, after a lifetime of glad-rags borrowings, theft and plagiarism, must have been one of the few original or spontaneous gestures in her loveless life."

He concluded by stating that his only regret was that he could not "look down upon her open coffin and, like that bird in the Book of Tobit, drop a good, large mess in her eye." Reviewing Almost a Gentleman, which contains this passage, Hilary Mantel commented, "the pious reader may wish to pray, the queasy reader vomit, the prudent reviewer consult the libel laws" (though she did speculate about Osborne's mental health). Michael Billington called the attack on Bennett a "vicious assault", though he added, "he must have once loved her a lot to have hated her so much".

Helen Dawson (1978–1994)
Helen Dawson (1939–2004) was a former arts journalist and critic for The Observer. This final marriage of Osborne's, which lasted until his death, seems to have been happier than any of his prior marriages. Until her death in 2004, Dawson worked to preserve and promote Osborne's legacy.

Osborne died deeply in debt; his final word to Dawson was: "Sorry". After her death in 2004, Dawson was buried next to Osborne.

Vegetarianism

Around the time of Look Back in Anger, Osborne was a vegetarian, something which was considered unusual at the time. In Almost a Gentleman he gives some insight into this lifestyle choice:

"My own vegetarianism had been prompted by self-interest. I wanted to confound my pitted complexion, implacable daily headaches, throbbing glands, dish-cloth hair and dandruff. That my appearance had marginally improved (though not the headaches) was no doubt due a little to less toxic input… Meat could be equated with inner squalor. Vegetarianism might banish that, too."

Death
After a serious liver crisis in 1987 Osborne became diabetic, injecting insulin twice a day. He died on 24 December 1994 at the age of 65 from complications of diabetes at his home in Clunton, near Craven Arms, Shropshire. He is buried in St George's churchyard, Clun, Shropshire. His last wife, Helen Dawson, who died in 2004, is buried next to him.

Archive
Osborne began placing his papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin in the 1960s, with additions made throughout his life and by relatives in the years after his death. The primary archive is over 50 boxes and includes typescripts and manuscripts for all of his works, correspondence, newspaper and magazine articles, scrapbooks, posters, programmes, and business documents.

In 2008, the Ransom Center purchased an additional archive of over 30 boxes that had been held by Helen Dawson Osborne. While largely focusing on the latter years of Osborne's life, the collection also includes a series of notebooks that he had kept separately from his original archive.

title: John Osborne


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Talk:Quechuan languages/Archive 1

Jumper
I only have one source, unfortunately not handy at the moment, for the assertion that the Quechua (and Spanish) word chompa came first and the English jumper came second. Most English dictionaries say it went in the other direction, but the word apparently is truly a Quechua word, and the English dictionaries do not provide a convincing etymology for jumper. My source says Spanish sailors got it from Quechua and English sailors got it from Spanish sailors. Ortolan88

I'm doubtful. The OED and AHD both think "jumper" comes from earlier "jump" meaning a short coat or bodice, earliest cite 1654. Chompa is a Quechua word, but it's not in the Real Academia's dictionary, which suggests it's a loanword. Zompist

I have no idea about Quechua but this change: - (cur) (last). . 22:48, 28 Jun 2003. . 4.72.9.5

seems to be an mistake. The british word 'jumper' might be a loanword, from the Quetchua word 'chompa'. But i can't believe that 'sweater' is a loanword. Probably someone wanted to get rid of british english at the wrong place.

 * I commented this out pending further confirmation. -- Viajero 12:00, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Regularity
Can someone back "perfectly regular"? My intro linguistics instructor (20 years ago, and this was a side note to something else) said that this applied to only one dialect of Quechua, and when a student called out "spoken on the north side of the river" the professor said "yes, actually." Vicki Rosenzweig

This was changed to "very regular" some time ago, and that's appropriate. Quechua is agglutinative, meaning that affixes are largely independent from one another; such languages can be highly regular, unlike the fusional (a.k.a. inflecting) languages most English speakers are used to, like the Indo-European languages. There are no irregular verbs in Quechua. However, almost all languages have some morphological quirks and are not pure examples of their type. Some affixes do fuse in Quechua (that is, you add affixes A + B together and you don't get AB but some special form), and the future morphology also shows some fusion.Zompist 19:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Name change
Someone wants to move this page to Quechua but hasn't started a discussion of the question, so I'm starting it. I vote:
 * Oppose. It's standard practice at Wikipedia to use the word "language" in an article on a language, even if the name is unambiguously a language. --Angr/undefined 07:43, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The name is frequently used for an ethnic group.  See, e.g., Bolivia. DanKeshet 17:53, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Agree. I pst request. Ther's no "Quechua" people, those porcents talks about its language, off course, but in South America half of natives don't speak its proper language. --Huhsunqu 21:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * So, I'm not disagreeing about whether there's a "Quechua" people, but I want to understand what you think is meant when Bolivia says that 33% of the Bolivian population is Quechua. Does that mean they speak Quechua?  What "peoples" speak Quechua? DanKeshet 23:35, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * [[Bolivia article needs an urgent revision. For example it says that it's motto is Firme y Feliz por la union while its really motto is [[Bolivia|Morir antes que esclavos vivir]]. About what peoples speak Quechua, if you're reffering about which etnic groups, you most remember that in South America there's a great mixing of cultures, so there aren't any ethnic Quechua. --Huhsunqu 04:59, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Support. Angr's objection is completly invalid; there is no standard practice of using the article name XXX language unless there is an actual need for disambiguation. See Esperanto and Hindi for perfectly good examples of this. If there is a people called Quechua, why is there no article on them? Who are the Quechuans? Do they have anything in common other than the language? And, most importantly, why are we using a disambiguated form of the langauge if Quechua doesn't even lead to a disambiguation page? /Peter Isotalo July 2, 2005 11:22 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 18:03, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So, I guess Quechua has a system involving Evidentiality. It would be nice if this article could include it-- as yet, I don't know much to provide anything on this, but I thought I might say something incase anyone knows much about evidentiality in Quechua? --Alcarilinque 29 June 2005 21:37 (UTC)

I added an explanation. Zompist

Number of speakers
Who can tell me the best estimate of total speakers? Here it says 9.6 million, but at qu:Wikipidiya:Ayuda_en_Castellano, it says 14 million. So what is it? --R OY  YO Я 1 July 2005 20:49 (UTC)

 * It's hard to tell, but all estimates should be sourced. I changed it to 10 million, which rounds up estimates from the Ethnologue: Peru 3.5 to 4.4 million; Ecuador 1.4 million; Argentina .9 million; Bolivia 2.9 million.  14 million sounds way too high, and shouldn't stand without a reputable source. Zompist 19:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Writing system
I think the recent changes by Tito4000 on the writing system are rather POV, and much too political and speculative for an encyclopedia. It's true that Quechua literacy is low, but the statements on why that might be so are speculative (or at best unsupported). Why is it important that the 1975 spelling system was adopted under a dictatorship? (Almost all Latin American countries were dictatorships in that year.) Why the scare quotes around "adopted" mentioning the 1985 reform?

Who are the "some" who believe that the changes-- actually adopted to create a better phonemic representation and to improve Quechua education-- were made to make the words "funny-looking"? Who are "some analysts" who think the orthography hinders education, and on what basis?

As a counter-example, linguist Bruce Mannheim reports (in the book already cited in the references) that "it has been found that introducing a five-vowel Quechua orthography in primary education may be the source of later reading problems in Spanish." He gives several citations of primary material for this, which I can copy out if anyone wants to look them up. It's an old debate in Peru.

There is already an article, Quechuan and Aymaran spelling shift, on the orthographic change; this might be a better place to mention such controversies, which probably aren't that appropriate in a general article on Quechua anyway. Zompist 02:02, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Zompist. Thank you for your constructive criticism. I'm open to alternative wording that may eliminate the purported POVs. However, I believe my assertions are founded on my understanding that they are current common knowledge in Peru, and thus I believe that they mostly don't represent a POV but rather a popular extended belief.

I grant you that unfortunately some references to illiteracy might look derogatory or racist (which is definitely NOT my intention) but they are a fact supported by statistics on the very portal of the Peruvian government www.peru.gob.pe. The reference to the writing system having been imposed by a ruling dictatorship is to reflect the historic fact that it did not stem from common or centuries-old popular usage, but rather from the political lobbying from a few linguists addicted to the left leanings of the government of the time

Without any public or even academic debate whatsoever a major writing system was suddenly changed by decree under a hidden political agenda to make modern Quechua appear to be a language of its own that was alien to the influence of the Spanish language and Western culture.

My proposition regarding the new writing system being "funny-looking" is simply the reflection of what is commonly referred to regarding the Quechua writing system by almost all people I know in Peru. --Tito4000 16:16, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Quechuan languages/Archive 1


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Svend Åge Madsen

Svend Åge Madsen ( born 2 November 1939) is a Danish novelist. He studied mathematics before he began writing fiction. His novels are generally philosophical and humorous. Several of his works have been made into films in Denmark. His writings are extensive and has been translated into many languages.

Madsen's writing style and philosophy have placed him amongst the most distinguished and widely read authors in Denmark today. His novels reflect the grave problems faced by modern civilisation, and a number of them have achieved cult status in Denmark. The interplay between quasi-realism and complete fantasy in Svend Åge Madsen's novels leads to contemplation of the indefinable nature of human existence.

Work
Madsen's work may be divided into three phases. The first phase comprises abstract modernist works influenced by writers such as Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Alain Robbe-Grillet and James Joyce. These works examine the capacity of language to depict reality; they include the experimental novels The Visit (Besøget, 1963) and Additions (Tilføjelser, 1967), the "unnovel" Pictures of Lust (Lystbilleder, 1964), and the collection of short stories Eight Times Orphan (Otte gange orphan, 1965).

Madsen would later define these novels as "anti-art". The change to the next phase of his work was, according to him, a shift from "anti-art" to "anti-anti-art", which accepted the result of the first phase: "that reality can not be described", but that one may attempt to build a meaningful literature from a relativistic stance. The project was now to show how "lower" genres (such as crime fiction, romantic fiction and science fiction) could be a mosaic of equal truths that make up reality. This change is also a change from modernist literature to postmodern literature.

The third phase of Madsen's work comprises some novels that are less abstract and more realistic than his earlier works, but are still highly imaginative. At the same time, Madsen started working on a "macro"-text in which characters are used repeatedly in different novels, main characters becoming minor characters and vice versa. All of these novels take places in the city of Aarhus in Denmark. Through a complex net of bizarre stories, Madsen creates an alternative Aarhus in which everything is possible and extreme philosophical positions are explored. Madsen's late literature is quite unique but can perhaps best be likened to the magical realism of Latin America.

A recurring trait in his books is that the characters face some sort of extreme situation which enables a philosophical theme to emerge.

Perhaps Madsen's most famous work is Vice and Virtue in the Middle Time (Tugt og utugt i mellemtiden, 1976) which has been translated into English. In this novel, a man from a very distant future takes on the experiment of writing a novel of the age called Middle Time, which is the western world in the 1970s. This creates an amusing philosophical position, in which everything we take for granted is questioned in the light of a totally different perspective on life. The main plot is a rewriting of Alexandre Dumas, père's The Count of Monte Cristo, but there are references to many classic novels.

title: Svend Åge Madsen


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The May Department Stores Company

The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many changes in the retail industry, the company merged with Federated Department Stores (now Macy's, Inc.) in 2005.

This company was only a holding company that bought, sold, and merged regional department stores, such as Foley's and L.S. Ayres. During most of its history, the operations of the various divisions were kept separate and had their own buyers and credit cards. The latter were not accepted at other May-owned stores. At times, two different May stores operated in the same geographical market, but they were aimed at different customers. Most decisions for each of the regional store companies were made by management at the local headquarters and not by the holding company in St. Louis.

Some of the regional stores shared names that were similar to the parent company, such as Los Angeles–based May Company California. All it had in common with the parent was that these stores were headed by a different member of the May family as the president of their respective regional store chain. They were separate legal entities.

History
In 1877, the May Department Stores Company was founded in Leadville during the Colorado silver rush. In 1889, the headquarters moved to Denver.

In 1899, May acquired the E. R. Hull & Dutton Co. of Cleveland, renaming it the May Company, Cleveland, later named the May Company Ohio.

In 1905, the headquarters moved to St. Louis. In 1910, the business was officially incorporated as the May Department Stores Company. In 1911, The Famous Clothing Store (owned by May) and the William Barr Dry Goods Company merged to create Famous-Barr.

In 1912, May acquired the M. O'Neil Co. (O'Neil's) department store of Akron, Ohio.

In 1923, May acquired A. Hamburger & Sons Co. in Los Angeles and renames it May Company California.

In 1946, May acquired the Kaufmann's chain based in Pittsburgh, retaining it as a separate division. In 1947, May acquires Strouss-Hirshberg Co. based in Youngstown, Ohio, retaining it as a separate division and changing the name to Strouss.

In 1956, May acquired the Daniels & Fisher Company of Denver, merging it with May stores in the area to create a new May-Daniels & Fisher division.

In 1958, May acquired the Cohen Brothers Department Store in Jacksonville, Florida, turning it into the May Cohens chain.

In 1959, May acquired the Hecht Company of Baltimore, adding it as a new division. In 1965, May acquired G. Fox & Co. of Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1966, May acquired the Meier & Frank chain based in Portland, Oregon, adding it as a new division. David's grandson Morton May became the chairman in 1951 and headed the company for 16 years. Morton May was active in St. Louis civic affairs and was a patron of the St. Louis Art Museum.

In 1968, Venture Stores was founded when Target co-founder John F. Geisse went to work for May Department Stores. Under an antitrust settlement reached with the Department of Justice, May was unable to acquire any more retail chains at the time, and the department store company needed a way to compete against the emerging discount store chains.

In August 1978, May sold the 70-store Consumers chain of catalogue merchants to the Canadian Consumers Distributing. It closed its stores in 1996.

In 1986, May acquired the Associated Dry Goods holding company and its chains (including J. W. Robinson's and its Florida division, Loehmann's, Lord & Taylor, Caldor, Joseph Horne Company, The Denver Dry Goods Company, Goldwater's, Hahne and Company, L. S. Ayres, H. & S. Pogue Company, Stewart Dry Goods, and Sibley's), the largest-ever retail acquisition in history at that time.

In 1987, May renamed the five-unit May-Cohens as May Florida and sold the ten stores from Robinson’s of Florida to Maison Blanche so as to give them a foothold in the Floridan market. Stores at Tyrone Square, Orlando Fashion Square, WestShore Plaza, Altamonte Mall, University Square Mall, Countryside Mall, Southgate Plaza, Edison Mall, Coastland Center, and The Florida Mall were included in the deal along with a proposed 11th store at Lakeland Square Mall. May acquired Foley's in Houston and Filene's in Boston from Federated Department Stores whereas May Florida was also acquired by Maison Blanche. As a result, May withdrew from Florida by closing the Gateway location and converting those at Roosevelt Square, Regency Square, Volusia Mall, and Orange Park Mall under the Maison Blanche nameplate.

In 1993, May Company California and J.W. Robinson's merged to form Robinsons-May. In that same year, Filene's absorbed the G. Fox division, Kaufmann's absorbed the May Company Ohio division, and Foley's absorbed the May D&F division.

In 1995, May acquired the John Wanamaker chain based in Philadelphia. In 1996, May acquires the Strawbridge's chain based in Philadelphia.

In 1998, May acquired The Jones Store chain based in Kansas City, Missouri.

In 1999, May acquired Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution based in Salt Lake City, folding it into the Meier & Frank subsidiary.

In 2000, May Department Stores purchases David's Bridal.

In 2001, Meier & Frank absorbed the ZCMI name, entering the Utah marketplace. In that same year, Hecht's acquired five Proffitt's stores in Nashville TN, entering the Nashville marketplace.

In 2002, Meier & Frank operations consolidated with the Robinsons-May division while Kaufmann's operations consolidated with the Filene's division, yet both retaining the Meier & Frank and Kaufmann's names.

In 2004, May Department Stores took over the Marshall Field's chain from Target Corporation.

In 2005, May was acquired by Federated Department Stores for $11 billion (~$ in ) in stock, with all former May divisions being folded into Federated's various Macy's branches.

In 2006, over 400 former May stores, with their wide variety of long-standing brand names, were consolidated and renamed as Macy's. In addition, Federated sells off three former May chains (David's Bridal, Lord & Taylor and Priscilla of Boston).

Merger of Federated and May
On February 28, 2005, Federated Department Stores, Inc., announced that they would acquire the May company for $11 billion. To help finance the May Company deal, Federated agreed to sell its combined proprietary credit card business to Citigroup. The merger was completed on August 30, 2005 after an assurance agreement was reached with the State Attorneys General of New York, California, Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

By September 2006, all of the May regional nameplates, except for the Lord & Taylor chain, ceased to exist as Federated consolidated its operations under the Macy's mastheads including the stores most famous names Marshall Field's, Filene's, and Kaufmann's, as well as the last nameplate to still have the May name (Robinsons-May). All locations that were not sold off were rebranded as Macy's, except for one Hecht's location in Friendship Heights. That was rebuilt and rebranded as Bloomingdale's. In advance of the retail consolidation, May's credit call center in Lorain, Ohio, ceased operations on July 1, 2006. Lord & Taylor, the lone department store division not to be largely converted to the Macy's nameplate, was sold to a group of investors at NRDC Equity Partners, LLC for $1.2 billion (~$ in ) in October 2006. David's Bridal and After Hours Formalwear were sold in November 2006.

May Centers
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, the May Department Stores Company created a real estate division that handled the purchase of land and the construction of the buildings that would house their new stand-alone department stores. Starting in 1947, when they wanted to open a new store for their May Company California division, May entered the new open-air shopping center development business with the construction of what would later become the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles. After that time, May became a major shopping center, and later mall developer when they began to develop new malls to house their newly proposed department stores.

During the mid-1980s, the company noticed that their stock was vastly undervalued and therefore was at risk of becoming a hostile takeover target. May Department Stores needed to re-purchase some of its company's stock to increase the share price. To accomplish this, they needed to obtain cash quickly, which they did by making a deal with Prudential Insurance in which the insurance company gave May $550 million in exchange for 50% ownership of May Centers. In 1992, Prudential purchased the rest of May Centers and renamed the company CenterMark.

title: The May Department Stores Company


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Talk:Primer

Untitled
A primer is also a reading book aimed at learners of a language, especially young children. Do we need something on that, or can we put a link to a more general topic? -- Tarquin 17:00 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC)

 * When I linked to it from another page, I added a brief stub about the textbook, that mentions the New England Primer. I also added another brief stub about "primer" as a kind of paint.  Smerdis of Tlön 02:49, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Suggested action impacting disambiguation
I would suggest that this article be moved to Primer (molecular biology) and that Primer (disambiguation) be moved to Primer. This would be in accordance with WP:DAB, section 2, item 2:

 * "Equal" disambiguation: all articles are moved to distinct names, and the "Mercury" page becomes a disambiguation page — a simple list (or sentence) that points to those specific articles, perhaps explaining the differences among them.

I think that item 3 (Primary topic) does not apply in the case of the current use of Primer.

P.S. this comment came out of my looking for primer in the paint sense; I am a molecular biologist by training so I'm all for high profile for science and molbio, I just don't think the current usage is in the interests of best practice in navigation.

Courtland 14:57, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

title: Talk:Primer


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Chaperone (protein)

In molecular biology, molecular chaperones are proteins that assist the conformational folding or unfolding of large proteins or macromolecular protein complexes. There are a number of classes of molecular chaperones, all of which function to assist large proteins in proper protein folding during or after synthesis, and after partial denaturation. Chaperones are also involved in the translocation of proteins for proteolysis.

The first molecular chaperones discovered were a type of assembly chaperones which assist in the assembly of nucleosomes from folded histones and DNA. One major function of molecular chaperones is to prevent the aggregation of misfolded proteins, thus many chaperone proteins are classified as heat shock proteins, as the tendency for protein aggregation is increased by heat stress.

The majority of molecular chaperones do not convey any steric information for protein folding, and instead assist in protein folding by binding to and stabilizing folding intermediates until the polypeptide chain is fully translated. The specific mode of function of chaperones differs based on their target proteins and location. Various approaches have been applied to study the structure, dynamics and functioning of chaperones. Bulk biochemical measurements have informed us on the protein folding efficiency, and prevention of aggregation when chaperones are present during protein folding. Recent advances in single-molecule analysis have brought insights into structural heterogeneity of chaperones, folding intermediates and affinity of chaperones for unstructured and structured protein chains.

Functions of molecular chaperones
Many chaperones are heat shock proteins, that is, proteins expressed in response to elevated temperatures or other cellular stresses. Heat shock protein chaperones are classified based on their observed molecular weights into Hsp60, Hsp70, Hsp90, Hsp104, and small Hsps. The Hsp60 family of protein chaperones are termed chaperonins, and are characterized by a stacked double-ring structure and are found in prokaryotes, in the cytosol of eukaryotes, and in mitochondria.

Some chaperone systems work as foldases: they support the folding of proteins in an ATP-dependent manner (for example, the GroEL/GroES or the DnaK/DnaJ/GrpE system). Although most newly synthesized proteins can fold in absence of chaperones, a minority strictly requires them for the same. Other chaperones work as holdases: they bind folding intermediates to prevent their aggregation, for example DnaJ or Hsp33. Chaperones can also work as disaggregases, which interact with aberrant protein assemblies and revert them to monomers. Some chaperones can assist in protein degradation, leading proteins to protease systems, such as the ubiquitin-proteasome system in eukaryotes. Chaperone proteins participate in the folding of over half of all mammalian proteins.

Macromolecular crowding may be important in chaperone function. The crowded environment of the cytosol can accelerate the folding process, since a compact folded protein will occupy less volume than an unfolded protein chain. However, crowding can reduce the yield of correctly folded protein by increasing protein aggregation. Crowding may also increase the effectiveness of the chaperone proteins such as GroEL, which could counteract this reduction in folding efficiency. Some highly specific 'steric chaperones' convey unique structural information onto proteins, which cannot be folded spontaneously. Such proteins violate Anfinsen's dogma, requiring protein dynamics to fold correctly.

Other types of chaperones are involved in transport across membranes, for example membranes of the mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in eukaryotes. A bacterial translocation-specific chaperone SecB maintains newly synthesized precursor polypeptide chains in a translocation-competent (generally unfolded) state and guides them to the translocon.

New functions for chaperones continue to be discovered, such as bacterial adhesin activity, induction of aggregation towards non-amyloid aggregates, suppression of toxic protein oligomers via their clustering, and in responding to diseases linked to protein aggregation and cancer maintenance.

Human chaperone proteins
In human cell lines, chaperone proteins were found to compose ~10% of the gross proteome mass, and are ubiquitously and highly expressed across human tissues.

Chaperones are found extensively in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), since protein synthesis often occurs in this area.

Endoplasmic reticulum
In the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) there are general, lectin- and non-classical molecular chaperones that moderate protein folding.
 * General chaperones: GRP78/BiP, GRP94, GRP170.
 * Lectin chaperones: calnexin and calreticulin
 * Non-classical molecular chaperones: HSP47 and ERp29
 * Folding chaperones:
 * Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI),
 * Peptidyl prolyl cis-trans isomerase (PPI), Prolyl isomerase
 * ERp57

Nomenclature and examples of chaperone families
There are many different families of chaperones; each family acts to aid protein folding in a different way. In bacteria like E. coli, many of these proteins are highly expressed under conditions of high stress, for example, when the bacterium is placed in high temperatures, thus heat shock protein chaperones are the most extensive.

A variety of nomenclatures are in use for chaperones. As heat shock proteins, the names are classically formed by "Hsp" followed by the approximate molecular mass in kilodaltons; such names are commonly used for eukaryotes such as yeast. The bacterial names have more varied forms, and refer directly to their apparent function at discovery. For example, "GroEL" originally stands for "phage growth defect, overcome by mutation in phage gene E, large subunit".

Hsp10 and Hsp60
Hsp10/60 (GroEL/GroES complex in E. coli) is the best characterized large (~ 1 MDa) chaperone complex. GroEL (Hsp60) is a double-ring 14mer with a hydrophobic patch at its opening; it is so large it can accommodate native folding of 54-kDa GFP in its lumen. GroES (Hsp10) is a single-ring heptamer that binds to GroEL in the presence of ATP or ADP. GroEL/GroES may not be able to undo previous aggregation, but it does compete in the pathway of misfolding and aggregation. Also acts in mitochondrial matrix as molecular chaperone.

Hsp70 and Hsp40
Hsp70 (DnaK in E. coli) is perhaps the best characterized small (~ 70 kDa) chaperone. The Hsp70 proteins are aided by Hsp40 proteins (DnaJ in E. coli), which increase the ATP consumption rate and activity of the Hsp70s. The two protein are named "Dna" in bacteria because they were initially identified as being required for E. coli DNA replication.

It has been noted that increased expression of Hsp70 proteins in the cell results in a decreased tendency toward apoptosis. Although a precise mechanistic understanding has yet to be determined, it is known that Hsp70s have a high-affinity bound state to unfolded proteins when bound to ADP, and a low-affinity state when bound to ATP.

It is thought that many Hsp70s crowd around an unfolded substrate, stabilizing it and preventing aggregation until the unfolded molecule folds properly, at which time the Hsp70s lose affinity for the molecule and diffuse away. Hsp70 also acts as a mitochondrial and chloroplastic molecular chaperone in eukaryotes.

Hsp90
Hsp90 (HtpG in E. coli) may be the least understood chaperone. Its molecular weight is about 90 kDa, and it is necessary for viability in eukaryotes (possibly for prokaryotes as well). Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) is a molecular chaperone essential for activating many signaling proteins in the eukaryotic cell.

Each Hsp90 has an ATP-binding domain, a middle domain, and a dimerization domain. Originally thought to clamp onto their substrate protein (also known as a client protein) upon binding ATP, the recently published structures by Vaughan et al. and Ali et al. indicate that client proteins may bind externally to both the N-terminal and middle domains of Hsp90.

Hsp90 may also require co-chaperones-like immunophilins, Sti1, p50 (Cdc37), and Aha1, and also cooperates with the Hsp70 chaperone system.

Hsp100
Hsp100 (Clp family in E. coli) proteins have been studied in vivo and in vitro for their ability to target and unfold tagged and misfolded proteins.

Proteins in the Hsp100/Clp family form large hexameric structures with unfoldase activity in the presence of ATP. These proteins are thought to function as chaperones by processively threading client proteins through a small 20 Å (2 nm) pore, thereby giving each client protein a second chance to fold.

Some of these Hsp100 chaperones, like ClpA and ClpX, associate with the double-ringed tetradecameric serine protease ClpP; instead of catalyzing the refolding of client proteins, these complexes are responsible for the targeted destruction of tagged and misfolded proteins.

Hsp104, the Hsp100 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is essential for the propagation of many yeast prions. Deletion of the HSP104 gene results in cells that are unable to propagate certain prions.

Bacteriophage
The genes of bacteriophage (phage) T4 that encode proteins with a role in determining phage T4 structure were identified using conditional lethal mutants. Most of these proteins proved to be either major or minor structural components of the completed phage particle. However among the gene products (gps) necessary for phage assembly, Snustad identified a group of gps that act catalytically rather than being incorporated themselves into the phage structure. These gps were gp26, gp31, gp38, gp51, gp28, and gp4 [gene 4 is synonymous with genes 50 and 65, and thus the gp can be designated gp4(50)(65)]. The first four of these six gene products have since been recognized as being chaperone proteins. Additionally, gp40, gp57A, gp63 and gpwac have also now been identified as chaperones.

Phage T4 morphogenesis is divided into three independent pathways: the head, the tail and the long tail fiber pathways as detailed by Yap and Rossman. With regard to head morphogenesis, chaperone gp31 interacts with the bacterial host chaperone GroEL to promote proper folding of the major head capsid protein gp23. Chaperone gp40 participates in the assembly of gp20, thus aiding in the formation of the connector complex that initiates head procapsid assembly. Gp4(50)(65), although not specifically listed as a chaperone, acts catalytically as a nuclease that appears to be essential for morphogenesis by cleaving packaged DNA to enable the joining of heads to tails.

During overall tail assembly, chaperone proteins gp26 and gp51 are necessary for baseplate hub assembly. Gp57A is required for correct folding of gp12, a structural component of the baseplate short tail fibers.

Synthesis of the long tail fibers depends on the chaperone protein gp57A that is needed for the trimerization of gp34 and gp37, the major structural proteins of the tail fibers. The chaperone protein gp38 is also required for the proper folding of gp37. Chaperone proteins gp63 and gpwac are employed in attachment of the long tail fibers to the tail baseplate.

History
The investigation of chaperones has a long history. The term "molecular chaperone" appeared first in the literature in 1978, and was invented by Ron Laskey to describe the ability of a nuclear protein called nucleoplasmin to prevent the aggregation of folded histone proteins with DNA during the assembly of nucleosomes. The term was later extended by R. John Ellis in 1987 to describe proteins that mediated the post-translational assembly of protein complexes. In 1988, it was realised that similar proteins mediated this process in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The details of this process were determined in 1989, when the ATP-dependent protein folding was demonstrated in vitro.

Clinical significance
There are many disorders associated with mutations in genes encoding chaperones (i.e. multisystem proteinopathy) that can affect muscle, bone and/or the central nervous system.

title: Chaperone (protein)


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Gladys Cooper

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper, (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress, theatrical manager and producer, whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television.

Beginning as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she starred in dramatic roles and silent films before the First World War. She managed the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1934, where she starred in many roles. From the early 1920s Cooper won praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others.

In the 1930s she starred steadily in productions both in London's West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles. She received three Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, for performances in The Song of Bernadette (1943), My Fair Lady (1964) and, most famously, Now, Voyager (1942). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s she worked both on stage and on screen, continuing to star on stage until her last year.

Early life and career
Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the eldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper (1844–1939) and Mabel (Barnett) Cooper (1861–1944). Her two younger sisters were Doris Mabel (1891–1987) and Grace Muriel (1893–1982). Writer Henry St. John Cooper was a half-brother. Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant.

She made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical Bluebell in Fairyland and was becoming a popular photographic model. In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in The Belle of Mayfair and then in the pantomime Babes in the Wood as Mavis. The following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, creating the small role of Eva in The Girls of Gottenberg. That Christmas, she was again in Babes in the Wood, this time playing Molly. In 1908, she appeared in the musical Havana followed, the next year, by Our Miss Gibbs, in which she played Lady Connie; she was then on tour again with Hicks, in Papa's Wife, before playing Sadie von Tromp in the operetta The Dollar Princess at Daly's Theatre in 1909. In 1911, she appeared in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and in Man and Superman. Among several other plays, the next year she was Muriel Pym in Milestones at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in Diplomacy at Wyndham's Theatre. That year she also played the title role in The Pursuit of Pamela at the Royalty.

In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, The Eleventh Commandment, going on to make several more silent films during the First World War and shortly afterwards. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in The Admirable Crichton in 1916 and Clara de Foenix in Trelawny of the Wells. In addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in My Lady's Dress. She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's Home and Beauty in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majesty's Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and both produced and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre.

It was not until 1922, however, then in her mid-thirties, that she found major critical success, in Arthur Wing Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in Home and Beauty, writing "she is too impassive, too statuesque, playing all the time as if she were Galatea, newly unpetrified and still unused to the ways of the living world." Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for "turning herself from an indifferent actress to an extremely competent one" through her common sense and industriousness. For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the title character in Peter Pan, while also playing several other roles at that theatre during those two years. She appeared in Maugham's The Letter in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in Excelsior (adapted from "L'Ecole des Cocottes" by H.M. Harwood) in 1928, and in Maugham's The Sacred Flame in 1929, also in London and on tour.

Among other roles, Cooper was Clemency Warlock in Cynara (1930), Wanda Heriot in The Pelican (1931), Lucy Haydon in Dr Pygmalion (1932), Carola in The Firebird (1932), Jane Claydon in The Rats of Norway (1933), Mariella Linden in The Shining Hour in 1934 and 1935, in London and New York City and on tour (at the same time making her first "talkie" film, The Iron Duke), also playing Desdemona and Lady Macbeth on Broadway in 1935. She was Dorothy Hilton in Call it a Day, again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936. A highlight of 1937 was Laura Lorimer in Goodbye to Yesterday in London and on tour. In 1938, she played Tiny Fox-Collier in Spring Meeting in New York, Montreal and Britain, as well as several Shakespeare roles and Fran Dodsworth in Dodsworth. She repeated Spring Meeting in 1939.

Later career
Cooper turned to film full-time in 1940, finding success in Hollywood in a variety of character roles and was frequently cast as a disapproving, aristocratic society woman, although she sometimes played lively, approachable types, as she did in Rebecca (1940). She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Bette Davis's domineering mother in Now, Voyager (1942), a sceptical nun in The Song of Bernadette (1943), and Rex Harrison's mother, Mrs. Higgins, in My Fair Lady (1964). In 1945, after playing the role of Clarissa Scott in the film The Valley of Decision, for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer she was given a contract with the studio. Her credits there included both dramatic and comedy films, including The Green Years (1946), The Cockeyed Miracle (1946) and The Secret Garden (1949). Other notable film roles were The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955), Separate Tables (1958) and The Happiest Millionaire (1967) as Aunt Mary Drexel, singing "There Are Those".

Her only stage roles in the 1940s were Mrs. Parrilow in The Morning Star in Philadelphia and New York (1942) and Melanie Aspen in The Indifferent Shepherd in Britain (1948). She returned to theatre (between films) more often in the 1950s and 1960s, playing in London and on tour in such roles as Edith Fenton in The Hat Trick (1950); Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, in Relative Values (1951 and 1953); Grace Smith in A Question of Fact (1953); Lady Yarmouth in The Night of the Ball (1954); Mrs. St. Maugham in The Chalk Garden (1955–56), Dame Mildred in The Bright One (1958); Mrs. Vincent in Look on Tempests (1960); Mrs. Gantry (Bobby) in The Bird of Time (1961); Mrs. Moore in a stage adaptation of A Passage to India (1962); Mrs Tabret in The Sacred Flame (1966 and 1967); Prue Salter in Let's All Go Down the Strand (1967); Emma Littlewood in Out of the Question (1968); Lydia in His, Hers and Theirs (1969); and others. She received two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for her roles in The Chalk Garden and A Passage to India.

She also had various television roles in the 1950s and '60s. These included, among others, three episodes of The Twilight Zone: "Nothing in the Dark" (1962), "Passage on the Lady Anne" (1963) and "Night Call" (1964). Cooper starred in the 1964–65 series The Rogues with David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young, Robert Coote, John Williams and Larry Hagman. The series lasted a single season of thirty episodes, most of which featured Cooper as the matriarch of an ethical family of con artists who only prey on criminals.

In 1967, at the age of 79, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Her last major success on the stage was at age 82, in 1970–71 in the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden, a role she had created on Broadway and in the West End in 1955–56.

Her final public appearance was on the 5 May 1971 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, on which she guested with her son-in-law Robert Morley in London. On the day following Cooper's death, her Now, Voyager co-star Bette Davis appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and called Cooper "Without a doubt, the most beautiful person as well as actress, and a professional ... never was she late one minute, never didn't she know every line."

Personal life
Cooper was married three times.
 * Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1908–1921). The couple had two children: Joan (1910–2005), who married the actor Robert Morley, and John Rodney (1915–1983).
 * Sir Neville Pearson (1927–1936). Sir Neville and Lady Pearson had one daughter, Sally Pearson, aka Sally Cooper, who was married to the actor Robert Hardy from 1961 to 1986.
 * Philip Merivale (1937–1946), a fellow actor. The couple lived for many years in Santa Monica, California as permanent resident aliens. He died at age 59 from a heart ailment. Her stepson from this marriage was John Merivale.

Cooper published a self-titled autobiography in 1931. She lived mostly in England in her final years and died from pneumonia in 1971 at the age of 82 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

title: Gladys Cooper


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Arthur Wing Pinero

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero (24 May 1855 –23 November 1934) was an English playwright and, early in his career, actor.

Pinero was drawn to the theatre from an early age, and became a professional actor at the age of 19. He gained experience as a supporting actor in British provincial theatres, and from 1876 to 1881 was a member of Henry Irving's company, based at the Lyceum Theatre, London.

Pinero wrote his first play in 1877. Seven years later, having written 15 more, three of them highly successful, he abandoned acting and became a full-time playwright. He first became known for a series of farces, of which The Magistrate (1885) was the longest-running. During the 1890s he turned to serious subjects. The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893), dealing with a woman with a scandalous past, was regarded as shocking, but ran well and made a large profit. His other successes included Trelawny of the "Wells" (1898), a romantic comedy celebrating the theatre, old and new, and The Gay Lord Quex, about a reformed roué and a feisty young woman. A venture into opera, with a libretto for The Beauty Stone (1898), was not a success, and Pinero thereafter generally stuck to his familiar genre of society dramas and comedies.

Although he continued to write throughout the first three decades of the 20th century and into the fourth, it is Pinero's work from the 1880s and 1890s that has endured. There have been numerous revivals of many of his plays; and some have been adapted for the cinema or as musicals. By his later years, Pinero was seen as old-fashioned, and his last plays were not successful. He died in London at the age of 79.

Early years
Pinero was born in London, the only son, and second of three children, of John Daniel Pinero (1798–1871), and his wife Lucy, née Daines (1836–1905). Pinero's father and grandfather were London solicitors. They were descended from the Pinheiro family, described by Pinero's biographer John Dawick as "a distinguished family of Sephardic Jews who rose to prominence in medieval Portugal before suffering the persecutions of the Inquisition". Pinero's branch of the family fled to England. His grandfather abandoned the Jewish faith, became a member of the Church of England, married a Christian Englishwoman, Margaret Wing, and became a highly successful lawyer. His younger son, Pinero's father, also took up the legal profession, but was much less successful; Pinero was brought up in circumstances that were not poor but were not affluent. He attended Spa Fields Chapel charity school in Exmouth Street, Clerkenwell, London, until the age of ten, when he went to work in his father's office.

John Daniel Pinero died in May 1871, leaving very little money. To contribute to the family income, Pinero continued to work as a solicitor's clerk, earning £1 a week. In the evenings he studied elocution at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution. He and his fellow students staged several productions of plays, and Pinero became irresistibly drawn to the theatre. In May 1874 he abandoned the legal profession and joined R. H. Wyndham at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, as a "general utility" actor. He made his professional debut in the small role of a groom in an adaptation of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White.

Actor and rising playwright: 1874–1884
As a junior member of Wyndham's company Pinero quickly gained experience in a range of roles, supporting E. A. Sothern in Our American Cousin, and Charles Mathews in the Balzac adaptation A Game of Speculation, and graduating to larger parts such as Crosstree in Black-Eyed Susan. His engagement in Edinburgh came to a sudden end in February 1875 when the theatre was destroyed by fire. He was fortunate in being offered another provincial engagement, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool, where he began to be noticed by the press, gaining approving reviews for his acting in supporting roles. A production of Miss Gwilt, an adaptation of Wilkie Collins's Armadale, starring Ada Cavendish, was reported by the theatrical paper The Era as "a genuine triumph"; the play transferred from Liverpool to the West End, and Pinero retained his role as an elderly solicitor. The production was not the hoped-for success in London, but Pinero received good notices for his performance, and when the run finished after ten weeks he was immediately engaged by Henry Irving's manager, Mrs Bateman, as a member of the supporting cast for Irving's forthcoming provincial tour.

Although the tour was uncongenial, and Pinero gathered some highly critical notices, he continued to work as a supporting actor to Irving for five years. He first appeared at the Lyceum, Irving's London base, in December 1876 and played a total of 21 parts there between then and 1881. His Shakespearean roles were Lord Stanley in Richard III (1877), Rosencrantz in Hamlet (1878), Guildenstern in Hamlet (1879), Salarino in The Merchant of Venice (1879), and Roderigo in Othello (1881). In a revival of the melodrama The Bells, with which Irving's name was already synonymous, he played Dr Zimmer (1878).

While in Irving's company Pinero wrote his first plays. He began with £200 a Year, a one-act comedy written in a single afternoon for a colleague to present at a benefit performance in 1877. The play was well received and was given several further performances, bringing Pinero's name a modest amount of publicity. His first full-length play, La Comète, was staged in a theatre in Croydon in 1878, and he wrote four more one-act comedies, staged in London in 1878–1880, playing in two of them – Daisy's Escape and Bygones – at the Lyceum. Another of these, Hester's Mystery (1880), written for the comic actor J. L. Toole, ran for 300 performances at the Folly Theatre.

Pinero's profile as a playwright was further raised by The Money Spinner, a full-length comedy, first given at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester in November 1880 and then at the St James's in London in January 1881. The theatre historian J. P. Wearing regards the play as of particular importance in the history of the St James's, a theatre previously known more for its failures than its successes. Pinero's play was regarded as daringly unconventional and a risky venture, but it caught on with the public, particularly for the character Baron Croodle, a "disreputable but delightful old reprobate and card-shark" played by John Hare. The following year Pinero wrote the first of eleven more plays for the St James's, The Squire (1881). It caused controversy by its supposed similarity to Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.

After leaving Irving's company Pinero joined another well-known London management, Squire Bancroft and his wife Effie, who ran the Haymarket Theatre. For them he played the Marquis de Cevennes (Plot and Passion, 1881), Sir Alexander Shendryn (Ours, 1882), Hanway (Odette, 1882) and finally Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals (1884) as part of a starry cast that included Squire Bancroft, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Lionel Brough and Julia Gwynne. Pinero received mixed notices, some unfavourable, and others among the best of his acting career. This was his last professional engagement as an actor.

During his time at the Haymarket Pinero married Myra Emily Wood (c. 1852–1919), who had acted under the stage name of Myra Holme, a widow with two children, Angus and Myra, from her first marriage. The wedding took place on 19 April 1883. There were no children of the marriage to Pinero.

Farces and drawing-room comedies: 1884–1893
With the exception of two adaptations of serious French works, The Ironmaster (1884) and Mayfair (1885), Pinero's output between 1884 and 1893 consisted of six farces and five comedies. During this period he became particularly associated with the Court Theatre, where five of his farces were presented, with great success at the box office, between 1885 and 1892, beginning with The Magistrate. Wearing writes that in these plays Pinero "attacked facets of Victorian society by creating credible though blinkered characters, trying to preserve their respectability while trapped in a relentless whirlpool of catastrophically illogical events".

Pinero told an interviewer that with the first of his Court farces, The Magistrate, he had tried "to raise farce a little from the low pantomime level". Instead of relying on the Parisian stereotype, revolving around potentially adulterous liaisons, he tried to create believable characters in credible situations. The piece played for 363 performances in its first run, the first play in the history of the Court to run for more than a year. When its star, Arthur Cecil, required a summer break, Beerbohm Tree deputised for him for three weeks. Three touring companies were needed to meet the demand for the play in the British provinces, and local managements in Australia, India and South Africa were licensed to stage it; Pinero travelled to New York for the American premiere, at Daly's Theatre in October 1885. He had turned 30 earlier that year. A retrospective review of his career published in 1928 pointed out that Pinero – who had recently celebrated 50 years as a West End playwright – achieved fame at an unusually early age: his contemporaries Bernard Shaw, J. M. Barrie and John Galsworthy were all in their thirties before their plays were produced in London.

Pinero's other Court farces – The Schoolmistress (1886), Dandy Dick (1887), The Cabinet Minister (1890) and The Amazons (1893) – ran for 291, 262, 199 and 114 performances respectively, an aggregate of 866. Their success was outstripped by that of the gentler comedy Sweet Lavender, which ran at Terry's Theatre for 684 performances from March 1888 to January 1890. This piece concerns an impoverished clerk, a bibulous but wise barrister, fraudulent bankers, a long-lost sweetheart and happy endings all round. It was billed as "a domestic drama", and was mainly comic, but, The Era reported, "there are scenes where the laughter is hushed, where smiles give way to tears, and where mirth is merged in heartfelt sympathy".

Serious plays
Plays in a similar vein to Sweet Lavender – The Weaker Sex (1888) and Lady Bountiful (1891) – did not match its success, running for 61 and 65 performances respectively. Nonetheless Pinero's attention continued to turn more to serious than to farcical topics. Wearing comments that Pinero began to write "problem plays", considering "the double standard of morality, applied unequally to men and women". His first was The Profligate (1889), in which past misdeeds come to haunt a seemingly respectable man. It was chosen to inaugurate the new Garrick Theatre, but the lessee, John Hare, persuaded a reluctant Pinero to tone down the ending to avoid alienating his respectable society audience: in the final version the protagonist does not kill himself, as Pinero had written, but is forgiven by his wife. The play ran for 129 performances. When his next such drama came to be produced Pinero remained firm: the play would, and did, end in tragedy. This was his best-known serious work, The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893). While he was planning it, several plays of Henrik Ibsen were presented in London for the first time, regarded by much of polite society as avant garde, blunt and shocking. Seeing Ghosts led Pinero to reconsider his approach to playwriting, which now seemed old-fashioned by comparison. He was far from uncritical of Ibsen's plays, but recognised that if he was to be a serious dramatist he must treat social problems and human misconduct frankly.

The Second Mrs Tanqueray centred on "a woman with a past". Hare declined to present it, and George Alexander, the actor-manager running the St James's Theatre, to whom Pinero then offered the play, said, "Sorry, I daren't do it". He had second thoughts, and accepted it. The production was scheduled to replace Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, which also focused on a woman with a far from respectable past. Unlike Pinero's play, Wilde's ended happily, and was seen by the respectable habitués of the St James's as mildly shocking but acceptable. In Pinero's play Paula Tanqueray kills herself. In Wearing's words, "although not as avant-garde as Ibsen's plays, Tanqueray confronted its fashionable St James's audiences with as forceful a social message as they could stomach". Both Pinero and Alexander were apprehensive about the public reception of the piece, but it was a sensational success at its opening in May 1893, made a profit of more than £10,000, and was still playing to full houses when Alexander, who disliked acting in long runs, closed the production in April 1894 after 225 performances.

Wearing comments that the public's appetite for similar Pinero plays varied. The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1895) managed a run of 88 performances, The Benefit of the Doubt (1895) ran for 74, The Thunderbolt (1908) and Mid-Channel (1909) both ran for 58.

Fin de siècle
The year 1898 saw one of Pinero's most enduring successes and his most conspicuous failure. The first was Trelawny of the "Wells", the second, The Beauty Stone. In Trelawny of the "Wells", described by a 21st-century critic as "Pinero's love letter to theatre", the author addressed his regular topics of class and inexorable change, to which he added a study of the enduring power of the theatre. The play shows a popular actress in mid-Victorian melodramas marrying into the aristocracy, regretting it, returning to the stage and finding that she can no longer make the old style of plays work, successfully switching to works in the new realistic style. Wearing calls the play Pinero's homage to Tom Robertson, whose pioneering theatrical realism influenced two generations of writers including W. S. Gilbert and Bernard Shaw as well as Pinero. The critics were confused by the play. Pinero commented that they seemed "divided as to whether the piece is a weak farce or an imperfect realistic drama". It had a good, though not outstanding, run of 135 performances at the Court, but subsequently became one of Pinero's most revived plays.

At the same time the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was in need of a new opera for his Savoy Theatre after the end of Gilbert and Sullivan's long partnership. It is not clear why Carte chose to commission a libretto from two writers with no experience in the genre, but for Arthur Sullivan's The Beauty Stone he brought together Pinero and J. Comyns Carr, an art critic, gallery owner and part-time author of dramas. Sullivan, who was used to Gilbert's skill and flexibility, quickly found his new collaborators inept: "gifted and brilliant men, with no experience in writing for music, and yet obstinately refusing to accept any suggestions from me as to form and construction". He later wrote in his diary, "heartbreaking to have to try to make a musical piece out of such badly constructed (for music) mess of involved sentences". The musical analyst William Parry describes the libretto as "a verbose mess ... suffused with a fussy air of arch medievalism". At its premiere, on 28 May 1898, the piece ran for four hours, and Pinero and Carr had to accept some drastic cuts to their words, which also meant sacrificing some of Sullivan's best music. The reviews for the music ranged from polite to enthusiastic; for the libretto they ranged from polite to damning. Max Beerbohm, who had succeeded Shaw as theatre critic of The Saturday Review and who was to become a persistent irritant to Pinero, was particularly waspish. Besides the shortcomings of the libretto, the uncomic, romantic style of the piece was not in keeping with the traditions of the Savoy or the expectations of its audience, and the opera closed on 16 July after 50 performances – the worst run for any of Sullivan's operas.

Within a year of the disappointment of The Beauty Stone Pinero returned to successful form with a four-act play The Gay Lord Quex, a comedy of manners, in succession to two others in the genre, The Times (1891) and The Princess and the Butterfly (1897). The Gay Lord Quex, a story of a determined and resourceful young woman and a reformed aristocratic philanderer, had an initial run of 300 performances, and has proved one of Pinero's more revivable plays.

20th century
In the first decade of the century Pinero continued to be regarded as among the forefront of British playwrights. His comedy of manners Iris (1901) ran for 115 performances, and in 1906 he had one of his biggest successes, with His House in Order, another work for Alexander and the St James's. This piece is a drama about a put-upon second wife who eventually triumphs over the domineering family of her husband's dead first wife and wins his undivided love. It was a triumph for Irene Vanbrugh and Alexander in the lead roles, and for Pinero; it ran for 430 performances and took more than £78,000 at the box-office. The alliance between Alexander had by now become a firm friendship, punctuated by occasional arguments between the actor-manager and the author, who became extremely prescriptive about the staging of his plays and the delivery of his lines.

Another of Pinero's friends was Shaw. As authors they held very different views of the nature and purpose of drama. Although both addressed social problems in their plays, Shaw, who held that all good art is didactic, concentrated on the problem itself, whereas Pinero focused more on the people affected by it, which Shaw felt weakened the argument. Nevertheless, they were on good terms and both were prominent in campaigns for a national theatre and the reform or abolition of theatre censorship. Shaw conceived the idea that playwrights needed a titled figure to lead their campaigns, and lobbied the British government to secure a knighthood for Pinero. Whether because of Shaw's canvassing or not is unknown, but Pinero was knighted in 1909, only the second dramatist to receive the honour (Gilbert having been knighted two years earlier). Pinero rarely used the title, but shortened his signature from "Arthur W. Pinero" to "Arthur Pinero".

In the second decade of the century Pinero had his last two real successes. The comedy The "Mind the Paint" Girl ran at the Duke of York's Theatre for 126 performances in 1912, and The Big Drum, his last play for Alexander had 111 performances at the St James's in 1915. The First World War badly affected his wish and ability to write. He had suffered an emotional blow in 1913 when his stepson killed himself, and the outbreak of war the following year appalled Pinero. Following the sinking of RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915, he wrote to The Times calling on naturalised British citizens of German origin to make public statements of their loyalty to the King and reject Germany's methods of warfare. In the following days, numerous letters were received by the newspaper from naturalised Britons affirming their loyalty, including public figures such as Sir Ernest Cassel, Sir George Henschel, Sir Carl Meyer and Sir Felix Schuster. Among others who came under public pressure because of the war was Shaw, who opposed it strenuously, and was much vilified by the public and even by his colleagues. Pinero refused to join in the chorus of disapproval, and his friendship with Shaw endured, although they saw less of each other after Shaw resigned from the Dramatists' Club under pressure from its pro-war members led by Henry Arthur Jones.

Pinero's wife died in 1919, having been an invalid for some time. Although her death was foreseen it caused Pinero deep distress, and after it he was often despondent, despite the devoted attention of his stepdaughter. During the last years of his life Pinero gradually ceased to be a figure of importance in the theatre. After the end of the war he wrote eight more plays; two of them remained unstaged and of the four that were produced in London the longest-running lasted for 64 performances.

His heart weakened by a serious bout of influenza, Pinero failed to survive an operation for a hernia. He died on 23 November 1934 in Marylebone Nursing Home. A memorial service was held at St Marylebone Parish Church on 28 November 1934, after which, by Pinero's request, his ashes were buried in his wife's grave in the churchyard of Chiddingfold, Surrey, close to their former country house.

Plays

 * Source: Dawick.

Broadway productions
The original London productions that were followed by New York productions were: The Money Spinner (New York, 1882); The Squire (1882); Girls and Boys (1883); Lords and Commons (1884); In Chancery (1885); The Magistrate (play) (1885); The Schoolmistress (1886); Dandy Dick (1887); Sweet Lavender (1888); Lady Bountiful (1891); The Cabinet Minister (1892); The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893); The Amazons (1894); The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith (1895); The Benefit of the Doubt (1896); The Princess and the Butterfly (1897); Trelawny of the Wells (1898); The Gay Lord Quex (play) (1900); Iris (1902); Letty (1904); A Wife without a Smile (1904); His House in Order (1906); Mid-Channel (1910); Preserving Mr. Panmure (1912); The "Mind the Paint" Girl (1912); and The Enchanted Cottage (1923).

Revivals
Among the notable British revivals of Pinero plays singled out in John Dawick's 1993 study of the dramatist were:
 * The Magistrate: Old Vic, 1959; Chichester Festival and then Cambridge Theatre, London, 1969; National Theatre, 1986
 * The Schoolmistress: Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 1979
 * Dandy Dick: Mermaid Theatre, London, 1965; Chichester and then the Garrick, London, 1973
 * Sweet Lavender: Ambassadors Theatre, London, 1922
 * The Cabinet Minister: Royal Exchange, 1987; Albery Theatre, London, 1991
 * The Second Mrs Tanqueray: Playhouse Theatre, London, 1922; Haymarket 1950; National Theatre, 1981
 * Trelawny of the 'Wells': Old Vic, 1965; Comedy Theatre, London, 1992; National Theatre, 1993
 * The Gay Lord Quex (play): Albery, 1975
 * Source: Dawick.

In 2012 The Times remarked on a revival in interest in Pinero, with new productions of The Second Mrs Tanqueray at the Rose Theatre, The Magistrate at the National Theatre, starring John Lithgow in the title role, Trelawney of the "Wells" at the Donmar, and Dandy Dick, with Patricia Hodge and Nicholas Le Prevost. The paper commented, "Like Terence Rattigan in recent years, Pinero is being dusted down, reappraised and hailed as one of the great British playwrights".

Musicals
Four of Pinero's plays have been adapted as musicals: The Magistrate as The Boy (1917) with words by Fred Thompson, Percy Greenbank and Adrian Ross and music by Lionel Monckton and Howard Talbot; In Chancery as Who's Hooper? (1919) with lyrics by Thompson and music by Talbot and Ivor Novello; The Schoolmistress as My Niece (1921) with words by Greenbank and music by Talbot; and Trelawny of the "Wells" as Trelawny (1972), adapted by Aubrey Woods, George Rowell and Julian Slade.

Cinema
The first of Pinero's works to be filmed was The Second Mrs Tanqueray, in an unauthorised American silent version in 1914, which prompted a successful but not very lucrative lawsuit by the author. With his approval, eight of his plays were adapted for the silent cinema, an authorised version of The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1916) with George Alexander in his first film role, reprising the part he created in 1893; Trelawny of the "Wells" (1916); Sweet Lavender (twice: in 1915 and 1920); Iris (twice: 1916 and as A Slave of Vanity, 1920); The Profligate (1917); The Gay Lord Quex (twice: 1917 and 1919); Mid-Channel (1920); His House in Order (1920) and ''The Enchanted Cottage (1924).

After the days of silent films there were adaptions of His House in Order (1928) Trelawny of the "Wells" (as The Actress, 1928), The Magistrate (as Those Were the Days, 1934), Dandy Dick (1935), The Enchanted Cottage (1945), and The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1952).

Television
There have been many adaptations of Pinero's works for broadcasting. Television versions include The Gay Lord Quex (1946, 1953 and 1983, starring respectively Ronald Ward, André Morell and Anton Rogers); The Magistrate (1946, 1951 and 1972, Desmond Walter-Ellis, Richard Goolden and Michael Hordern); Trelawny of the "Wells" (1949, 1971 and 1985, Bransby Williams,  Roland Culver, Michael Hordern); Dandy Dick (1948, directed by Athene Seyler) and The Second Mrs Tanqueray starring Elizabeth Sellars (1962).

Reputation
In 1906, The Times commented:
 * When Mr. Pinero is at his best we reckon ourselves as close upon the high water mark of theatrical enjoyment. … This or that playwright may show more "heart" than Mr. Pinero or a more delicate subtlety, a third may easily outclass him in intellectual gymnastic, but in his command of the resources of the stage for the legitimate purposes of the stage he is without a rival. As it was said of Euripides that he was τραγικώτατος, the most tragic of the tragic writers, as it might be said of Molière that he was the most comic of comic writers, so it may be said of Mr. Pinero that of all our dramatists to-day he is the most "dramatic". The art of drama is, quintessentially, the art of story-telling, as the sculptors say, "in the round". Mr. Pinero is supreme as a story-teller of that sort. We are always keenly interested in what his people are doing at the moment; we always have the liveliest curiosity about what they are going to do a moment later.

By the time of Pinero's death in 1934 the paper had become less enthusiastic. Both The Times and The Daily Telegraph published polite obituaries that respectfully relegated his works to a bygone era. For twenty years after his death Pinero's reputation remained in what Dawick calls "a state of near-eclipse". From the 1950s onwards interest in his Court farces grew. In a 1972 study of the playwright, Walter Lazenby wrote, "Pinero cannot be outranked as a farceur by any other English writer; not even Shakespeare consistently expended on this form the care and art which went into the Court Theatre farces or achieved such thoroughly satisfying results". Reviewing the book, the academic Robert Ronning agreed that the farces were Pinero's most enduring works:
 * The fact that students will continue to read The Second Mrs Tanqueray instead of The Magistrate does not mean much except for what they learn about craftsmanship, and this could be learned equally well from the farces. ... While we have seen considerable interest in the field of nineteenth century drama in recent years, one doubts if Pinero's social and problem plays will ever catch on.

In 2012 the director Stephen Unwin wrote:

 * One of the most heartening developments in recent years has been the critical rehabilitation of the oft-scorned giants of the commercial theatre. Thus Coward has been revealed as an English Chekhov and Rattigan as the supreme explorer of the hidden heart. But neither would have been possible without Pinero, whose surprisingly moving, amazingly theatrical and deeply humane plays still have the power to astonish and delight 100 years after they first created such a stir.

title: Arthur Wing Pinero