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The Coasters

The Coasters are an American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group who had a string of hits in the late 1950s. With hits including "Searchin'", "Young Blood", "Charlie Brown", "Poison Ivy", and "Yakety Yak", their most memorable songs were written by the songwriting and producing team of Leiber and Stoller. Although the Coasters originated outside of mainstream doo-wop, their records were so frequently imitated that they became an important part of the doo-wop legacy through the 1960s. In 1987, they were the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

History
The Coasters were formed on October 12, 1955, when two of The Robins, a Los Angeles–based rhythm-and-blues group, joined Atlantic Records. They were dubbed The Coasters because they went from the west coast to the east. The Robins included Carl Gardner and Bobby Nunn. The original Coasters were Gardner, Nunn, Billy Guy, Leon Hughes (who was replaced by Young Jessie on a couple of their early Los Angeles recordings), and the guitarist Adolph Jacobs. Jacobs left the group in 1959.

The songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller started Spark Records and in 1955 produced "Smokey Joe's Cafe" for the Robins (their sixth single with Leiber and Stoller). The record was popular enough for Atlantic Records to offer Leiber and Stoller an independent production contract to produce the Robins for Atlantic. Only two of the Robins—Gardner and Nunn—were willing to make the move to Atlantic, recording their first songs in the same studio as the Robins had done (Master Recorders). In late 1957, Carl Gardner and Billy Guy moved to New York with newcomers Cornell Gunter and Will "Dub" Jones to reform The Coasters. The new quartet was from then on stationed in New York, although all had Los Angeles roots.

The Coasters' association with Leiber and Stoller was an immediate success. Together they created a string of good-humored "storytelling" hits that are some of the most entertaining from the original era of rock and roll. According to Leiber and Stoller, getting the humor to come through on the records often required more recording "takes" than for a typical musical number.

Their first single, "Down in Mexico", was an R&B hit in 1956. The following year, the Coasters crossed over to the pop chart in a big way with the double-sided "Young Blood"/"Searchin'". "Searchin'" was the group's first U.S. Top 10 hit, and topped the R&B chart for 13 weeks, becoming the biggest R&B single of 1957 (all were recorded in Los Angeles).

"Yakety Yak" (recorded in New York), featuring King Curtis on tenor saxophone, included the famous lineup of Gardner, Guy, Jones, and Gunter, and became the act's only national number one single, topping both the pop and R&B charts. The next single, "Charlie Brown", reached number two on both charts. It was followed by "Along Came Jones", "Poison Ivy" (number 1 for almost two months on the R&B chart), and "Little Egypt (Ying-Yang)".

Changing popular tastes and changes in the group's line-up contributed to a lack of hits in the 1960s. During this time, Billy Guy was also working on solo projects; the New York singer Vernon Harrell was brought in to replace him for stage performances. Later members included Earl "Speedo" Carroll (lead of the Cadillacs), Ronnie Bright (the bass voice on Johnny Cymbal's "Mr. Bass Man"), Jimmy Norman, and guitarist Thomas "Curley" Palmer. The Coasters signed with Columbia Records' Date label in 1966, reuniting with Leiber and Stoller (who had parted ways with Atlantic Records in 1963), but never regained their former fame. In 1971, the Coasters had a minor chart entry with "Love Potion No. 9", a song that Leiber and Stoller had written for the Coasters, but instead gave to the Clovers in 1959. In Britain, a 1994 Volkswagen TV advertisement used the group's "Sorry But I'm Gonna Have to Pass", which led to a minor chart placement in that country.

In 1987, the Coasters became the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, crediting the members of the 1958 configuration. The Coasters also joined the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.

Several groups used the name in the 1970s, touring throughout the country, though original member Carl Gardner held the legal rights to it. Gardner continued to tour with the Coasters and made many attempts to stop bogus groups with no connection to the original group using the name. In late 2005, Carl's son Carl Gardner Jr. took over as lead with the group when his father retired. The Coasters' line-up then consisted of Carl Gardner Jr., J. W. Lance, Primo Candelara, and Eddie Whitfield. Carl Jr. later left this group and has started his own group with Curley Palmer. Carl's widow Veta owns the rights to the Coasters name.

Leon Hughes, the last surviving member of the original Coasters, died of natural causes on March 1, 2023, at the age of 92. Prior to his death, he performed with his own group.

Several former members of the band met untimely ends. Saxophonist King Curtis, known as the "Fifth Coaster," was fatally stabbed by two drug addicts outside his apartment building in 1971. Cornelius Gunter was murdered in a Las Vegas parking garage in 1990.

Group members

 * Current members
 * J.W. Lance – lead vocals, previously tenor vocals (July 2001–present)
 * Primotivo Candelaria – tenor vocals (October 2008–present)
 * Robert Fowler – bass vocals (January 2015–present)
 * James Williams – baritone vocals (September 2023–present)

(Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees listed in bold.)
 * Former members

 * Carl Gardner – lead vocals (1955–2005; died 2011)
 * Billy Guy – baritone vocals (1955–1973; died 2002)
 * Bobby Nunn – bass vocals (1955–1957; died 1986)
 * Leon Hughes – tenor vocals (1955–1957; died 2023)
 * Adolph Jacobs – guitar (1956–1959/1960; died 2014)
 * Young Jessie – tenor vocals (1957; substitute)
 * Will "Dub" Jones – bass vocals (1958–1967; died 2000)
 * Cornell Gunter – tenor vocals (1958–1961; died 1990)
 * Albert "Sonny" Forriest – guitar (1959–1961)
 * Earl "Speedo" Carroll – tenor vocals (1961–1979; died 2012)
 * Thomas "Curley" Palmer – guitar (1962–2011; died 2020)
 * Vernon Harrell – baritone vocals (1965–1967; substitute)
 * Ronnie Bright – bass vocals (1968–2009; died 2015)
 * Jimmy Norman – baritone vocals (substitute 1969–1972; member 1973–1978, 1980–1997; died 2011)
 * Alvin Morse – tenor vocals (1997–2008)
 * Carl Gardner, Jr. – baritone vocals (1997–2001 and 2004), lead vocals (2005–2011)
 * Eddie Whitfield - bass vocals (November 2009–December 2015)
 * Dennis Anderson — baritone vocals (June 2011–September 2023)

Studio albums

 * 1960: The Coasters One by One – Atco LP 33-123 (SD33-123 stereo)
 * 1972: On Broadway – King K-1146-498 (KS-1146-498 stereo)

Compilation albums

 * 1957: The Coasters – Atco LP 33-101
 * 1959: The Coasters' Greatest Hits – Atco LP 33-111 (SD33-111 rechanneled stereo 1960)
 * 1962: Coast Along with the Coasters – Atco LP 33-135 (SD33-135 alternate stereo edition)
 * 1965: That Is Rock & Roll – Clarion LP 605 (SD-605 stereo)
 * 1971: Their Greatest Recordings: The Early Years – Atco LP SD33-371 (stereo compilation with alternates)

Charting singles
The Coasters recorded many songs that were released as two-song record singles and several appeared in the charts, including Billboard's Hot 100 and Hot R&B singles charts and the UK Singles Chart.

title: The Coasters


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200th Infantry Regiment (United States)

The 200th Coast Artillery (AA) (200 CA) was a United States Army unit during the first half of World War II. Today descendant elements serve with the New Mexico Army National Guard as the 200th Infantry.

History
Most of this section is taken from Army Lineage Series: Air Defense Artillery by Janice E. McKenney.

Cavalry and infantry
The 200th Infantry Regiment traces its origins to the organization, on 1 September 1880, of the 1st Regiment in the New Mexico Volunteer Militia in west-central New Mexico from previous independent companies. It was divided on 18 February 1882 into the 1st Regiment, with headquarters at Socorro; and the 2nd Regiment with headquarters at Albuquerque.

The 1st Regiment was expanded 25 April 1883 to form the 1st Regiment and the 2nd Cavalry Battalion (1st Regiment; hereafter, separate lineage). 2nd Cavalry was reorganized and redesignated 14 September 1883 as the 1st Regiment of Cavalry (less 3rd Battalion; see below). It was reorganized 10 November 1885 as the 1st Regiment of Cavalry. It was disbanded 29 December 1893 and two remaining troops attached to the 1st Regiment of Infantry. The unit was reorganized 12 September 1896 in the New Mexico Volunteer Militia as the 1st Battalion of Cavalry with headquarters at Santa Fe. (New Mexico Volunteer Militia redesignated 17 March 1897 as the New Mexico National Guard.) The unit was redesignated in 1897 as the 1st Squadron of Cavalry. While remaining in state service the 1st Squadron of Cavalry additionally formed the 2nd Squadron, 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, also known as the "Rough Riders" (mustered into federal service 6–7 May 1898 at Santa Fe; mustered out of federal service 15 September 1898 at Montauk Point, New York). Troop A attached 5 February 1908 to the 1st Regiment of Infantry (see below); remainder of squadron concurrently disbanded.

The 2nd Regiment was expanded 25 April 1883 to form the 2nd Regiment and the 1st Cavalry Battalion. The 2nd Regiment was redesignated 10 November 1885 as the 1st Regiment of Infantry with headquarters at Santa Fe. Location of headquarters was changed 16 August 1886 to Albuquerque.

The 1st Cavalry Battalion was reorganized and redesignated 14 September 1883 as the 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment of Cavalry. The unit was expanded, reorganized and redesignated 10 November 1885 as the 2nd Regiment of Cavalry.

The 1st Regiment of Infantry and elements of the 2nd Regiment of Cavalry were consolidated 24 December 1890 and consolidated unit designated at the 1st Regiment of Infantry. 1st Regiment of Infantry was consolidated in 1909 with Troop A (see above) and consolidated unit designated as the 1st Regiment of Infantry. The unit was mustered into federal service 21 April 1917 and its elements reorganized and redesignated as elements of the 115th Train Headquarters and Military Police and the 143rd and 144th Machine Gun Battalions, elements of the 40th Division.

The Military Police section of the 115th Train Headquarters and Military Police was reorganized and redesignated 27 October 1918 as the 40th Military Police Company, an element of the 40th Division, and the 115th Train Headquarters and Military Police was concurrently reorganized and redesignated as the 115th Train Headquarters. The 40th Military Police Company demobilized 2 May 1919 at Camp Kearny, California, and the 115th Train Headquarters was demobilized 25 April 1919 at Camp Kearny.

The 143rd and 144th Machine Gun Battalions demobilized 30 April 1919 at Camp Grant, Illinois.

The former 1st Regiment of Infantry was reconstituted 16 July 1919 in the New Mexico National Guard as a separate squadron of cavalry and organized with Troops A and B at Albuquerque and Carlsbad, respectively. It was expanded, reorganized and redesignated 3 December 1920 as the 1st Cavalry. It was redesignated 2 May 1922 as the 111th Cavalry. Headquarters federally recognized 4 May 1924 at Santa Fe. Assigned 5 November 1923 to the 23rd Cavalry Division. Relieved 15 March 1929 from assignment to the 23rd Cavalry Division.

First creation of 200th Coast Artillery (AA) in North Carolina
The first entity designated the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft) existed from 1921 until 5 September 1927 in the North Carolina National Guard. The regiment was constituted in the National Guard in 1921 as the 200th Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft), Coast Artillery Corps. Battery G, its only active element, was organized on 5 August 1921 at Raeford, North Carolina and assigned to the IV Corps. Additional elements were allocated as follows, but were never organized: Regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Battery (HHB) and Batteries B, C, D, E, F, I, K, and L allotted to Louisiana; Battery A allotted to Alabama; and Battery M allotted to Florida. New Orleans, Louisiana was designated as the headquarters location on organization, but the unit was never organized at that location. Regiment redesignated 200th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft) on 27 September 1924. On 1 December 1926 Battery G was redesignated as Battery F, 252nd Coast Artillery Battalion (Harbor Defense) in the North Carolina National Guard; the other elements were withdrawn from their allotted states and transferred to the deferred list. When the deferred list was abandoned, the regiment was withdrawn from the National Guard and demobilized on 5 September 1927. It had a separate lineage from the New Mexico National Guard unit.

At some later time the designation was transferred to the New Mexico National Guard.

Antiaircraft artillery
The 111th Cavalry, tracing its lineage back to the 1st Regiment, New Mexico Volunteer Militia (1880), was converted and redesignated on 26 April 1940 as the 207th Coast Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft). Redesignated as the 200th Coast Artillery (AA) on 1 July 1940, with the “207th CA” designation being transferred to the converted 107th Infantry Regiment, a New York National Guard unit.

It was inducted into federal service 6 January 1941 at home stations in New Mexico. The 200th CA was equipped with 12 3-inch guns (an older model with a vertical range of 8,200 m), water-cooled .50-caliber machine guns, and 60 in Sperry searchlights.

The 200th was doubled in size with draftees to 1,800 men while at Fort Bliss preparing for overseas deployment. In August 1941, the 200th was given notice that it had been selected for an overseas assignment of great importance. The Arkansas National Guard 206th CA and the 200th competed for deployment to either the Philippines or the Aleutian Islands. The 200th, whose personnel virtually all spoke fluent Spanish, were chosen to go to the Philippines, and arrived there in September 1941. Upon arrival it was assigned to the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) and ordered to provide air defenses for Clark Field while based at Fort Stotsenburg, although they were not attached to the Philippine Coast Artillery Command, which was primarily a harbor defense command. At about 0300 hours on 8 December 1941, the 200th went on full alert when the night radio crew picked up commercial broadcasts telling of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The 200th CA surrendered on 9 April 1942 to the Japanese 14th Army. Elements of the unit were forced by the Japanese to march into captivity in the Bataan Death March.

The Headquarters, 200th Coast Artillery, was redesignated 31 May 1946 as Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 200th Antiaircraft Artillery Group. Headquarters, 200th Antiaircraft Artillery Group, organized and federally recognized 25 September 1947 at Roswell. It was reorganized and was redesignated 1 September 1959 as Headquarters, 200th Artillery Group. It was consolidated 15 December 1967 with the 200th Artillery and consolidated unit designated at the 200th Artillery, a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental system.

The 2nd Battalion, 200th Coast Artillery, was redesignated 31 May 1946 as the 697th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion. It was reorganized and federally recognized 2 November 1947 in southeastern New Mexico with headquarters at Roswell. Redesignated 1 October 1953 as the 697th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion.

The 716th, 717th, 726th and 697th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalions; Headquarters, 515th Antiaircraft Artillery Group; 502nd Field Artillery Battalion (organized and federally recognized 21 September 1956 in eastern New Mexico with headquarters at Clovis); 120th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion; and 804th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion consolidated 1 September 1959 and consolidated unit reorganized and redesignated as the 200th Artillery, a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System, to consist of the 1st Automatic Weapons Battalion; the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Gun Battalions; and the 7th and 8th Detachments. The headquarters battery of the 2nd Battalion, reorganized from that of the 200th Antiaircraft Artillery Group, was at Las Cruces. Reorganized 1 April 1962 to consist of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Automatic Weapons Battalions and the 7th and 8th Detachments. Consolidated 15 December 1967 with Headquarters, 200th Artillery, a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental system, to consist of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Battalions.

The unit was redesignated 1 November 1972 as the 200th Air Defense Artillery. Reorganized 1 September 1975 to consist of the 1st Battalion, an element of the 49th Armored Division; the 2nd Battalion, an element of the 47th Infantry Division; the 3rd Battalion, an element of the 50th Armored Division; and the 4th Battalion, an element of the 40th Infantry Division. 1st Battalion headquarters was at Roswell, 2nd Battalion at Las Cruces, 3rd Battalion at Albuquerque, and 4th Battalion at Tucumcari. Equipped with the M42 Duster self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, the battalions served as divisional air defense artillery units of National Guard divisions but were under the administrative control of the 111th Air Defense Artillery Brigade headquarters. The 5th Battalion was activated on 1 July 1983, the first and only Roland-equipped United States Army unit, and reached initial operating capability in December 1985. The majority of its personnel volunteered for full-time service at McGregor Range, administered by Fort Bliss. As a result, the battalion was affiliated with the active 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade and under the control of Central Command and Forces Command. During its five years of existence, the battalion made 101 Roland firings during exercises.

The 4th Battalion replaced its now obsolete M42 Dusters with the Chaparral missile system and its Battery B at Springer became the headquarters and headquarters battery of the new 6th Battalion on 15 November 1986. Battery A of the 6th Battalion was at Raton with Detachment 1 at Clayton, Battery B at Taos, and Battery C at Espanola. Battery C was converted from a heavy equipment maintenance detachment.

It was reorganized on 3 March 1987 to consist of the 1st Battalion, an element of the 49th Armored Division; the 2nd Battalion, an element of the 4th Infantry Division; the 3rd Battalion, an element of the 50th Armored Division; 4th Battalion, an element of the 40th Infantry Division; and the 5th and 7th Battalions. The 5th and 7th Battalions were equipped with the Roland and Hawk air defense missiles respectively.

The 5th Battalion, with 300 out of 400 personnel full-time, was inactivated on 30 September 1988 due to budget cuts and the retirement of the Roland system; 143 of its full-time personnel transferred to the 7th Battalion at Rio Rancho. The regiment was withdrawn on 1 June 1989 from the Combat Arms Regimental System and reorganized under the United States Army Regimental System with headquarters at Roswell.

During annual training in 1989, 7th Battalion, 200th ADA, became the first Army reserve component unit to live-fire the Hawk air defense missile.

On 1 October 1993, the Headquarters Battery of the 2nd Battalion at Las Cruces was expanded into a new 2nd Battalion, transitioning from the Chaparral to the Hawk. Hawk-trained personnel from the 7th Battalion were planned to transfer to the new unit if they desired to. HHB and Batteries A and B were located in Las Cruces, while Battery C was in Alamogordo. The battalion was converted into the 1st Battalion, 202nd Field Artillery on 15 December 1995. By 1996, 6th Battalion was assigned as the divisional air defense battalion for the 42nd Infantry Division and in the process of transitioning to the Avenger missile system.

The 7th Battalion was announced as the second National Guard Patriot missile battalion in December 1997, but the equipment did not begin arriving until March 1998, piecemeal. As a result of the Patriot conversion, the 7th was redesignated as the 2nd that year. Due to the demanding nature of Patriot training, the 2nd Battalion struggled to fill its ranks: in mid-2003 it had only 202 soldiers out of an authorized strength of 547. By that point, three Patriot launchers out of fifteen authorized had been delivered to the unit, enough for two of five required batteries. The Avenger-equipped 4th Battalion was inactivated in 2003 and replaced by a military police unit. At the time, it had batteries in Rio Rancho, Raton, Tucumcari, and Clovis.

Today the regiment has elements serving with the New Mexico Army National Guard. Colonel Bump transitioned the 3rd Battalion, 200th ADA, to infantry in 2005, and the battalion was redesignated the 1st Battalion, 200th Infantry. The 1st Battalion, headquartered at Roswell, was converted into the 717th Support Battalion in early 2006 due to the reduced need for air defense units during the War on terror. The 2nd Battalion was inactivated in the second half of 2005, its personnel spread among new support and infantry units.

On 4 September 2005, the 2nd Battalion, 200th Infantry was converted from the 1st Battalion, 202nd Field Artillery as a light infantry unit. The battalion included HHC and rifle and forward support companies at Las Cruces and a heavy weapons company at Alamogordo. The battalion was inactivated on 25 September 2008.

515th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft)
On 19 December 1941 the 515th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft) was activated at Fort Stotsenburg as a provisional AAA regiment by the expansion and redesignation of one battalion of the 200th CA. It was originally designated "Provisional 200th CA (AA) Regiment of Manila" on 8 December 1941, initially with 20 officers and 500 enlisted men manning AA weapons previously stored in the Manila area. The number "515th" was taken from an Organized Reserve regiment in Lincoln, Nebraska, organized in 1924, that probably had few personnel assigned. On 19 December 1941 the regiment was redesignated as the 515th and augmented with about 750 officers and enlisted men of the Philippine Commonwealth Army for training. Moved from Manila 25 December 1941 (the day before Manila was declared an open city) to defend the withdrawal routes to Bataan, where the unit defended the Cabcaben airfield and other key points until surrendering as part of the Philippine Provisional Coast Artillery Brigade on 9 April 1942.

Distinctive unit insignia
A Gold color metal and enamel device 1+1/4 in in height overall consisting of a shield blazoned: Or an Avanyu Sable. Attached above the shield from a wreath Or and Sable, a coiled rattlesnake Brün. Attached below and to the sides of the shield a Gold scroll inscribed "PRO CIVITATE ET PATRIA" in Black letters. The Avanyu device used by the Pueblo Indians is another form of the triskelion, a lucky talisman and symbolic of energy, motion, and victory. It is also emblematic of "the whirling sun" and "lightning in air" which allude to the firepower and air defense mission of the former unit. The motto translates to "For State and Country." The distinctive unit insignia was originally approved for the 111th Cavalry Regiment on 19 June 1926. It was redesignated for the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment (AA) on 7 March 1941. It was redesignated for the 717th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion on 6 October 1952. The insignia was redesignated for the 200th Artillery Regiment on 7 June 1960. It was redesignated for the 200th Air Defense Artillery Regiment on 9 February 1973. It was redesignated for the 200th Infantry Regiment with the description and symbolism updated on 22 August 2006.
 * Description
 * Symbolism
 * Background

Blazon
Or an Avanyu Sable. (The Avanyu is a Pueblo Indian device not unlike the device of the Isle of Man conventionalized, which is blazoned three legs embowed conjoined at the thighs, the three arms of the Avanyu each ending in a triangular head bearing five points). That for the regiments of the New Mexico Army National Guard: On a wreath of the colors Or and Sable, a coiled rattlesnake Proper. Motto:  PRO CIVITATE ET PATRIA (For State and Country).
 * Shield
 * Crest

Symbolism
The Avanyu device used by the Pueblo Indians is another form of the triskelion, a lucky talisman and symbolic of energy, motion, and victory. It is also emblematic of "the whirling sun" and "lightning in air" which allude to the firepower and air defense mission of the former unit. The crest is that of the New Mexico Army National Guard.
 * Shield
 * Crest

Background
The coat of arms was originally approved for the 111th Cavalry Regiment on 2 January 1924. It was amended to correct the motto on 18 June 1928. It was redesignated for the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment (AA) on 7 March 1941. It was redesignated for the 717th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion on 6 October 1952. The insignia was redesignated for the 200th Artillery Regiment on 7 June 1960. It was redesignated for the 200th Air Defense Artillery Regiment on 9 February 1973. It was redesignated for the 200th Infantry Regiment with the symbolism revised on 22 August 2006.

Campaign participation credit
This list includes campaigns of the 200th CA (AA), 515th CA (AA), 120th Engineer Combat Battalion (45th Infantry Division), 804th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and predecessors.

Indian Wars
 * New Mexico 1881
 * New Mexico 1882

War with Spain
 * Santiago

World War I
 * Streamer without inscription

World War II
 * Sicily (with arrowhead)
 * Naples-Foggia (with arrowhead)
 * Anzio
 * Rome-Arno
 * Southern France (with arrowhead)
 * Northern Apennines
 * Rhineland
 * Ardennes-Alsace
 * Central Europe
 * Po Valley
 * Philippine Islands

Decorations

 * Presidential Unit Citation (United States)
 * Presidential Unit Citation (Philippines)

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

title: 200th Infantry Regiment (United States)


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Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. (born October 20, 1958) is an American actor, musician, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for three Academy Awards for Best Actor, three BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and an Independent Spirit Award.

Born in New York City and raised mainly in Argentina and Denmark, Mortensen made his film debut in a small role in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness. He went on to play supporting roles in several notable films during the 1990s, including The Indian Runner (1991), Carlito's Way (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Daylight (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), A Perfect Murder (1998), A Walk on the Moon (1999), and 28 Days (2000).

Mortensen gained international attention for playing Aragorn in the fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003). He gained acclaim for his collaborations with filmmaker David Cronenberg in the thrillers A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and A Dangerous Method (2011). He gained additional Academy Award nominations for his leading roles as an anarchist father in Captain Fantastic (2016) and as Tony Lip in Green Book (2018). Mortensen made his directorial debut with Falling (2020), in which he also starred, and which was nominated for the Goya Award for Best European Film.

Aside from acting, Mortensen has explored fine arts, photography, poetry, and music. In 2002, he founded the Perceval Press to publish both his works and the works of little-known artists and authors. Mortensen sang and composed for part of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and has collaborated with guitarist Buckethead on several albums.

Early life
Mortensen was born in New York City on October 20, 1958, the son of Grace Gamble (Atkinson; July 8, 1928 – April 25, 2015) and Viggo Peter Mortensen Sr. (May 8, 1929 – March 2, 2017). His mother was American, while his father was Danish. They met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was a Canadian from Nova Scotia. His paternal grandmother was from Trondheim, Norway.

The family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina. They lived successively in the provinces of Córdoba, Chaco, and Buenos Aires. Mortensen attended primary school and acquired a fluent proficiency in Spanish while his father managed poultry farms and ranches. He was baptized Lutheran, the tradition of his father.

When Mortensen was 11 and his brothers 8 and 6, their parents divorced. The three boys returned with their mother to the United States, where Viggo spent the rest of his childhood in New York State. He graduated from Watertown High School in 1976. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a bachelor's degree in 1980 in Spanish studies and politics.

Upon graduating, Mortensen went to Europe, living for a time in the United Kingdom and Spain, before returning to Denmark. There he took various jobs such as driving trucks in Esbjerg and selling flowers in Copenhagen. He eventually returned to the United States to pursue an acting career.

1980s–1990s: First films
Mortensen's first film role was in the Woody Allen film The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), but his scenes were deleted from the final cut. He was one of the four finalists to play the title role of Tarzan in the adventure film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), though the role eventually went to Christopher Lambert.

His first onscreen appearance was playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness. He was cast in Witness because the director thought he had the right face for the part of an Amish man. He had also been simultaneously cast for another role as a soldier in Shakespeare in the Park's production of Henry V, but he decided to choose acting in the film because he wanted to try something new. He credited that decision and the very positive experience on the film as the start of his film career.

Also in 1985, he was cast in the role of Bragg on the TV series Search for Tomorrow. Mortensen's 1987 performance in Bent at the Coast Playhouse, Los Angeles, won him a Dramalogue Critics' Award. The play, about homosexual prisoners in a concentration camp, was known for the leading performance by Ian McKellen, with whom Mortensen later costarred in the film trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In 1987, Mortensen guest starred as a police detective on the hit TV series Miami Vice.

During the 1990s, Mortensen appeared in supporting roles in a variety of films, including Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady, Young Guns II, Prison, Boiling Point, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Sean Penn's The Indian Runner, Danny Cannon's The Young Americans, Brian de Palma's Carlito's Way, Crimson Tide, G.I. Jane, Daylight, A Walk on the Moon, Philip Ridley's films The Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon, the remake films A Perfect Murder and Gus Van Sant's Psycho (the 1998 remakes of two Alfred Hitchcock's movies Dial M for Murder and Psycho), 28 Days, and The Prophecy, with Christopher Walken. Of these roles, Mortensen was probably best known for playing Master Chief John Urgayle in G.I. Jane.

2000s: The Lord of the Rings and breakthrough
Another major mainstream breakthrough came in 1999, when Peter Jackson cast him as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. According to the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Mortensen was a last-minute replacement for Stuart Townsend, and would not have taken the part of Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien novel. He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Aragorn, and was ranked No. 15 on a 2015 survey of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" conducted by Empire.

In The Two Towers DVD extras, the film's swordmaster, Bob Anderson, described Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained." Mortensen often performed his own stunts, and even the injuries he sustained during several of them, including two broken toes, did not dampen his enthusiasm. At one point during shooting of The Two Towers, Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and Brett Beattie (stunt double for John Rhys-Davies) all had painful injuries, and during a shoot of them, running in the mountains, Peter Jackson jokingly referred to the three as "the walking wounded." Also, according to the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Mortensen purchased the two horses, Uraeus and Kenny, whom he had ridden and bonded with over the duration of the films.

In 2004, Mortensen starred as Frank Hopkins in Hidalgo, the story of an ex-army courier who travels to Arabia to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous desert race for a contest prize.

Mortensen starred in David Cronenberg's 2005 film A History of Violence as a family man revealed to have had an unsavory previous career. He was nominated for a Satellite Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for this role. In the DVD extras for A History of Violence, Cronenberg related that Mortensen is the only actor he had come across who would come back from weekends with his family with items he had bought to use as props on the set.

In 2006, he starred as Captain Diego Alatriste in the Spanish language film Alatriste, based on the series of novels The Adventures of Captain Alatriste, written by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

In September 2007, the film Eastern Promises, directed by David Cronenberg, was released to critical acclaim for the film itself and for Mortensen's performance as a Russian gangster on the rise in London. His nude fight scene in a steam room was applauded by Roger Ebert: "Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark." Mortensen's performance in Eastern Promises resulted in his winning the Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film award from the British Independent Film Awards. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Mortensen appeared as himself in the 2009 film Reclaiming The Blade, in which he discussed his passion for the sword and his sword-work in films such as The Lord of the Rings and Alatriste. Mortensen also talked about his work with Bob Anderson, the swordmaster on The Lord of the Rings, Alatriste, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others. In 2009, Mortensen performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. While it was reported in April 2009 that Mortensen had, at least temporarily, retired from film acting, Mortensen said he was misquoted. In a 2012 interview, he denied that he ever said he was retiring, only that he didn't have "plans to do another movie" at the time and that he was "taking a little break now. I don't have anything lined up." In 2009 he joined the cast of The Road, a film adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, and collaborated with David Cronenberg for a third time on A Dangerous Method.

2010s–present: Critical acclaim
After two years, Mortensen returned to theater in 2011, starring in Ariel Dorfman's Purgatorio ("Purgatory") in Madrid. Purgatorio is Mortensen's first play in Spanish. The play is about a man and woman confined either in a psychiatric hospital or prison together. During production, Mortensen's mother became ill and he pulled out of the initial premiere date, the first time he had ever done so for a project. The play premiered from November 4 to December 18.

During production for the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Mortensen was offered to reprise his role as Aragorn, but he declined because the character does not appear in the novel the film is based on.

Mortensen starred in the 2016 film Captain Fantastic, for which he received his second Academy Award nomination. Alonso Duralde of TheWrap praised Mortensen's performance, saying, "The movie really belongs to Mortensen, who allows Ben to be exasperating, arrogant, and impatient but also warm, loving, and caring. He's a tough but adoring father, a grieving widower and a passionate defender of his wife's final wishes, and Mortensen plays all these notes, and more with subtlety and grace".

In 2018, he starred in the film Green Book. Mortensen portrayed Tony Lip, an Italian-American bouncer hired to drive and protect pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) on a tour through the Jim Crow South from 1962 to 1963. Reflecting on the character, Mortensen stated, "I was attracted to playing Tony in part because it was a different kind of character, but the main thing I liked about him was his heart". Mortensen received his third Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Lip.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mortensen together with Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, and Elijah Wood, plus writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson from The Lord of the Rings in May 2020 joined actor Josh Gad's YouTube series Reunited Apart, which reunites the cast of popular movies through video-conferencing, and promotes donations to non-profit charities.

In 2020 he released his directorial debut Falling, which he also wrote, produced, composed the score for and starred in alongside Lance Henriksen. Mortensen had based the story on his own family's history, including his parents suffering from dementia. The film is dedicated to his brothers, Charles and Walter Mortensen.

Mortensen was cast as British cave diver Rick Stanton in the biographical film Thirteen Lives directed by Ron Howard which was released in July 2022. Mortensen was taught cave diving by Stanton personally to prepare for the role.

He reunited with David Cronenberg in the horror sci-fi film Crimes of the Future alongside Kristen Stewart with filming beginning in August 2021. Mortensen will also reunite with Lisandro Alonso on the film Eureka. Mortensen and Caleb Landry Jones will star together in the Vietnam War thriller Two Wolves which will be directed by documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney.

He wrote, directed, and stars in a Western film titled The Dead Don't Hurt. It also stars Vicky Krieps and it was shot in Mexico.

Perceval Press
With part of his earnings from The Lord of the Rings, Mortensen founded the Perceval Press publishing house—named after the knight from the legend of King Arthur—to help other artists by publishing works that might not find a home in more traditional publishing venues. Perceval Press is also the home of Mortensen's many personal artistic projects in the area of fine arts, photography, poetry, song, and literature.

Visual arts and discography
Mortensen is a painter and photographer. His paintings are frequently abstract and often contain fragments of his poetry therein. His paintings have been featured in galleries worldwide, and many of the paintings of the artist he portrayed in A Perfect Murder are his own.

Mortensen experiments with his poetry and music by mixing the two art forms. He has collaborated with guitarist Buckethead on several albums, mostly released on his own label (Perceval Press) or TDRS Music. Viggo was first introduced to Buckethead's work while working on sounds for an educational CD on Greek mythology. The finished product included a guitar part by Buckethead, which caught Viggo's ear and led him to initiate contact with the guitarist. The collaboration grew from there.

Mortensen's discography includes:

 * 1994: Don't Tell Me What to Do
 * 1997: One Less Thing to Worry About
 * 1998: Recent Forgeries
 * 1999: The Other Parade
 * 1999: One Man's Meat
 * 1999: Live at Beyond Baroque
 * 2003: Pandemoniumfromamerica
 * 2004: Live at Beyond Baroque II
 * 2004: Please Tomorrow
 * 2004: This, That, and the Other
 * 2005: Intelligence Failure
 * 2006: 3 Fools 4 April
 * 2007: Time Waits for Everyone
 * 2008: At All
 * 2010: Canciones de Invierno
 * 2011: Reunion
 * 2013: Acá
 * 2015: Under the Weather
 * 2016: Seventeen Odd Songs
 * 2017: Preguntas Desde la Orilla
 * 2018: Godzilla Sleeps Alone

Mortensen is featured on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack, singing "Aragorn's Coronation" (the name of the extended version of this song in the 3rd original sound track is "The Return of the King"), the words by Tolkien and the music composed by Mortensen. In the extended DVD edition of the first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, he sings the song "The Lay of Beren and Lúthien".

Family and relationships
Mortensen holds dual American and Danish citizenship. He has stated that he was raised speaking English and Spanish, and sometimes feels that, when speaking Spanish, he "can get to the heart of the matter better".

Mortensen met singer Exene Cervenka in 1986 on the set of the comedy Salvation! The couple married on July 8, 1987. On January 28, 1988, Cervenka gave birth to their son, Henry, who later played his on-screen son in the film Crimson Tide in 1995. Henry graduated from Columbia University in 2010 with a B.A. in archaeology and has been working at Perceval Press, which was founded by his father. Mortensen and Cervenka lived in Idaho for three years. They separated in 1992 and divorced in 1997. Since 2009, he has been in a relationship with Spanish actress Ariadna Gil. Though the couple reside in Madrid, Mortensen spends much of his time in the United States, and has stated, "I am a citizen and longtime resident of the United States and am attached to its landscapes, history, and people." He has owned property in Sandpoint, Idaho, and spends time there when not filming movies.

Mortensen has talked about his family's struggles with dementia, seeing both of his parents, three of his four grandparents, aunts, uncles, and his stepfather battle the condition. In 2016, Mortensen traveled to New York to take care of his father, who died a year later. Two years earlier, Mortensen's mother had also died from complications of the condition.

Mortensen was a close friend of Icelandic painter Georg Guðni Hauksson until the latter's death in 2011. He had long been an admirer of Georg Guðni's work as a landscape artist, and the two published books together as well as maintaining a close friendship.

Sports
Mortensen has expressed a liking for association football, ice hockey and baseball. His favorite teams include Argentine club San Lorenzo de Almagro, English team Fulham, Spanish team Real Madrid, Turkish team Beşiktaş, and both the Argentine and Danish national teams. His favorite football players are Diego Maradona and Héctor "Bambino" Veira. He is a fan of the Montreal Canadiens and wore a Canadiens shirt underneath his costume throughout the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. During the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Montreal Canadiens, Mortensen introduced one of his idols, Guy Lafleur, to the crowd at the Bell Centre in Montreal. He is also a fan of the New York Mets and, in an interview promoting 2009 film The Road, was seen wearing apparel indicating his support for the Australian Football League's Collingwood Magpies. While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman, he held a sign supporting the New York Giants of the NFL.

Political activities
Mortensen signed a protest that the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival's "Spotlight on Tel Aviv" implicitly condoned Israeli occupation and marginalised Palestinians. In 2015 he donated $1,000 to Irish political party Sinn Fein.

Mortensen endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for U.S. president during the primaries for the 2016 election. After Sanders failed to win the Democratic Party nomination, Mortensen endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein. He wrote an open letter just before Election Day 2016 in which he listed the reasons he disagreed with Hillary Clinton’s policies and could not support her in the race against Donald Trump, though he thought that Clinton would be elected president. He went on to narrate a documentary, The Revolution Televised, about the 2016 presidential election and the protests in the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention. Since 2018 Mortensen has been a member of the Catalan NGO Òmnium Cultural, a pro-independence organization dedicated to promoting Catalan culture and language in the arts and the public sphere. His longtime partner and her extended family were supporters of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. In 2019, he publicly criticized the use of his character Aragorn by the far-right Spanish party Vox during the campaign for the 2019 Spanish general election.

In May 2020, Mortensen signed an open letter urging Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza Strip. In October 2023, Mortensen signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to President Joe Biden, calling for a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war. In May 2024, Mortensen criticized Javier Milei's Argentine government, calling him a "clown" and "a puppet of the political right".

Awards and nominations

Mortensen has received numerous accolades throughout his career. His portrayal of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy earned him nominations for the SAG Award for Outstanding Cast, winning for the final instalment The Return of the King (2003).

His performances in Eastern Promises (2007), Captain Fantastic (2016) and Green Book (2018) earned him nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor. The first and last of these, as well as The Road (2009), also earned him nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor. He also received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Dangerous Method (2011), which won him the Canadian Screen Award.

Following his appearance in the Lord of the Rings, in 2006 he was granted an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, St. Lawrence University.

On October 13, 2006, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Province and the City of León, Spain.

On April 16, 2010, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog.

title: Viggo Mortensen


text:
Elijah Wood

Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and producer. He rose to international fame for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012).

Wood made his film debut with a small part in Back to the Future Part II (1989). He went on to achieve recognition as a child actor with multiple roles such as Avalon (1990) and The Good Son (1993). As a teenager, he starred in several films including North (1994), Flipper (1996), and The Ice Storm (1997). Following the success of The Lord of the Rings, Wood has appeared in a wide range of films, including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Paris, je t'aime (2006), and I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017).

Wood's voice roles include Mumble in the Happy Feet film franchise (2006–2011), the title protagonist in 9 (2009), Spyro the Dragon in the Legend of Spyro video game trilogy (2006–2008), Beck on Disney XD's Tron: Uprising (2012–2013), Sigma in Season 10 of Red vs. Blue, and Wirt in the Cartoon Network miniseries Over the Garden Wall (2014). He played Ryan Newman on the FX dark comedy series Wilfred (2011–2014), for which he received a Satellite Award nomination for Best Actor, and Todd Brotzman in the BBC America series Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016–2017).

Wood founded the record label Simian Records in 2005, which was dissolved in 2015. He directed the 2007 music video "Energy" for The Apples in Stereo. In 2010, Wood co-founded a film production company for horror films, The Woodshed, renamed SpectreVision in 2013. Wood is a disc jockey, and has toured globally with his friend Zach Cowie as the duo Wooden Wisdom.

Early life
Wood was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on January 28, 1981, to Debbie (née Krause) and Warren Wood, who operated a delicatessen together. He is of English, Danish, Irish, and German ancestry, and was raised Catholic. He has an older brother named Zachariah and a younger sister named Hannah. At age seven, Wood began modeling and taking piano lessons in his hometown. In elementary school, he appeared in The Sound of Music and played the title character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He served as a choirboy in a production of See How They Run. Wood's parents sold their delicatessen in 1989 and the family, without his father, moved to Los Angeles to allow him to pursue an acting career; they divorced when he was 15.

1988–1999: Early work
Wood modeled and appeared in local commercials; his first appearance was in the music video for Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl," directed by David Fincher. This was followed by a pivotal role in the made-for-TV film, Child in the Night, and a minor role in Back to the Future Part II, as a boy from a futuristic 2015 who teases Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) for playing an arcade game because "you have to use your hands". Nine-year-old Wood auditioned for a role in Kindergarten Cop, but was told by director Ivan Reitman that his performance was not believable, which Wood later said was "a harsh thing to say to a nine-year-old."

Playing Aidan Quinn's son in Avalon garnered professional attention for Wood; the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards. A small part in Richard Gere's Internal Affairs was followed by the role of a boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together in Paradise (1991). In 1992, Wood co-starred with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young, and with Joseph Mazzello in Radio Flyer.

In 1993, Wood played the title character in Disney's adaptation of Mark Twain's novel, The Adventures of Huck Finn, and co-starred with Macaulay Culkin in the psychological thriller The Good Son. The following year, he starred in The War, alongside Kevin Costner. Although the film received mostly negative reviews, Wood’s performance earned praise. Roger Ebert's review of the film praised Wood highly, stating that Wood "has emerged, I believe, as the most talented actor, in his age group, in Hollywood history."

Wood's title role–opposite Bruce Willis–in the Robert Reiner film North (1994) was followed by a Super Bowl commercial for Lay's "Wavy" potato chips (with Dan Quayle). In 1995, Wood appeared in the music video for The Cranberries' "Ridiculous Thoughts," played the lead role in Flipper, and co-starred in Ang Lee's critically acclaimed The Ice Storm. In 1996, he guest starred in the episode entitled "The True Test" in Homicide: Life on the Street. In 1997, Wood played Jack "The Artful Dodger" Dawkins in a made-for-TV adaptation of Oliver Twist, alongside Richard Dreyfuss. The following year, he had a leading role in the sci-fi disaster film Deep Impact, and a starring role in The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez. In 1999, Wood played a suburban white teenager who affects hip-hop lingo in James Toback's Black and White, and a junior hitman in Chain of Fools.

1999–2003: The Lord of the Rings

Wood played Frodo Baggins in the 2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's multi-volume novel. Wood was a fan of the book series, and he sent in an audition tape of himself dressed as Frodo, reading lines from the novel. He was selected from 150 actors who auditioned. Wood was the first actor to be cast. This gave Wood top billing, alongside a cast full of stars. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed in New Zealand; principal photography took over a year, and pick-up shooting continued annually for the next four years. The films used forced perspective to have Frodo and other hobbits (with an average height of 3 ft) appear much shorter than they really were. Before the cast left the country, Jackson gave Wood two gifts: one of the One Ring props used on the set and Sting, Frodo's sword. He was also given a pair of prosthetic "hobbit feet" of the type worn during filming.

In 2002, Wood lent his voice to the DTV release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. Later that year, the second part of Peter Jackson's trilogy was released, titled The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In 2003, Wood starred in the DTV film All I Want and cameoed as 'The Guy' in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. The concluding chapter of the Rings trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was released in December of that year.

2004–present

Wood's first role following his Lord of the Rings success was in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), in which he played Patrick, an unscrupulous lab technician who pursues Kate Winslet. The film received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2005. He next played the silent serial killer Kevin in Robert Rodriguez's adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book series, Sin City (2005). Wood's audition for the role only consisted of staring at a film camera while passages from the graphic novel were read. On May 12, 2005, Wood hosted MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed for the launch of the Xbox 360 video game console.

In Everything Is Illuminated (2005), Wood starred as a young Jewish-American man on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II. It was based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer. In Green Street (also 2005), he played an American college student who joins a violent British football firm. Both had limited release but were critically acclaimed.

Wood shot a small part in Paris, je t'aime (2006), which consists of 18 five-minute sections, each directed by a different director. Wood's section, called "Quartier de la Madeleine", was directed by Vincenzo Natali. The film played at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.

In George Miller's animated musical Happy Feet (2006), Wood provided the voice of Mumble, a penguin who can tap dance, but not sing. Happy Feet grossed over $380 million worldwide, and received both the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film. Wood reprised his role for the film's sequel, Happy Feet Two (2011).

Also in 2006, he was part of the ensemble cast of Emilio Estevez's drama Bobby, a fictionalized account of the hours leading up to the June 5, 1968, shooting of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In the film, Wood marries Lindsay Lohan's character in order to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Bobby screened in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Wood, along with his co-stars, received a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Later that year, Wood hosted the television special Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue for Discovery Kids; he received a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming. That same year, it was announced that Wood was set to star in The Passenger, a biographical film about singer Iggy Pop. However, the project failed to come to fruition after years in development.

Wood has provided voiceovers for video games, including the voice of Spyro the Dragon in The Legend of Spyro game trilogy (2006–2008), as well as reprising Mumble in the game version of Happy Feet (2006–2011).

On January 4, 2007, Wood joined Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg in a live telecast to announce the nominees for the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. Later that year, he starred in Day Zero, a drama about conscription in the United States, which had its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In The Oxford Murders (2008), a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Guillermo Martínez, Wood played a graduate student who investigates a series of bizarre, mathematically based murders in Oxford. The following year, he voiced the lead in the animated feature film 9, which was produced by Tim Burton.

Wood's first starring television role came in the FX series, Wilfred, where he played Ryan Newman, who is described as "an introverted and troubled young man struggling unsuccessfully to make his way in the world until he forms a unique friendship with Wilfred, his neighbor's canine pet." The pilot episode was shot in the summer of 2010, and the series lasted four seasons, with the final episode airing in the U.S. on August 13, 2014. For his role, Wood received a nomination for the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 2011.

In January 2011, it was confirmed that Wood had signed on to reprise the role of Frodo Baggins in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first film of the Hobbit trilogy, directed again by Peter Jackson. The film was released the following year and grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

Wood featured in the Beastie Boys' 2011 music video for "Make Some Noise," along with Seth Rogen and Danny McBride. He then starred in the Flying Lotus music video "Tiny Tortures," where he played a recent amputee coming to grips with his new situation. The psychedelic video was described as "menacing and magical."

In 2012, Wood had a supporting role in the romantic comedy Celeste and Jesse Forever, and starred in the horror film Maniac, for which he received the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actor. Maniac was mostly shot from a first person point of view of Wood's character.

Wood played the leading role in the 2013 Hitchcockian suspense thriller Grand Piano. He voiced Shay, one of two main characters in the adventure game Broken Age, for which he received the 2014 Performance in a Comedy, Lead award from National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR). Next, Wood provided the voice of main character Wirt in Cartoon Network's animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall. The series collected three Primetime Emmy Awards in 2015, including Outstanding Animated Program. This was followed by prominent roles in films The Last Witch Hunter (2015), opposite Vin Diesel; The Trust (2016), opposite Nicolas Cage; and I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017), opposite Melanie Lynskey. The latter film was awarded the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in January 2017.

From 2016 to 2017, Wood co-starred with Samuel Barnett as Todd Brotzman in the BBC America series Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It was announced in December 2017 that the show had not been renewed for a third season. Wood provided the voice of Nick Johnsmith / Gristol Malik in Psychonauts 2.

In 2019, Wood starred as the musician Norval Greenwood in Ant Timpson's black comedy thriller Come to Daddy. He both starred as Special Agent Bill Hagmaier and helped to produce Amber Sealey's 2021 crime mystery No Man of God, based on the real life story of Hagmaier's relationship with serial killer Ted Bundy. In 2023, Wood played the starring role of Fritz Garbinger in Macon Blair's superhero comedy horror movie The Toxic Avenger, one of a series.

Other activities

Wood appeared in The Cranberries' music video for "Ridiculous Thoughts" and in Danko Jones' three-piece series: "Full of Regret," "Had Enough," and "I Think Bad Thoughts." He also appeared in the Beastie Boys music video "Make Some Noise."

On April 11, 2008, Wood was the guest host of Channel 4's Friday Night Project. On April 25, 2009, he was honored with the Midnight Award by the San Francisco International Film Festival as an American actor who "has made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema, and who brings striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to his roles."

Wood has become a well-known disc jockey. Together with his friend Zach Cowie, they formed Wooden Wisdom and have toured around the world. They have spun at events such as the Bushmills Live 2012 festival at the Old Bushmills Distillery, the opening of the Brickell City Centre and at the pre-Emmy party at The London West Hollywood hotel.

Wood signed up to co-produce and star in the film Black Wings Has My Angel, based on the noir novel of the same name, with Anthony Moody and Rob Malkani of Indalo Productions. Wood, alongside Tom Hiddleston and Anna Paquin, was set start shooting in late 2012, but the production of the movie was delayed.

Wood together with Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, and Karl Urban, plus writer Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson on May 31, 2020, joined Josh Gad's YouTube series Reunited Apart which reunites the cast of popular movies through video-conferencing, and promotes donations to non-profit charities.

Business ventures
In 2005, Wood started his own record label called Simian Records. On September 19, 2006, Wood announced that Simian had signed The Apples in Stereo as their first band, with their new album New Magnetic Wonder released in February 2007. In addition, he also directed the band's 2007 music video for "Energy."

In 2010, Wood, together with Daniel Noah and Josh C. Waller, founded The Woodshed, a production company that promotes horror films. In 2013, the company was re-branded as SpectreVision.

Personal life
Wood and his partner, the Danish film producer Mette-Marie Kongsved, have two children together, a son (b. 2019) and a daughter (b. 2022).

Wood has a tattoo of the Elvish Sindarin word "nine", written in Tolkien's constructed script of Tengwar, below his waist on the right side. It refers to his character as one of the nine-member Fellowship of the Ring.

In May 2006, Wood was ranked at No. 7 on Autograph Collector Magazine list of the "10 Best Hollywood Autograph Signers."

On April 23, 2010, in a charitable gesture, Wood visited the Chilean town of Curepto, one of the hardest hit by the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck on February 27, 2010. He made personal visits to many of the victims and was accompanied by the First Lady of Chile, Cecilia Morel.

Wood participated in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement. He was an active supporter of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential election.

During a 2016 interview with The Sunday Times, Wood accused Hollywood of being organized by pedophiles who preyed on children within the industry, including many of his fellow child actors. Wood credited his mother with protecting him from these "vipers" and parties "where that kind of thing was going on". After the interview made international headlines, Wood clarified that he had "no firsthand experience or observation of the topic" and that his comments had been partly based on the documentary An Open Secret that he had seen.

title: Elijah Wood


text:
Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures is a 1994 New Zealand biographical film directed by Peter Jackson, from a screenplay he co-wrote with his partner, Fran Walsh. It stars Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet in their feature film debuts, with Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison and Simon O'Connor in supporting roles. The film blends elements of various genres, such as period drama, crime, psychological thriller, romance, and fantasy.

Based on the notorious Parker–Hulme murder case, Creatures examines the relationship between two teenage girls—Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme—which culminates in the premeditated killing of Parker's mother. The story's events span the period from the girls' first meeting in 1952 to the carrying out of the crime, which took place in Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 June 1954.

Creatures debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September 1994, where it was awarded the Silver Lion. It went on to receive widespread critical acclaim, becoming one of the best-received films of that year. Reviewers praised most aspects of the production, with particular attention given to the work of the previously unknown Lynskey and Winslet, as well as Jackson's directing. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 1995.

Plot
In 1952 Christchurch, Juliet Hulme, an affluent 13-year-old English girl, transfers to a new school and befriends Pauline Parker, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family. Bonding over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, they develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty.

Unlike the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family, Pauline's relationship with her mother, Honora, is hostile, and the two fight constantly. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted.

Together, Juliet and Pauline paint, write stories, make figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and made into films in Hollywood. Over time, it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World," a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies.

During a day trip to Port Levy, Juliet's parents announce their plan to go on a trip together, leaving Juliet by herself. Hysterical at the prospect of being left alone, Juliet experiences the Fourth World for the first time, perceiving it as a land where all is beautiful and she is safe. She asks Pauline to come with her, and this world also becomes visible to Pauline. This shared spiritual vision confirms their Fourth World belief and begins to affect their perception of events in the everyday world.

When Juliet is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a clinic, she and Pauline begin writing to each other, not only as themselves but in the roles of the royal couple of Borovnia. During this time, Pauline has a sexual relationship with a lodger, making Juliet jealous. Their fantasy life becomes a useful escape from the real world, and the two engage in increasingly violent, even murderous, fantasies about people who oppress them. After Juliet is released from the clinic, their relationship intensifies. Wary of her attachment to Pauline, Juliet's father speaks to Pauline's parents, who take her to a doctor. The doctor suspects that Pauline is homosexual and uses it to explain her dramatic weight loss and increasing anger at her mother.

Juliet's parents announce their intention to divorce and leave Christchurch, with Juliet to stay with a relative in South Africa. Increasingly distraught at the thought of separation, the two girls plan to run away together. When that plan becomes impossible, the two share a bathtub and talk about murdering Pauline's mother, seeing her as the primary obstacle to their being together.

The two girls spend the last three weeks together at Juliet's house. At the end of that time, Pauline returns home, and the two finalize plans for the murder. Honora plans a trip for the three of them to Victoria Park. After having tea, the three walk on a path down a steep hillside. When Honora bends over to pick up a pink charm the girls have deliberately dropped, Juliet and Pauline bludgeon her to death with a broken piece of brick put in an old stocking.

A textual epilogue reveals that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder, sentenced to five years in prison, as they were too young to face the death penalty, and released separately in 1959 on the condition that they never see each other again.

Cast

 * Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme
 * Melanie Lynskey as Pauline Parker
 * Sarah Peirse as Honora Parker
 * Diana Kent as Hilda Hulme
 * Clive Merrison as Dr. Henry Hulme
 * Simon O'Connor as Herbert Rieper
 * Jed Brophy as John
 * Peter Elliott as Bill Perry
 * Gilbert Goldie as Dr. Bennett
 * Elizabeth Moody as Miss Waller

Development
Fran Walsh suggested to Peter Jackson (who was noted for horror-comedy films) that they write a film about the notorious Parker–Hulme murder. Jackson took the idea to his long-time collaborator, producer Jim Booth (who died after filming). The three filmmakers decided that the film should tell the story of the friendship between the two girls rather than focus on the murder and trial. "The friendship was for the most part a rich and rewarding one, and we tried to honour that in the film. It was our intention to make a film about a friendship that went terribly wrong," said Peter Jackson.

Walsh had been interested in the case since her early childhood. "I first came across it in the late Sixties when I was ten years old. The Sunday Times devoted two whole pages to the story with an accompanying illustration of the two girls. I was struck by the description of the dark and mysterious friendship that existed between them—by the uniqueness of the world the two girls had created for themselves."

Jackson and Walsh researched the story by reading contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the trial. They decided that the sensational aspects of the case that so titillated newspaper readers in 1954 were far removed from the story that Jackson and Walsh wished to tell. "In the 1950s, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were branded as possibly the most evil people on earth. What they had done seemed without rational explanation, and people could only assume that there was something terribly wrong with their minds," states Jackson. To bring a more humane version of events to the screen, the filmmakers undertook a nationwide search for people who had had close involvement with Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme forty years earlier. This included tracing and interviewing seventeen of their former classmates and teachers from Christchurch Girls' High School. In addition, Jackson and Walsh spoke to neighbours, family friends, colleagues, police officers, lawyers and psychologists. Jackson and Walsh also read Pauline's diary, in which she made daily entries documenting her friendship with Juliet Hulme and events throughout their relationship. From the diary entries it became apparent that Pauline and Juliet were intelligent, imaginative, outcast young women who possessed a wicked and somewhat irreverent sense of humour. In the film all of Pauline's voice-overs are excerpts from her journal entries.

Casting
The role of Pauline was cast after Walsh scouted schools all over New Zealand to find a Pauline 'look-alike'. She had trouble finding an actress who resembled Pauline and had acting talent before discovering Melanie Lynskey. Kate Winslet was among 175 girls to audition for the film and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part. The girls were both so absorbed by their roles that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website.

Principal photography
The entire film was shot on location in Christchurch in 1993. Jackson has been quoted as saying "Heavenly Creatures is based on a true story, and as such I felt it important to shoot the movie on locations where the actual events took place."

Post-production
The visual effects in the film were handled by the then newly created Weta Digital. The girls' fantasy life, and the ‘Borovnian’ extras (the characters the girls made up) were supervised by Richard Taylor while the digital effects were supervised by George Port. Taylor and his team constructed more than 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the Borovnian crowds—plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world. Heavenly Creatures contains more than thirty shots that were digitally manipulated, ranging from the morphing garden of the ‘Fourth World’ to castles in fields and the sequences with "Orson Welles" (played by Jean Guérin).

Music

 * 1) "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" – Choirs of Burnside High School, Cashmere High School, Hagley Community College, Villa Maria College
 * 2) "Be My Love" – written by Nicholas Brodszky, Sammy Cahn; performed by Mario Lanza
 * 3) "The Donkey Serenade" – performed by Mario Lanza
 * 4) "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" – Bob Merrill; performed by the actors
 * 5) "Funiculì, Funiculà" – written by Luigi Denza, Peppino Turco; performed by Mario Lanza
 * 6) "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Peter Dvorský
 * 7) "The Loveliest Night of the Year" – performed by Mario Lanza
 * 8) "Sono Andati" from La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini; performed by Kate Winslet
 * 9) "The Humming Chorus" from Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini – performed by the Hungarian State Opera
 * 10) "You'll Never Walk Alone" – performed by Mario Lanza

Critical response
Heavenly Creatures garnered wide critical praise. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 95% score based on 108 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dark, stylish, and captivating, Heavenly Creatures signals both the auspicious debut of Kate Winslet and the arrival of Peter Jackson as more than just a cult director." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 86 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Nick Hyman, writing for Metacritic, thought that 1994's Oscar-winning Forrest Gump was equally matched by "Memorable Film(s) Not Nominated for Best Picture", including Heavenly Creatures, of which Hyman said, "Peter Jackson's masterful blend of fantastical visions and a heartbreaking real-life murder tragedy has arguably never been topped."

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a B+ and said, "Set in the early '50s, in the New Zealand village of Christchurch, this ripe hallucination of a movie – a rhapsody in purple – has been photographed in sun-drenched candy color that lends it the surreal clarity of a dream... There's something bracing about the way that Heavenly Creatures serves up its heroines' fantasies with literal-minded brute force." Gleiberman complains that Jackson never quite explains "why the two girls have metamorphosed into the '50s teenybop answer to Leopold and Loeb," yet concludes, "Still, if the pleasures of Heavenly Creatures remain defiantly on the surface, on that level the movie is a dazzler."

Box office
Heavenly Creatures had a limited box office success but performed admirably in various countries, including the United States, where it grossed a total of $3,049,135 during its limited run in 57 theatres; it grossed $5,438,120 worldwide. In the US it opened on two screens in New York City (Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza) and had the biggest per-screen gross of the weekend with an average of $15,796, grossing $41,323 in its opening 5 days.

Accolades
Heavenly Creatures was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay and won for Best British Actress at the 1st Empire Awards. It featured in a number of international film festivals, and received very favourable reviews worldwide.

Miramax International believed that reception at the Cannes Film Festival would make the film more appealing than it already was.

The film made top ten of the year lists in Time, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The New Zealand Herald. It appears in Schneider's book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

The film also did exceptionally well at the 1995 New Zealand film and television awards.

Year-end lists

 * 3rd – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
 * 5th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
 * 5th – Yardena Arar, Los Angeles Daily News
 * 9th – Desson Howe, The Washington Post
 * 9th – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Matt Zoller Seitz, Dallas Observer
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Eleanor Ringel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Steve Murray, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune
 * Top 10 (not ranked) – Betsy Pickle, Knoxville News-Sentinel
 * Best of the year (not ranked) - Jeffrey Lyons, Sneak Previews
 * Honorable mention – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post
 * Honorable mention – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman
 * Honorable mention – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News

Home media
In 1996 the film was released on videocassette and on Laserdisc at its original runtime of 99 minutes. In 2002 the film received DVD releases in Region 1 and Region 4 in an uncut version, which ran for 109 minutes. Region 2 released the original 99-minute theatrical version.

title: Heavenly Creatures