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White Banners

White Banners is a 1938 Warner Bros. drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Claude Rains, Fay Bainter, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, Henry O'Neill, and Kay Johnson.

Produced by Henry Blanke and Hal B. Wallis, the screenplay was adapted by Lenore J. Coffee, Abem Finkel and Cameron Rogers from the 1936 novel of the same title by Lloyd C. Douglas.

Plot
On a dreary, cold, and snowy day in a small town in 1919 Indiana, peddler Hannah Parmalee (Bainter) appears at the door of a kind couple, Paul Ward (Rains) and his wife, Marcia (Johnson), selling apple peelers. Asked by Mrs. Ward to come inside and warm up, Hannah sees that they are struggling financially and are in need of some domestic help. She offers her services and becomes their cook and housekeeper for room and board.

Mr. Ward, a science teacher by day, is an inventor by night attempting to create something that will provide sufficient money for Marcia, their teenaged daughter Sally (Granville) and their new baby, to have some luxuries in life. Hannah, who is extremely wise and helpful, comes up with some good ideas. She persuades Ward to sell old and useless furniture to raise money and make a place for his work in the basement.

Their teenaged neighbor, Peter Trimble (Cooper), is one of Ward's students and the son of the richest man in town, Sam Trimble (O'Neill). Hannah is very pleased to know Peter and to be a part of his life. In her devotion to him, however, she is never able to indulge the motherly instinct she feels, except in an indirect way. He is very good at science and, after Hannah suggests that he set a good example for the boy, Ward asks young Trimble to become his assistant. Sally develops a crush on Peter.

Ward's invention, an "iceless icebox," is unintentionally revealed by Peter to local mechanics Joe Ellis (William Pawley) and his brother Bill (Edward Pawley). When the Ellis brothers steal it and have it patented, Peter feels so bad about what he did that he lies when Ward asks him about it. In the meantime, Sally becomes ill with pneumonia.

Hannah persuades Ward that it is best to "turn the other cheek" and to give young Peter another chance. Ward then develops a new and better feature for his invention, which is on its way to becoming an electric home refrigerator. Sally recovers and she and her mother, Marcia, leave on a trip with the baby.

Another crisis arises, however, when wealthy Chicago businessman Thomas Bradford (James Stephenson) arrives to discuss financing of Ward's invention. Hannah reveals to Ward that Peter Trimble is her son who she was forced to give up all those years ago because he was born out of wedlock. Sam Trimble adopted him after his own baby died, but Bradford is the boy's biological father. When Bradford finds out that Peter is his son, he wants to claim him. Hannah, however, persuades him not to reveal the truth to Peter.

Satisfied with the kind of young man her son has become, and that he is on the right path in life, Hannah, leaves without Peter, who believes that his adoptive parents are his biological parents. She walks off into the wintry landscape.

Cast

 * Claude Rains as Paul Ward
 * Fay Bainter as Hannah Parmalee
 * Jackie Cooper as Peter Trimble
 * Bonita Granville as Sally Ward
 * Henry O'Neill as Sam Trimble
 * Kay Johnson as Mrs. Marcia Ward
 * James Stephenson as Thomas Bradford
 * J. Farrell MacDonald as Dr. Thompson
 * William Pawley as Joe Ellis
 * Edward Pawley as Bill Ellis
 * John Ridgely as Charles Ellis
 * Mary Field as Hester, Trimble's secretary
 * Edward McWade as Sloan, the furniture dealer

Reception
The film, Fay Bainter and others of the cast received very good reviews in the Los Angeles Times. Bainter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as Hannah Parmalee.

In popular culture

 * White Banners is referenced in the song "Hana," written and performed by Joni Mitchell on her album Shine (2007).

title: White Banners


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Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 1

Something that can be done is to use the links "Pages that link here" on the desambiguating pages listed and correct the links to go directly to the desired page, without passing through the desambiguating page. I did it for vulcan, for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AstroNomer (talk • contribs) 15:01, 14 March 2002 (UTC)

In reference to Saturn, user:Maveric149 wrote: "moved god stuff even though I am not totally sure that having so many disambiguating pages is a great idea -- shouldn't the original use of the word have an actual article on its page?"

 * Unfortunately, the planets and moons are completely chock full of reused names for completely different things from their original meanings. The problem with picking one particular meaning as the "main" meaning that should be presented on the disambiguating page is that who's to say which one should be there? The mythical gods were the first uses of those names, sure, but on the other hand the planets are much more "relevant" to modern life. I would rather treat both meanings equally and avoid the debate. Bryan Derksen, Tuesday, April 2, 2002

I agree and I will stick to the convention -- However, I don't have to like it. -maveric149 —Preceding undated comment added 21:46, 2 April 2002

Just curious; what was the original raionale (if any) behind labelling disambiguating pages as such, and linking them to the list? I don't see any point to it. -- Lee Daniel Crocker —Preceding undated comment added 17:57, 3 April 2002

 * I'll be damned if I know the original reason, but I interpreted it as being that one normally shouldn't be linking to such pages but rather directly to the one you want, and thus the note was to indicate that the link you just followed was incorrect. But I just made that up from thin air. --Brion VIBBER —Preceding undated comment added 18:06, 3 April 2002

That's vaguely plausible I suppose. But the current notes are really ugly. I'll offer this alternative to see what people think: how about a more detailed note, but in text that makes it clearly "meta", like this:

 *  This is one of Wikipedia's disambiguating pages, meaning one that merely points to two or more specific articles about different subjects that happen to have the same name. If you arrived here by following a link, you may want to consider changing that link to point directly to one of the more specific pages listed here.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lee Daniel Crocker (talk • contribs) 18:29, 3 April 2002 (UTC)

I believe the rationale is so that disambiguating pages don't show up on the orphans list, since they're not redirects but serve a similar purpose. Bryan Derksen —Preceding undated comment added 19:26, 3 April 2002

 * That would explain why they are listed here, but that doesn't explain why there's a note and backlink to here on each one of them. --LDC —Preceding undated comment added 19:28, 3 April 2002

 * Yeah, I don't know why that's in there. But the examples I saw had it, so I've been slavishly putting it into other disambiguation pages for no particular reason because I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. :) Bryan Derksen —Preceding undated comment added 19:08, 5 April 2002

I have noticed a tendency for people to create disambiguation pages without fixing all the links to them. No doubt this is because creating a disambiguation page is easy, while fixing a hundred links to it isn't. The result is that Wikipedia is left in a worse state than it was before the page was split. It would be good if people who don't want to fix links would refrain from splitting pages in the first place. --Zundark, Tuesday, April 9, 2002 (If anyone is in a link-fixing mood, set and analysis are two that badly need working on.)

Analysis is fixed (and in the process I saw lots of things I disliked about several otehr articles - ugh!). Now someone else please do set. -- Miguel —Preceding undated comment added 17:02, 9 April 2002

The current article metions Paris in the opening paragraph and goes on to talk about the ambiguity of the fact that "Paris" is a city in France and one in Texas. A better example needs to be placed in the article -- one would never make a disambiguation page out of Paris; all you would do is have a link at the bottom of the acticle linking to Paris, Texas. The article on the page Paris should only talk about the most famous Paris. I will give the example of Jupiter as a replacement for now -- but somebody needs to mention what I just stated above in the article (unless I missed it further down....) --maveric149 —Preceding undated comment added 12:17, 12 April 2002

My bad. -- miguel —Preceding undated comment added 09:12, 15 April 2002

 * I very much think that where a disambiguating note is required for a topic with one overwhelmingly common use, and one or more less common use, that note should be right at the beginning of the article for the most common use. This lets the person looking for the obscure usage know immediately that he must go elsewhere without the need to scroll through a long article that may not even include his reference at the end.  Where there are numerous minor usages then to keep the note short it can point to a new disambiguating page such as Paris (not France). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eclecticology (talk • contribs) 22:00, 16 April 2002 (UTC)

Another page that needs disambiguation is interval. -- Miguel —Preceding undated comment added 09:12, 15 April 2002

 * Yes, that one definitely needs splitting, if someone can first change all the links. The musical meaning can probably go in Musical interval. Someone tried Interval on the real line for the mathematical meaning, but I think we probably want it to be more general than that. --Zundark, Monday, April 15, 2002

I propose: Ed Poor —Preceding undated comment added 10:16, 15 April 2002
 * interval (music)
 * interval (mathematics)

 * OK. But you shouldn't have split the page if you're not going to fix the links. (The links can be changed before splitting the page, since you can create the new pages as redirects and link to them. So there's no excuse for leaving things in the broken state they're currently in, even temporarily.) --Zundark, Tuesday, April 16, 2002

 * I gather you would prefer that repairs to articles should be done in an order such that they are in a broken state for a minimal amount of time. This sounds like a reasonable guideline. Ed Poor, Tuesday, April 16, 2002

I agree with those who question the wisdom of having disambiguation page notices; I have the same reaction to stub page notices. I don't much like meta-type comments like this. Articles are there for users, not developers. It's only getting to be more so, too, as Wikipedia increases in quality and depth. Those who care about potential problems with disambiguation pages and stub pages are greatly outnumbered by users, and are not greatly helped by the notices (I guess--I could be wrong). Generally, it's better to fix problems as we see them--alternatively, we can assume that the problems will be obvious enough to editors who encounter them that, if they want to fix the problems, they will. The notices aren't going to help much. (Can anyone report being helped greatly by them?) Individual problem cases, like the analysis page was (apparently), could be noted on the talk page.

I'd propose nearly always making disambiguating pages whenever there is an ambiguity to resolve. Yes, even in the case of Paris (notwithstanding Parisians and the Greek hero!). It would provide a consistent way of beginning articles and a more consistent policy about how to deal with multiple meanings. So it handily solves two problems at once. (1) We wouldn't have to worry about people concluding that we don't have an article about Paris, Texas because they don't know that they should scroll to the bottom of Paris to find a link to it. (2) And then there's never any question whether a disambiguation page is necessary (whether there's "one dominant" sense or several others). We just say one always is.

I agree (of course) that broken links (well, sort-of broken) are a problem (so that, if a page links to Paris and someone wants to see the Paris article they have to go through a disambiguation page to arrive at Paris, France. But I really don't think they're a huge problem.  Moreover, I'd argue that insofar as they're a problem, the problem is a natural, to-be-expected, unavoidable byproduct of our having adopted a new, more accurate system of disambiguation (viz., parentheses) instead of using the old subpage system.  In other words, the new system allows us to give pages more precise titles, but in order actually to give them more precise titles, we, well, change the titles.  Since linking to a page involves linking to its title, changing titles entails "breaking" links.  So we should expect that links are going to be "broken" as part of the process of adopting a more precise method of naming pages, because we actually have to rename quite a few pages. It's part of the process. It'll all get fixed eventually!

Of course, the very best solution (in my opinion, of course) would be a renaming function that renames all links, or better yet, allows someone to choose how to rename a list of links (so that, e.g., some go to analysis (mathematics and some go to analysis (philosophy), etc.. That'd be great. --Larry Sanger —Preceding undated comment added 18:46, 25 April 2002
 * What about creating a sort of "family" of links, as it now happens for the user: and user:talk pages, to be recalled the same way at the bottom and on the right (or wherever else)? We still could easily find Paris the town and the links to the other senses in the same page (and reciprocally) - usually disambiguating pages don't contain more than 4 or 5 links. Would it be possible? --Gianfranco —Preceding undated comment added 19:23, 25 April 2002

In theory, you are correct Larry -- but this could quickly lead to madness, especially for people's names. And as the project grows this will become worse and worse. There are only so many combinations for people's names and we will end up having [Paul Simon (musician)], [Paul Simon (politician)] and the inevitable [Paul Simon (obscure historical figure)]. This when the overwhelming majority of English speakers know of only the musician. Therefore this person is the one that is going to be linked to within wikipedia by far the most. One of the founding principles of wiki wiki is easy linking -- It just may be me, but I don't think having to write Thomas Jefferson, Paul Simon, or Albert Einstein (physicist) is effort-free. BTW would we disambiguate Albert Einstein as (physicist) or (scientist)?

This type of disambiguation would make the 'pedia more difficult to use and would make many names far more ambiguous than they really are (who is really going to confuse the real Einstein from the character in the TV series Alien Nation?). More obscure usages can be parenthetically disambiguated but parenthetical disambguation of all terms that share the same name should only be used as a last resort. --maveric149, Friday, May 17, 2002

Is the word "film" now an anachronism? And if so, should we disambiguate movie titles with (movie) instead of (film)? Somebody wrote a naming convention which states that (movie) should be used -- but hardly anybody follows that convention. Is this something we should enforce? Was there any discussion about this particular convention? --maveric149, Friday, May 17, 2002
 * I don't know what the 'official' policy is... when I went to make a disabiguating link I automatically put in 'movie' but I've seen that many already-made links refer to 'film'. I'd think 'movie' was a more modern reference and probably more familiar to users.~KJ —Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 17 May 2002

Hi Mav -- out of curiousity, why does it matter whether it's "movie" or "film"? Personally, I'd vote for "film" every time, but it's just as easy to have both and redirect one to another with content. Oh -- my rationale for "film"? Most of the Americans I know use both terms(often as a way of implying quality); Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis I know mostly (and the Brits almost exclusively) say "film". Cheers! JHK

 * Will the term "film" survive -- maybe only time will tell: Just wanted to know what everyone else thought so that we can abide by a common naming convention (which explicity states that "movie" should be used, even though I am not aware of a discussion on this taking place). I also wanted to gauge people's feelings about the fact that within several years the term "film" will probably become an anachronism since movies will be released in digital format (although most theater owners will continue to order copies placed on "film" for projection for some time afterwards -- digital projectors ain't cheap).

 * The question I have, is whether this detail is even important -- will people continue to call movies "film" even after production, distribution and projection are all digital (might be too early to tell...)? I also would prefer to use the term "film", but as you stated, in the States that term is usually reserved for higher quality stuff and the term "movie" is more of a catch-all general term which might be better in this case. Just trying to come up with the least ambiguous disambiguation set-up that is consistant and has some reasoning behind it. I don't think this is like the American/British spelling issue where the only option is to go with the first spelling/set-up and provide redirects for the other spellings/set-ups -- these types of compromises should be options of last-resort (I don't think we are at the "last resort" stage with this though). I also don't want to have to go back through all the (film) articles and changing them over to (movie) in a few years if use of the word "film" goes out of usage. Star Wars Episode II is the first filmless "film" so I quess only time will tell. Would like to know if the Brits, Aussies or Kiwis would drop use of the term if it becomes anachronistic and also if the term "movie" is a good alternative. --maveric149

 * umm... I just had a lengthy debate with members of my family over whether we use the term 'film' or 'movie'. My mother came down on the side of film, my father voted for movie and my brother said it depends on whether you're talking about them in general or specific (he's always been a bit of a nitpicker!) I think movie has a more general use nowadays, in Australia anyway. Even SBS has the 'Movie' Show, not the 'Film' Show... ~KJ —Preceding undated comment added 23:31, 18 May 2002

The more I think about it, the less and less I like the term "film" -- at least in the context of disambiguation. "Film" has several widely known and used meanings in English; a thin coating or layer, a thin sheet of plastic, photographic celluloid, motion picture and the making of a motion picture. Movie only has one meaning in English = motion picture. This term therefore is the least ambiguous of the two and combined with its already widespread usage and the fact that the term "film" will soon be outdated, I change my vote for "movie" instead of "film". --maveric149 —Preceding undated comment added 00:16, 19 May 2002
 * A couple months ago I tried to change a lot of film articles to movie articles, but that effort soon went down in flames. Maybe I was just premature about it.  Somebody changed it all back, and I'm not particularly inclined to go through that exercise again.  For disambiguating pages it probably doesn't make much difference since the disambiguating is almost exclusively done from something completely different.  I'll continue to use "movie" as preferable, but won't make work for myself when somebody else uses "film".
 * Occasionally, when there is more than one movie of the same name, the production year can be a second level disambiguation. A Roman numeral (used by IMDb) or even the director's surname could be used when a third level disambiguation is needed. Eclecticology, Sunday, May 19, 2002
 * This is exaclty the reason why I wanted to have some discussion on this -- so that if I or somebody else started changing things one way or the other then there is documentation to back-up the reasoning. Also needed to work out the reasoning myself in order to make sure that the most correct disambiguation is used. Which so far seems to be (movie). --maveric149 —Preceding undated comment added 01:13, 19 May 2002
 * There has already been some discussion which is now at talk:film Eclecticology —Preceding undated comment added 01:30, 19 May 2002

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Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 – January 1, 1960) was an American stage and film actress.

She began her career onstage in 1929 with the University Players on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1933, she caught the attention of film director John M. Stahl and made her screen debut that same year in Only Yesterday. She continued to be successful on stage and film, best known for The Shop Around the Corner.

Sullavan preferred working on the stage and made only 16 films, four of which were opposite close friend James Stewart in a popular partnership that included The Mortal Storm and The Shop Around the Corner. Stewart and Sullavan were also close friends of Henry Fonda, to whom Sullavan was married from 1931 to 1933. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Three Comrades (1938). In the early 1940s, she retired from the screen to devote herself to her children and stage work. She returned to the screen in 1950 to make her last film, No Sad Songs for Me, in which she played a woman dying of cancer. For the rest of her career, she appeared only on the stage. Popular stage portrayals included Terry Randall in Stage Door, Sally Middleton in The Voice of the Turtle and Sabrina Fairchild in Sabrina Fair.

Early life
Sullavan was born May 16, 1909, in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, Cornelius Sullavan, and his wife, Garland Councill Sullavan. She had a younger brother, Cornelius, and a half-sister, Louise "Weedie" Gregory. The first years of her childhood were spent isolated from other children. She suffered from a painful muscular weakness in the legs that prevented her from walking, so that she was unable to socialize with other children until the age of six. After her recovery she emerged as an adventurous and tomboyish child who preferred playing with children from a poorer neighborhood, much to the disapproval of her class-conscious parents. Her first dance performances were at Sunday school at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.

She attended boarding school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), in Chatham, Virginia, where she was president of the student body and delivered the salutatory oration in 1927. Sullavan moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, while she studied dance at the Boston Denishawn studio and (against her parents' wishes) drama at the Copley Theatre. When her parents cut her allowance to a minimum, Sullavan defiantly paid her way by working as a clerk in the Harvard Cooperative Bookstore (The Coop), located in Harvard Square, Cambridge.

Early years
Sullavan succeeded in getting a chorus part in the Harvard Dramatic Society 1929 spring production Close Up, a musical written by Harvard senior Bernard Hanighen, who was later a composer for Broadway and Hollywood.

The President of the Harvard Dramatic Society, Charles Leatherbee, along with the President of Princeton's Theatre Intime, Bretaigne Windust, who together had established the University Players on Cape Cod the summer before, persuaded Sullavan to join them for their second summer season. Another member of the University Players was Henry Fonda, who had the comic lead in Close Up.

In the summer of 1929, Sullavan appeared opposite Fonda in The Devil in the Cheese, her debut on the professional stage. She returned for most of the University Players' 1930 season. In 1931, she squeezed in one production with the University Players between the closing of the Broadway production of A Modern Virgin in July and its tour in September. She rejoined the University Players for most of their 18-week 1930–31 winter season in Baltimore.

Sullavan's parents did not approve of her choice of career. She played the lead in Strictly Dishonorable (1930) by Preston Sturges, which her parents attended. Confronted with her evident talent, they ceased their objections. "To my deep relief," Sullavan later recalled, "I thought I'd have to put up with their yappings on the subject forever."

A Shubert scout saw her in that play as well and eventually she met Lee Shubert himself. At the time, Sullavan was suffering from a bad case of laryngitis and her voice was huskier than usual. Shubert loved it. In subsequent years Sullavan would joke that she cultivated that "laryngitis" into a permanent hoarseness by standing in every available draft.

Sullavan made her debut on Broadway in A Modern Virgin (a comedy by Elmer Harris) on May 20, 1931, and began touring on August 3.

At one point in 1932, she starred in four Broadway flops in a row (If Love Were All, Happy Landing, Chrysalis (with Humphrey Bogart), and Bad Manners), but the critics praised Sullavan for her performances in all of them. In March 1933, Sullavan replaced another actor in Dinner at Eight in New York. Movie director John M. Stahl happened to be watching the play and was intrigued by Sullavan. He decided she would be perfect for a picture he was planning, Only Yesterday.

At that time Sullavan had already turned down offers for five-year contracts from Paramount and Columbia. Universal Pictures offered Sullavan a three-year, two-pictures-per-year contract at $1,200 per week. She accepted it and had a clause put in her contract that allowed her to return to the stage on occasion. Later in her career, Sullavan signed only short-term contracts because she did not want to be "owned" by any studio.

Hollywood
Sullavan arrived in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her film debut came that same year in Only Yesterday. When she saw herself in the film's early rushes, she was so appalled that she tried to purchase her contract for $2,500, but Universal refused. In his November 10, 1933, review in The New York Herald Tribune, Richard Watts, Jr. wrote that Sullavan "plays the tragic and lovelorn heroine of this shrewdly sentimental orgy with such forthright sympathy, wise reticence and honest feeling that she establishes herself with some definiteness as one of the cinema people to be watched."

Sullavan's next role came in Little Man, What Now? (1934), a film about a couple struggling to survive in impoverished post–World War I Germany. Universal was reluctant to produce a film about unemployment, starvation and homelessness, but Little Man was an important project to Sullavan. She would list the film appearance among the few Hollywood roles that afforded her a great measure of satisfaction.

In The Good Fairy (1935), Sullavan was able to illustrate her versatility. During the production, she married its director, William Wyler.

King Vidor's So Red the Rose (1935) dealt with people in the postbellum South and preceded the publication of Margaret Mitchell's bestselling novel Gone With the Wind by one year and the blockbuster film adaptation by four years. Sullavan played a childish Southern belle who matures into a responsible woman.

In Next Time We Love (1936), Sullavan played opposite the then-unknown James Stewart. She had been campaigning for Stewart to be her leading man, and the studio complied for fear that she would stage a threatened strike. The film dealt with a married couple who had grown apart over the years. This was the first of four films made by Sullavan and Stewart together. In the comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936), Sullavan played opposite her ex-husband Henry Fonda as a newly married couple. Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell were recruited to improve the script's dialogue, reportedly at Sullavan's insistence. Her seventh film, Three Comrades (1938), is a drama set in post–World War I Germany. She gained an Oscar nomination for her role and was named the year's best actress by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Sullavan reunited with Stewart in The Shopworn Angel (1938). Stewart played a sweet, naive Texan soldier on his way to fight in World War I who first marries Sullavan. Sullavan's ninth film was The Shining Hour (1938), in which she played the suicidal sister-in-law of Joan Crawford's character. Crawford insisted on the casting of Sullavan even though Louis B. Mayer warned Crawford that Sullavan could steal the picture from her. In The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Sullavan and Stewart worked together again, playing colleagues who unknowingly exchange letters with each other.

In 1940, Sullavan also appeared in The Mortal Storm, a film about the lives of common Germans during the rise of Adolf Hitler; it was her last film with Stewart. Back Street (1941) was lauded as among the best performances of Sullavan's Hollywood career, a film for which she ceded top billing to Charles Boyer to ensure that he would take the male lead part. So Ends Our Night (1941) was a wartime drama in which Sullavan, on loan to United Artists for a one-picture deal from Universal, played a Jewish exile fleeing the Nazis.

A 1940 court decision obligated Sullavan to fulfill her original 1933 agreement with Universal, requiring her to appear in two more films for the studio. These films would be Back Street (1941) and the light comedy Appointment for Love (1941).

Cry 'Havoc' (1943) was Sullavan's last film with M-G-M. After its completion, she was free of all film commitments. She had often referred to MGM and Universal as "jails."

Films with James Stewart
Sullavan's co-starring roles with James Stewart are among the highlights of their early careers. In 1935, Sullavan had decided on doing Next Time We Love. She had strong reservations about the story, but had to "work-off the damned contract." The script contained a role that she thought might be ideal for Stewart, who was the best friend of Sullavan's first husband, actor Henry Fonda. Years earlier, during a casual conversation with some fellow actors on Broadway, Sullavan predicted that Stewart would become a major Hollywood star.

By 1936, Stewart was a contract player at MGM but securing only small parts in B-movies. Sullavan, under contract with Universal, suggested that the studio test Stewart as her leading man. He was borrowed from MGM to star with Sullavan in Next Time We Love. The inexperienced Stewart had been nervous and unsure of himself during the early stages of production, and director Edward H. Griffith, began bullying him. However, Sullavan believed in Stewart and spent evenings coaching him and helping him scale down his awkward mannerisms and hesitant speech that were soon to be famous. "It was Margaret Sullavan who made James Stewart a star," Griffith later said. Bill Grady of MGM said: "That boy came back from Universal so changed I hardly recognized him." Gossip in Hollywood held that Sullavan's husband William Wyler was suspicious about her rehearsing with Stewart privately. When Sullavan divorced Wyler in 1936 and married Leland Hayward that same year, they moved into a colonial house just a block away from that of Stewart. Stewart's frequent visits to the Sullavan/Hayward home soon restoked the rumors of his romantic feelings for Sullavan.

Sullavan and Stewart's second film together was The Shopworn Angel (1938). Walter Pidgeon, who also starred in the film, later recalled: "I really felt like the odd-man-out in that one. It was really all Jimmy and Maggie ... It was so obvious he was in love with her. He came absolutely alive in his scenes with her, playing with a conviction and a sincerity I never knew him to summon away from her." Sullavan and Stewart appeared in four films together between 1936 and 1940 (Next Time We Love, The Shopworn Angel, The Shop Around the Corner and The Mortal Storm).

Later years
Sullavan took a break from films from 1943 to 1950. Throughout her career, Sullavan seemed to prefer the stage to the movies. She felt that only on the stage could she improve her skills as an actor. "When I really learn to act, I may take what I have learned back to Hollywood and display it on the screen," she said in an interview in October 1936 (when she was doing Stage Door on Broadway between movies). "But as long as the flesh-and-blood theatre will have me, it is to the flesh-and-blood theatre I'll belong. I really am stage-struck. And if that be treason, Hollywood will have to make the most of it."

Another reason for her early retirement from the screen (1943) was that she wanted to spend more time with her children, Brooke, Bridget and Bill (then 6, 4 and 2 years old). She felt that she had been neglecting them and felt guilty about it. Sullavan still did stage work on occasion. From 1943 to 1944, she played the sexually inexperienced but curious Sally Middleton in The Voice of the Turtle (by John Van Druten) on Broadway and later in London (1947).

Sullavan returned to the screen in 1950 to do one last picture, No Sad Songs for Me. She played a suburban housewife and mother who learns that she will die of cancer within a year and who then determines to find a "second" wife for her soon-to-be-widower husband (Wendell Corey). Natalie Wood, then 11, played their daughter. After No Sad Songs for Me and its favorable reviews, Sullavan had a number of offers for other films, but she decided to concentrate on the stage for the rest of her career. Still, she did not return to the stage until 1952.

Her choice then was as the suicidal Hester Collyer, who meets fellow sufferer Mr. Miller (played by Herbert Berghof) in Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. In 1953, she agreed to appear in Sabrina Fair by Samuel Taylor. On December 18, 1955, Sullavan appeared as the mystery guest on the TV panel show What's My Line?

In 1955 and 1956, Sullavan appeared in Janus, a comedy by playwright Carolyn Green. Sullavan played the part of Jessica who writes under the pen name Janus, and Robert Preston played her husband. The play ran for 251 performances from November 1955 to June 1956.

In the late 1950s, Sullavan's hearing and depression were getting worse. However, in 1959, she agreed to do Sweet Love Remembered by playwright Ruth Goetz. It was to be Sullavan's first Broadway appearance in four years. Rehearsals began on December 1, 1959. She had mixed emotions about a return to acting, and her depression soon became clear to everyone: "I loathe acting", she said on the day she started rehearsals. "I loathe what it does to my life. It cancels you out. You cannot live while you are working. You are a person surrounded by an unbreachable wall".

Personal life
Sullavan had a reputation for being both temperamental and straightforward. On one occasion, Henry Fonda had decided to take up a collection for a 4th of July fireworks display. After Sullavan refused to make a contribution, Fonda complained loudly to a fellow actor. Sullavan rose from her seat and doused Fonda from head to foot with a pitcher of ice water. Fonda made a stately exit, and Sullavan, composed and unconcerned, returned to her table and ate heartily.

Some have attributed the death of Sam Wood, a keen anti-Communist, to a dispute he had with Sullavan. Wood died from a heart attack shortly after a raging argument with Sullavan, who had refused to allow the firing of a writer on No Sad Songs for Me on account of his left-wing views. M-G-M studio chief Louis B. Mayer always seemed wary and nervous in her presence. "She was the only player who outbullied Mayer," Eddie Mannix of MGM later said of Sullavan. "She gave him the willies."

Marriages and family
Sullavan was married four times. At age 22, she married actor Henry Fonda on December 25, 1931, while both were performing with the University Players in their 18-week winter season at the Congress Hotel ballroom in Baltimore, Maryland. "She was a character even the first time I met her," Fonda recalled. Sullavan and Fonda separated after two months and divorced in 1933, but remained longtime friends, and their children also became friends. Jane Fonda remembers a "vivid image" of Margaret Sullavan. "What impressed me the most was how athletic and tomboyish she was. Dad had taught her how to walk on her hands during their courtship, and she could still suddenly turn herself upside down—and there she'd be, walking along on her hands." Peter Fonda named his daughter in honor of Bridget Hayward, Sullavan's second child, who died by suicide in 1960. He had admitted he was in love with Hayward, but they never had a relationship.

After separating from Fonda, Sullavan began a relationship with Broadway producer Jed Harris that was tumultuous and short-lived. Then, during the shooting of The Good Fairy, she began a relationship with its director, William Wyler. He said, "One day I looked at the rushes and she didn't look good." The cameraman informed him that Sullavan had had a fight with him that day of shooting, and that "When she's happy she looks pretty, when she's upset she doesn't!" So, Wyler asked her on a date and their relationship blossomed. They married in November 1934 and divorced in March 1936. Wyler remembered it as "A miserable wedding. Jeez. Awful. My lawyer had arranged it. I chartered this airplane, and flew to Arizona. We went to this justice of the peace; he stood there in a robe and slippers and said, 'All right, here, get together'—the radio was going all this time—and he married us."

Sullavan's third marriage was to agent and producer Leland Hayward, Sullavan's agent since 1931. At the time of the marriage on November 15, 1936, Sullavan was pregnant with the couple's first child. Their daughter, Brooke Hayward, later became an actress and a writer. The couple had two more children, Bridget Hayward and William Hayward III ("Bill"), who became a film producer and attorney. In 1947, Sullavan filed for divorce after discovering that Hayward was having an affair with socialite Slim Keith. Their divorce became final on April 20, 1948.

In 1950, Sullavan married for a fourth and final time, to English investment banker Kenneth Wagg. They remained married until her death in 1960.

Mental breakdown
In 1955, when Sullavan's two younger children told their mother that they preferred to stay with their father permanently, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Sullavan's eldest daughter, Brooke, later wrote about the breakdown in her 1977 autobiography Haywire; Sullavan had humiliated herself by begging her son to stay with her. He remained adamant, and his mother had started to cry. "This time she couldn't stop. Even from my room the sound was so painful I went into my bathroom and put my hands on my ears." In another scene from the book, a friend of the family (Millicent Osborne) had been alarmed by the sound of whimpering from the bedroom: "She walked in and found Mother under the bed, huddled in a fetal position. Kenneth was trying to get her out. The more authoritative his tone of voice, the farther under she crawled. Millicent Osborne took him aside and urged him to speak gently, to let her stay there until she came out of her own accord." Eventually Sullavan agreed to spend some time (two and a half months) in a private mental institution. Her two younger children, Bridget and Bill, also spent time in various institutions. Bridget died of a drug overdose in October 1960, while Bill died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in March 2008.

Hearing loss
Sullavan suffered from the congenital hearing defect otosclerosis that worsened as she aged, making her more and more hearing-impaired. Her voice had developed a throatiness because she could hear low tones better than high ones. From early 1957, Sullavan's hearing declined so much that she was becoming depressed and sleepless and often wandered about all night. She often stayed in bed for days, her only words: "Just let me be, please."

She had kept her hearing problem largely hidden. On January 8, 1960 (one week after Sullavan's death), New York Post reporter Nancy Seely wrote: "The thunderous applause of a delighted audience—was it only a dim murmur over the years to Margaret Sullavan? Did the poised and confident mien of the beautiful actress mask a sick fear, night after night, that she'd miss an important cue?"

Sullavan had an operation done by Dr. Julian Lempert in the late 40s, which Brooke described as a “success, and restored full hearing to Mother’s left ear,” but she didn't follow his advice for cutting down on “diving, shooting or flying.”

Sullavan bequeathed her ears to the Lempert Institute of Otymology. Lempert believed that "there was so much misunderstanding of some of the things she did, the nervousness, the worry—which were simply a result of her deafness ... She suffered as do most who are hard of hearing who try to keep it a secret and make themselves nervous wrecks."

Death
On January 1, 1960, at about 5:30 p.m., Sullavan was found in bed, barely alive and unconscious, in a hotel room in New Haven, Connecticut. Her copy of the script to Sweet Love Remembered, in which she was then starring during its tryout in New Haven, was found open beside her, as well as a bottle of prescribed pills. Sullavan was rushed to Grace New Haven Hospital, but shortly after 6:00 p.m. she was pronounced dead on arrival. She was 50 years old.

No note was found to indicate suicide, and initially no conclusion was reached as to whether her death was the result of a deliberate or an accidental overdose of barbiturates. Ultimately, the county coroner officially ruled Sullavan's death an accidental overdose. After a private memorial service in Greenwich, Connecticut, with such attendees as former friend and co-star Joan Crawford, theatre producer Martin Gabel, and actress Sandra Church, Sullavan was interred at Saint Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Churchyard in Lancaster, Virginia.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Margaret Sullavan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street. She was inducted, posthumously, into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1981.

Sullavan was the favorite actress of silent-film beauty Louise Brooks, who said Sullavan was "the person I would be if I could be anyone" and described her as “Strange, fey, mysterious—like a voice singing in the snow.” Brooks thought Sullavan's life could only be understood by her love of Leland Hayward, even after their divorce. Brooks wrote this: "After he left her to marry Nancy (Slim) Hawks in 1947, this terrifyingly self-willed woman shredded her career through the following twelve years with her struggle to repossess him. When Nancy divorced him there was a flaming period of hope in 1959. Then came the news of LeLand's decision to marry Pamela Churchill—and she sank in to despair and death."

In popular culture
Sullavan's eldest daughter, actress Brooke Hayward, wrote Haywire, a best-selling memoir about her family, that was adapted into the miniseries Haywire starring Lee Remick as Margaret Sullavan and Jason Robards as Leland Hayward.

title: Margaret Sullavan


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Three Comrades (1938 film)

Three Comrades is a 1938 American drama film directed by Frank Borzage and produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for MGM. The screenplay is by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edward E. Paramore Jr., and was adapted from the novel Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque.

Three Comrades is story of comradery between young German soldiers after World War I, during the Weimar Republic and rise of Nazism.

The film stars Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone and Robert Young. Sullavan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Plot
On the last day of World War I, November 11, 1918, three German fighter pilots - Erich Lohkamp, Otto Koster, and Gottfried Lenz - are having a final drink with their compatriots. They toast each other, expressing fatalistic attitudes about the future. With their only hope being in their friendship, the three comrades open a taxi and auto repair business and are barely able to eke out a living.

One day several years later (1920), while driving to a country inn in Otto's precious souped-up jalopy roadster, "Baby", to celebrate Erich's birthday (the youngest and least cynical of the three), the friends get into a back road car race with a Herr Breuer, who is driving a luxury car, accompanied by Patricia Hollmann. The boys win their little race and they - along with Breuer and Pat - all arrive at the country inn together. While drinking together, the friends learn that Pat is a young German aristocrat who is now impoverished, while Breuer is a rich fascist sympathizer seeking a sugar daddy relationship with Pat. Though Pat is worldly, she is drawn to the innocent Erich, and gives him her telephone number. Otto and Gottfried encourage the relationship, feeling that their love will be the group's only salvation, but Erich feels that Pat's background will keep them apart, so he tells his friends he has thrown away Pat's number. Nevertheless, Erich - with strong encouragement from Gottfried - eventually calls Pat (he had not thrown away her number after all), and the two agree to a date.

Pat and Erich start seeing each other and, one night, Pat invites Erich to the opera, where they run into Breuer. Breuer invites them to join him at a fancy nightclub, where Erich's borrowed formal white tie & tails starts to disintegrate, to the taunting laughter of Breuer and his drunken, rich friends. Erich leaves in embarrassment, thinking his poor status shames him in Pat's eyes. But later that night, he finds Pat waiting for him outside his apartment, where she convinces him that her feelings for him are stronger than any difference in their social or economic situation - and the two realize that they are truly and equally in love.

Some time later, both Gottfried and Otto separately do their best to persuade Pat and Erich to follow their hearts despite the poverty: Gottfried tries to convince Erich to marry Pat, while Otto tries to convince Pat to marry Erich. When Pat resists Otto's entreaties and he presses her for an answer, she reveals that she had been very ill and will be ill again because of her lungs (with tuberculosis). Otto convinces her that she should marry Erich regardless, no matter how brief their happiness might be, and she finally agrees.

On their honeymoon, Pat collapses as she and Erich (who does not know of her illness) are playing on the beach. When the local doctor reveals her condition to Erich, and says that she may die if her hemorrhaging does not stop very soon, Erich calls Otto to find Pat's specialist, Dr. Felix Jaffe. Driving wildly through fog in his beloved "Baby", Otto returns with Dr. Jaffe just in time to save Pat, but the doctor warns that she must go to a sanitarium no later than the middle of October.

Through the summer, Otto, Erich, Gottfried and Pat are happy together, even though they worry about her health. The idealistic Gottfried is torn between his devotion to his friends and his belief in the teachings of political pacifist, Dr. Heinrich Becker. On the day that Pat must leave for the sanitarium, Erich and Otto witness a fascist thug shooting Gottfried to death while trying to kill Dr. Becker. Now faced with the loss of Gottfried as well Pat's absence, Erich and Otto sell their shop and drift through the next months, roaming the streets in "Baby", seeking Gottfried's killer. At Christmas, Otto finally finds the murderer, trailing him to a church where Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus is being sung, and kills him in a shootout as the chorus reaches its climax.

That same night, Erich receives a telegram from Pat that she must have an operation to collapse her lung. Her doctor at the sanitarium warns her that, after the operation, Pat must stay bedridden and very very still for two weeks or endanger her life. When Otto and Erich visit her, Erich learns about her need for extreme stillness after the operation and that the operation will cost over 1,000 marks.

Erich tells the doctor to proceed with the operation and Otto decides to sell "Baby" to pay for it. When Otto goes to see her after the operation, he admits that Gottfried is dead and that he has sold "Baby", and she tells him that their self-sacrifices for her must stop, as her need for future care will be endless - and expensive - and will ruin Erich's and Otto's lives. Otto encourages her to live for Erich and, as they finish speaking, Erich arrives and Otto leaves. Pat speaks to Erich of the three of them escaping to Rio right away. Erich tells her to simply focus on getting better and steps outside to say goodbye to Otto. When alone, Pat slowly walks out to the room's balcony - a simple movement that she knows will likely cause her death. She is seen from below by Erich as she collapses. He rushes to her side just in time to hear her say: "It's right for me to die, darling. It isn't hard...and I'm so full of love." For the three comrades and Patricia, death is not a repudiation of the love they shared.

After Pat's funeral, as they hear fighting in their city between fascist thugs and pro-democracy protesters, Otto and Erich decide to move to South America. As they leave the cemetery, you can see the spirits of Gottfried and Pat walking beside them.

Cast

 * Robert Taylor as Erich Lohkamp
 * Margaret Sullavan as Patricia Hollmann
 * Franchot Tone as Otto Koster
 * Robert Young as Gottfried Lenz
 * Guy Kibbee as Alfons
 * Lionel Atwill as Breuer
 * Henry Hull as Dr. Becker
 * Charley Grapewin as Local Doctor
 * Monty Woolley as Dr. Jaffe

Reception
Frank Nugent, critic for The New York Times, called Three Comrades "a beautiful and memorable film. Faithful to the spirit and, largely, to the letter of the novel, it has been magnificently directed, eloquently written, and admirably played." He praised nearly all of the main actors, particularly Sullavan ("hers is a shimmering, almost unendurably lovely performance") and was less impressed with Taylor ("who is good occasionally but more often is merely acceptable").

According to MGM records, the film earned $1,193,000 in the United States and Canada and $850,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $472,000.

The film was nominated for the American Film Institute's 2002 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions.

title: Three Comrades (1938 film)


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Special Atomic Demolition Munition

The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), also known as the XM129 and XM159 Atomic Demolition Charges, and the B54 bomb was a nuclear man-portable atomic demolition munition (ADM) system fielded by the US military from the 1960s to 1980s but never used in combat.

History and design
At the time of the weapon's development, the existing Atomic Demolition Munition (ADM) was the T-4 Atomic Demolition Munition. Its transport required 4 men, each carrying a 40 lb section of the weapon.

Development began in June 1960 and an interim Mark 54 Mod 0 (now called the B54-0) weapon was put into production in April 1963. Production of the B54 Mod 1 SADM began in August 1964. The weapon was 12 inch in diameter, 18 inch long, and weighed 58.5 lb. It included the warhead, a fuzing and firing system with a mechanical timer, a ferroelectric firing set, and a sealed housing. The body was constructed with aluminum forgings and molded fiberglass, and foam-rubber insulation was used between the warhead and case. Dials were illuminated with tritium-phosphor paint for easy night-reading. A housing for underwater emplacement was provided that included external controls.

The B54 Mod 2 started production in June 1965. The weapon was the same size as previous mods but now weighed more – 70 lb.

The yield was estimated to be 10 to 1000 tonTNT.

Offensive use
ADM employment manuals describe the use of ADMs tactically in both offensive and defensive operations.

In offensive operations, ADMs are described as being useful for improving flank and rear security of a unit, impeding counterattacks and assisting in enemy entrapment.

Engineering and defensive use
ADM employment manuals describe the use of ADMs defensively for combat engineering purposes. Possible targets described include bridges, dams, canals, tunnels, airfields, railroad marshaling yards, ports and industrial plants, and power facilities.

Extensive tables were provided to enable the selection of the correct yield for each particular target. These tables accounted for various employment particulars such as depth of burial, fallout considerations, and minimum safe separation distances between adjacent weapons and personnel.

Suicide attack allegations
On December 27, 2018, the Green Bay Press-Gazette interviewed veteran Mark Bentley, who had trained for the Special Atomic Demolition Munition program to manually place and detonate the SADM. The report stated that he and other soldiers training for the program knew this was a suicide mission because either it would be unrealistic to outrun the timer on the bomb, or soldiers would be obligated to secure the site before the timer went off.

However, employment manuals specifically describe the firing party and their guard retreating from the emplacement site, at which point security of the device is provided through a combination of passive security measures, including concealment, camouflage, and the use of decoys, as well as active security measures including booby traps, obstacles (such as concertina wire and landmines), and long-range artillery fire. Further, the SADM included a Field Wire Remote Control System (FWRCS), a device that enabled the sending of safe/arm and firing signals to the weapon via a wire for safe remote detonation of the weapon.

title: Special Atomic Demolition Munition


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SADM

SADM may refer to:
 * Special Atomic Demolition Munition
 * Morón Airport and Air Base, ICAO code: SADM

title: SADM


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Joan Fontaine

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was an English-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Fontaine appeared in more than 45 films in a career that spanned five decades. She was the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Their rivalry was well-documented in the media at the height of Fontaine's career.

She began her film career in 1935, signing a contract with RKO Pictures. Fontaine received her first major role in The Man Who Found Himself (1937) and in Gunga Din (1939). Her career prospects improved greatly after her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), for which she received her first of three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The following year, she won that award for her role in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). A third nomination came with The Constant Nymph (1943). She appeared mostly in drama films through the 1940s, including Letter from an Unknown Woman and the comedy You Gotta Stay Happy (both 1948), which she co-produced with her second husband William Dozier through their film production company Rampart Productions. In the next decade, after her role in Ivanhoe (1952), her film career began to decline and she moved into stage, radio and television roles. She appeared in fewer films in the 1960s, which included Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and her final film role in The Witches (1966), also known as The Devil's Own.

She released an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and continued to act until 1994. Having won an Academy Award for her role in Suspicion, Fontaine is the only actress to have won an Academy Award for acting in a Hitchcock film. She and her sister remain the only siblings to have won lead-acting Academy Awards.

Early life
Joan de Beauvoir deHavilland was born on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo City, in the then Empire of Japan to English parents. Her father, Walter de Havilland (1872–1968), was educated at the University of Cambridge and served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney. Her mother, Lilian Augusta Ruse de Havilland Fontaine (1886–1975), was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a stage actress who left her career after going to Tokyo with her husband. Her mother returned to work with the stage name "Lillian Fontaine" after Joan and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland achieved prominence in the 1940s. Joan's paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882–1965), an aircraft designer known for the de Havilland Mosquito, and founder of the aircraft company which bore his name. Her paternal grandfather, the Reverend Charles Richard deHavilland, was from a family from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands.

De Havilland's parents married in 1914 and separated in 1919 when she was two; the divorce was not finalized, however, until February 1925.

Taking a physician's advice, Lilian deHavilland moved Joan—reportedly a sickly child who had developed anaemia following a combined attack of the measles and a streptococcal infection—and her sister to the United States. The family settled in Saratoga, California, and Fontaine's health improved dramatically during her teen years. She was educated at nearby Los Gatos High School and was soon taking diction lessons alongside Olivia. When she was 16 years old, Joan returned to Japan to live with her father. There she attended the Tokyo School for Foreign Children, graduating in 1935.

Career
Fontaine made her stage debut in the West Coast production of Call It a Day (1935) and made her film debut in MGM's No More Ladies (1935) in which she was credited as Joan Burfield. She was leading lady to Bruce Bennett (billed as Herman Brix) in a low budget independent film, A Million to One (1937).

RKO
Fontaine signed a contract with RKO Pictures. Her first film for the studio was Quality Street (1937) starring Katharine Hepburn, in which Fontaine had a small unbilled role.

The studio considered her a rising star, and touted The Man Who Found Himself (1937) with John Beal as her first starring role, placing a special screen introduction, billed as the "new RKO screen personality" after the end credit. Fontaine later said it had "an A budget but a Z story."

RKO put her in You Can't Beat Love (1937) with Preston Foster and Music for Madame (1937) with Nino Martini.

She next appeared in a major role alongside Fred Astaire in his first RKO film without Ginger Rogers, A Damsel in Distress (1937). Despite being directed by George Stevens, audiences were disappointed and the film flopped. She was top billed in the comedies Maid's Night Out (1938) and Blond Cheat (1938) then was Richard Dix's leading lady in Sky Giant (1938).

Edward Small borrowed her to play Louis Hayward's love interest in The Duke of West Point (1938), then Stevens used her at RKO in Gunga Din (1939) as Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s love interest. The film was a huge hit, but Fontaine's part was relatively small. Republic borrowed her to support Dix in Man of Conquest (1939) but her part was small. George Cukor gave her a small role in MGM's The Women (1939).

David O. Selznick and Hitchcock
Fontaine's luck changed one night at a dinner party when she found herself seated next to producer David O. Selznick. Selznick and she began discussing the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca, and Selznick asked her to audition for the part of the unnamed heroine. She endured a grueling six-month series of film tests along with hundreds of other actresses before securing the part sometime before her 22nd birthday.

Rebecca (1940), starring Laurence Olivier alongside Fontaine, marked the American debut of British director Alfred Hitchcock. The film was released to glowing reviews, and Fontaine was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Fontaine did not win that year (Ginger Rogers took home the award for Kitty Foyle), but she did win the following year for Best Actress in Suspicion, which co-starred Cary Grant and was also directed by Hitchcock. This was the only Academy Award-winning acting performance to have been directed by Hitchcock.

Fontaine was then one of the biggest female stars in Hollywood, although she was typecast in female melodrama. "They seemed to want to make me cry the whole Atlantic", she later said. However, historically, she had become the top female star of the 1940s.

20th Century Fox borrowed her to appear opposite Tyrone Power in This Above All (1942) then she went to Warner Brothers to star alongside Charles Boyer in The Constant Nymph. She was nominated for a third Academy Award for her performance in this film.

She also starred as the titular protagonist in the film Jane Eyre that year, which was developed by Selznick then sold to Fox.

During the war Fontaine occasionally worked as a nurse's aide.

Fontaine starred in the film Frenchman's Creek (1944). Like Rebecca, this was also based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier. Fontaine personally considered Frenchman's Creek one of her least favorites among the films she starred in.

Selznick wanted to cast her in I'll Be Seeing You (1944) but she refused, saying she was "sick of playing the sad sack." Selznick suspended her for eight months. Eventually she went back to work in The Affairs of Susan (1945) for Hal Wallis at Paramount, her first comedy. She returned to RKO for From This Day Forward (1946).

Rampart Productions
In August 1946 Fontaine set up her own company, Rampart Productions, with her then-husband William Dozier. Her contract with Selznick ended in February 1947 and Fontaine would work exclusively for Rampart apart from one film a year for RKO.

Their first film was Ivy (1947), a thriller where she played an unsympathetic part.

Fontaine also appeared in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) directed by Max Ophüls, produced by John Houseman and co-starring Louis Jourdan. It was made by Rampart Productions and released through Universal. It is today considered to be a classic with one of the finest performances of her career.

At Paramount, she appeared opposite Bing Crosby in Billy Wilder's The Emperor Waltz (1948) then went to Universal for another film for Rampart, You Gotta Stay Happy (1948), a comedy with James Stewart.

Fontaine starred in Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, (1948), with Burt Lancaster, Nathan Juran and Bernard Herzbrun. Art directors, and set decorators recreated thirty blocks of huge sets to represent the East End of London's waterfront district in this successful film noir. At Paramount she did September Affair (1950) with Joseph Cotten for Wallis, Darling, How Could You! (1951) and Something to Live For (1952), a third film with George Stevens. At RKO she was a femme fatale in Born to Be Bad (1950).

MGM hired Fontaine to play the love interest in Ivanhoe (1952), a big success. She was reunited with Jourdan in Decameron Nights (1953) then went to Paramount for the low budget Flight to Tangier (1953) with Jack Palance.

Film, TV, and theatre
Fontaine made The Bigamist (1953), directed by Ida Lupino. She began appearing on TV shows such as Four Star Playhouse, Ford Theatre, Star Stage, The 20th Century Fox Hour, The Joseph Cotten Show, and General Electric Theater.

She won good reviews for her role on Broadway in 1954 as Laura in Tea and Sympathy, playing the role originated by Deborah Kerr. She appeared opposite Anthony Perkins and toured the show for a few months.

She was Bob Hope's leading lady in Casanova's Big Night (1956) then supported Mario Lanza in Serenade (1956). She was in Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) at RKO.

Fontaine had a big hit with Island in the Sun (1957) having a romance with Harry Belafonte. At MGM she appeared with Jean Simmons and Paul Newman in Until They Sail (1957) then she made A Certain Smile (1958) at Fox.

1960s
Fontaine had the female lead in the popular Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) at Fox. She had a key role in Tender Is the Night (1962) also at Fox.

Most of her 1960s work was done on television or stage. TV shows included General Electric Theater, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Startime, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond, Checkmate, The Dick Powell Show, Kraft Television Theatre, Wagon Train, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Bing Crosby Show.

In October 1964 she returned to Broadway to appear in A Severed Head.

She tried a Hammer horror film, The Witches (1966) which she also co-produced.

Her stage work included Cactus Flower and an Austrian production of The Lion in Winter.

In 1967, she appeared in Dial M for Murder in Chicago. The following year she appeared in Private Lives.

She played Forty Carats on Broadway.

Later career
In the 1970s Fontaine appeared in stage shows and toured with a poetry reading.

She returned to Hollywood for the first time in 15 years in 1975 to appear in an episode of Cannon especially written for her. She was in The Users (1978) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the soap opera Ryan's Hope in 1980.

Fontaine published her autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978. In 1982, she traveled to Berlin, Germany, and served as a jury president for the Berlin International Film Festival.

In the early 1980s, after 25 years in New York, she moved to Carmel, California. "I have no family ties anymore, so I want to work", she said. "I still host an interview show for cable in New York. I lecture all over the country. But it wasn't enough. My theory is that if you stay busy, you haven't time to grow old. Or at least you don't notice it."

She starred in Aloha Paradise, Bare Essence, and Crossings (1986). She played the lead in a TV movie, Dark Crossings (1986), replacing Loretta Young. She said, "At my time in life, I don't want to do bit parts. Also, Rosalind Russell once said, 'Always escape the mother parts.' And I've avoided them."

Fontaine's last role for television was in the 1994 TV film Good King Wenceslas, after which she retired to her estate, Villa Fontana, in Carmel Highlands, California, where she spent time in her gardens and with her dogs.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Fontaine has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1645 Vine Street. She left her hand and foot prints in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on 26 May 1942.

She was a practicing Episcopalian and a member of Episcopal Actors Guild.

Sibling rivalry
Fontaine and her elder sister, Olivia de Havilland, are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards. Olivia was the first to become an actress; when Fontaine tried to follow her lead, their mother, who favored Olivia, refused to let Joan use the family name. Subsequently, Fontaine had to invent a name, taking first Joan Burfield. When she appeared in the play Call It a Day, she was credited as Joan Fontaine, having assumed her mother's (Lilian Fontaine) stage name. Biographer Charles Higham records that the sisters had an uneasy relationship from early childhood, when Olivia would rip up the clothes Joan had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Joan to sew them back together. A large part of the friction between the sisters stemmed from Fontaine's belief that Olivia was their mother's favorite child.

De Havilland and Fontaine were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion over deHavilland's performance in Hold Back the Dawn. Higham states that Fontaine "felt guilty about winning given her lack of obsessive career drive ...". Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected deHavilland's attempts to congratulate her and that deHavilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behaviour. Fontaine, however, tells a different story in her autobiography, explaining that she was paralyzed with surprise when she won the Academy Award, and that deHavilland insisted that she get up to accept it. "Olivia took the situation very graciously", Fontaine wrote. "I was appalled that I'd won over my sister." Several years later, however, deHavilland apparently remembered what she perceived as a slight and exacted her own revenge by brushing past Fontaine, who was waiting with her hand extended, because deHavilland took offense at a comment Fontaine had made about deHavilland's husband.

Contrary to press reports, the sisters continued their relationship after the 1940s. After Fontaine's separation from her husband in 1952, deHavilland went to her apartment in New York often, and at least once they spent Christmas together there, in 1961. They were photographed laughing together at a party for Marlene Dietrich in 1967. Fontaine also visited deHavilland in Paris in 1969.

The sisters reportedly did not completely stop speaking to each other until 1975, after their mother's funeral, to which Joan, who was out of the country, was not invited.

Both sisters largely refused to comment publicly about their relationship. In a 1978 interview, however, Fontaine said of the sibling rivalry, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" The following year, in a 1979 interview, Fontaine claimed the reason her sister and she stopped speaking to each other was that deHavilland wanted their mother (who was suffering from cancer) to be treated surgically at the advanced age of 88, which Fontaine apparently did not think was a good idea. Fontaine claims that after their mother died, deHavilland did not bother to try to find where Fontaine could be reached (Fontaine was on tour in a play). Instead, deHavilland sent a telegram, which did not arrive until two weeks later at Fontaine's next stop. According to Fontaine, deHavilland did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother. DeHavilland claims she informed Fontaine, but Fontaine brushed her off, claiming she was too busy to attend. Higham records that Fontaine had an estranged relationship with her own daughters, as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with deHavilland.

Personal life
Fontaine held dual citizenship; she was British by birthright (both her parents were British) and became an American citizen in April 1943. Outside of acting, Fontaine was also noted as being a licensed pilot, an accomplished interior decorator, and a Cordon Bleu–level chef.

She was married and divorced four times. Her first marriage was to actor Brian Aherne, in 1939, at the St. John's Chapel in Del Monte, California; they divorced in April 1945.

In May 1946, she married actor/producer William Dozier in Mexico City. They had a daughter, Deborah Leslie, in 1948, and separated in 1949. Deborah is Fontaine's only biological child. The following year, Fontaine filed for divorce, charging Dozier with desertion. Their divorce was final in January 1951. The two of them had a custody battle over their child which lingered through the 1950s.

Fontaine's third marriage was to producer and writer Collier Young on November 12, 1952. They separated in May 1960, and Fontaine filed for divorce in November 1960. Their divorce was final in January 1961.

Fontaine's fourth and final marriage was to Sports Illustrated golf editor Alfred Wright, Jr, on January 23, 1964, in Elkton, Maryland; they divorced in 1969. Fontaine also had a personal relationship with Adlai Stevenson: "We had a tenderness for each other that grew into something rather serious. There was so much speculation about our marrying in the press that over lunch at his apartment in the Waldorf Towers he told me he could not marry an actress. He still had political ambitions and the 'little old ladies from Oshkosh' wouldn't approve. I told him it was just as well. My family would hardly approve of my marrying a politician".

Fontaine had an affair with actor and producer John Houseman after her marriage to Aherne. "Ours was what was known in Hollywood as a 'romance,' – which meant that we slept together three or four nights a week, got invited to parties together, went away together for weekends and sometimes talked about getting married without really meaning it," Houseman wrote in Front and Center, his second autobiography.

While in South America for a film festival in 1951, Fontaine met a four-year-old Peruvian girl named Martita, and informally adopted her. Fontaine met Martita while visiting Incan ruins where Martita's father worked as a caretaker. Martita's parents allowed Fontaine to become Martita's legal guardian to give the child a better life. Fontaine promised Martita's parents she would send the girl back to Peru to visit when she was 16 years old. When Martita turned 16, Fontaine bought her a round-trip ticket to Peru, but Martita refused to go and opted to run away. Fontaine and Martita became estranged following the incident. While promoting her autobiography in 1978, Fontaine addressed the issue, stating, "Until my adopted daughter goes back to see her parents, she's not welcome. I promised her parents. I do not forgive somebody who makes me break my word."

On December 15, 2013, Fontaine died in her sleep of natural causes at the age of 96 in her Carmel Highlands home. Her longtime friend Noel Beutel said, "She had been fading in recent days and died peacefully." After Fontaine's death, Olivia deHavilland released a statement saying she was "shocked and saddened" by the news.

Fontaine's Academy Award for Best Actress in Suspicion was initially to be sold at an animal rights auction; however, the academy threatened to sue since it was not offered back to them for $1 and Fontaine's estate retained possession.

Fontaine converted to Christianity in 1972 after a bleak period.

title: Joan Fontaine


text:
Martha Scott

Martha Ellen Scott (September 22, 1912 – May 28, 2003) was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), playing the mother of Charlton Heston's character in both films. She originated the role of Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's Our Town on Broadway in 1938 and later recreated the role in the 1940 film version, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Early life
Scott was born in Jamesport, Missouri, the daughter of Letha (née McKinley) and Walter Alva Scott, an engineer and garage owner. Her mother was a second cousin of U.S. President William McKinley. The Scott family remained in Jamesport until Martha was 13 years old, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and eventually to Detroit, Michigan. Scott became interested in acting in high school, an interest she furthered by attending the University of Michigan, earning a teaching certificate and a bachelor of arts degree in drama in 1934.

Stage
Scott received a career boost right out of college, when she appeared with the Globe Theatre Troupe in a series of Shakespeare productions at the Century of Progress world's fair in Chicago in 1934. Following that, she moved to New York City, where she found steady work both in stock stage productions and radio dramas. In 1938, she made her Broadway debut in the original staging of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town as Emily Webb, the tragic young woman who dies in childbirth.

Film
Two years later, Scott reprised the role of Emily in her film debut when Our Town was made into a movie. Her critically acclaimed performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Scott found steady movie work for the next four decades, appearing in major epics such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, The Desperate Hours, and Airport 1975. Charlton Heston was a frequent co-star with Scott on both stage and screen. As she told an interviewer in 1988, "I played his mother twice and his wife twice. I was his mother in Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. I was his wife on the stage in New York in Design for a Stained Glass Window and The Tumbler in London."

Producer
In 1968, Scott joined Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan in forming a theatrical production company called the Plumstead Playhouse. It later became the Plumstead Theatre Company and moved to Los Angeles. The company produced First Monday in October, both on stage and on film. Scott co-produced both versions. Her last production was Twelve Angry Men, which was performed at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Television
Scott began appearing in TV roles in the medium's early days. On November 2, 1950, she starred in "The Cut Glass Bowl" on The Nash Airflyte Theater, followed by several guest appearances on Robert Montgomery Presents and other shows of television's "golden age", including two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This pattern of guest roles continued through the 1960s with appearances on Route 66, Ironside, and The Courtship of Eddie's Father, among others. In the mid-1950s, Scott was the narrator for Modern Romances, an afternoon program on NBC-TV.

Scott was also a frequent TV guest star in the 1970s. She had recurring roles as Bob Newhart's mother on The Bob Newhart Show, the mother of Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) on both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, as well as Patricia Shepard, Sue Ellen and Kristin's mother on Dallas during its early years and later during the 1986 season. Scott was cast in single-episode guest appearances on several hit shows of the era, such as The Sandy Duncan Show, Columbo: Playback (1975), The Mod Squad, Marcus Welby, M.D., and The Love Boat. She played the role of Jennifer Talbot, Terri Brock's nasty grandmother, on General Hospital for six months (1986–1987), which ended when her character was murdered and stuffed in a drain pipe.

In the 1980s, she had a regular role on the short-lived series Secrets of Midland Heights and appeared in several television movies and in single episodes of shows such as Magnum, P.I., The Paper Chase, and Highway to Heaven. In the late 1980 she costarred with Jeffrey Lynn in an episode of Murder, She Wrote, which was a direct sequel to their 1949 feature film Strange Bargain. Scott's final acting role on television was in 1990 in the movie Daughter of the Streets.

Personal life
Scott was married twice, first to radio producer and announcer Carleton William Alsop from 1940 to 1946, and then to jazz pianist and composer Mel Powell from 1946 until his death in 1998. She had one child with Alsop, son Carleton Scott Alsop, and two daughters—Mary Powell Harpel and Kathleen Powell—with her second husband.

According to her son, Scott never forgot about her childhood hometown, using the mental image of a Jamesport cemetery in preparation for her Oscar-nominated role in Our Town. Said Alsop, "She told me she used that place as her image because it's so serene and beautiful" and that her deceased McKinley and Scott relatives "became the Gibbs and the Webbs in the play".

A Democrat, she supported the campaign of Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential election.

Scott died on May 28, 2003, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, aged 90, from natural causes. She was interred next to Powell in the Masonic Cemetery in her native Jamesport, Missouri.

Honors
For her contribution in the theatre, Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6126 Hollywood Boulevard.

Partial filmography

 * Our Town (1940) – Emily Webb
 * The Howards of Virginia (1940) – Jane Peyton-Howard
 * Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) – Ella Bishop
 * They Dare Not Love (1941) – Marta Keller
 * One Foot in Heaven (1941) – Hope Morris Spence
 * Stage Door Canteen (1943) – Martha Scott
 * Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) – Janie Prescott Phyffe
 * In Old Oklahoma (1943) – Catherine Elizabeth Allen
 * So Well Remembered (1947) – Olivia
 * Strange Bargain (1949) – Georgia Wilson
 * When I Grow Up (1951) – Mother Reed (1890s)
 * The Desperate Hours (1955) – Ellie Hilliard
 * The Ten Commandments (1956) – Yochabel
 * Eighteen and Anxious (1957) – Lottie Graham
 * Sayonara (1957) – Mrs. Webster
 * Ben-Hur (1959) – Miriam
 * New Comedy Showcase (1960, TV series; Season 1, Episode 1, "You're Only Young Twice") - Kit Tyler
 * The Devil's Daughter (1973, TV movie) – Mrs. Stone
 * Charlotte's Web (1973) – Mrs. Arable (voice) (age 60)
 * The Man from Independence (1974) – Mamma Truman
 * Thursday's Game (1974, TV Movie) – Mrs. Reynolds
 * Airport 1975 (1974) – Sister Beatrice
 * The Bob Newhart Show (1975) - "Fathers and Sons and Mothers" as Bob's mother Martha Hartley
 * Columbo (1975) – Margaret Midas
 * The Turning Point (1977) – Adelaide
 * The Word (1978, TV Movie) - Sarah Randall
 * First Monday in October (1981) – Cameo Appearance (uncredited)
 * Summer Girl (1983, TV movie) - Martina Shelburne
 * Adam (1983, TV Movie) – Gram Walsh
 * Magnum P.I. (1983, TV series; Season 4, Episode 68, Limited Engagement) - Jeanie LaSalle
 * Doin' Time on Planet Earth (1988) – Virginia Camalier
 * Daughter of the Streets (1990, TV Movie) - Sarah

title: Martha Scott


text:
Talk:William Ewart Gladstone

Degree
Gladstone did not get a double first. He failed to meet the residence requirement and took his degree automatically as the son of a peer. Also the discussion of the Oxford Union rather understates his relationship to it which was rather more central. Gladstone founded another debate society known as the WEG. The Union was founded five years before Gladstone matriculated but it was just one of many debate societies in the early years. Gladstone performed a sort of reverse merger, folding the WEG into the Union. He then used the Oxford Union and the Liberal Club as ongoing political vehicles throughout his career. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4040:5C4A:FA00:FD68:FEBA:1DE8:E321 (talk) 04:20, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Peer?
According to the article, Gladstone was 'the fourth son of the merchant Sir John Gladstones'. But later it claims he was the son of a peer. A knight is not a peer, and I can't find any evidence that John Gladstones was ever made a peer. Check a biography? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.197.230.144 (talk) 17:09, 28 June 2005 (UTC)
 * Gladstones father never was made a peer. I'll check what the situation was with his exams & amend the article later AllanHainey 30 June 2005 14:00 (UTC)
 * Gladstone did sit examinations for mathematics & classics, passed both. I can find no reference to him also sitting a seperate history degree or being disqualified from exams due to residency requirements so have removed that part. His father wasn't a Peer in 1831 although did become a Baronet in 1846, don't think thats a peer but it is irrelevant for the purposes of the article. AllanHainey 1 July 2005 07:43 (UTC)
 * The Jenkins biography certainly fits with this. He makes it clear that Gladstone "did not pay the extra fees to be treated as a gentleman-commoner (sometimes called nobleman-commoner". Also "He did not work excessively hard at Oxford, except perhaps in the late summer and autumn of 1831, which culminated in his taking two 'Schools' Literae Humaniores and Mathematics, between 7 November and 14 December, and getting secure firsts in both. The feat was the greater because he was not really interested in mathematics. He merely absorbed the subject in order to get the coveted scalp of a double first." So based on Jenkins at least, he didn't qualify without examination, he didn't matriculate as a nobleman-commoner, and didn't study history. I suspect Jenkins would also have noted if Gladstone had been the first person to achieve a double-first. Mpntod July 1, 2005 10:31 (UTC)
 * The piece about Gladstone getting he degree without examination was in the 8 volume life of Gladstone in the Oxford Union Library when I read it 20 years ago. The reference to history can be found on the St Deniols Library Web site, they would be likely to get details of that type right about their patron. Of course it is possible that they are simply listing an honorary degree granted long after he went down.
 * Gladstone was not the first person to obtain a double first, but he graduated in the first year after Oxford had reformed the examination system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gorgonzilla (talk • contribs) 12:12, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

State funeral
He had a state funeral - should it be mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.156.240.17 (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Modifications to Discussion of 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War
I am a student at Colgate University, and I am working on an assignment for my Egyptian history class to update information regarding the 1882 British invasion and occupation of Egypt. As such, I updated the section describing Gladstone's role in the invasion of Egypt according to information from well-credited historical essays on the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrobson1987 (talk • contribs) 16:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:William Ewart Gladstone


text:
Ball of Fire

Ball of Fire (also known as The Professor and the Burlesque Queen) is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The Samuel Goldwyn Productions film (originally distributed by RKO) concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The supporting cast includes Oscar Homolka, S. Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, and Dan Duryea.

In 2016, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry. In 1948, Hawks recycled the plot for a musical film, A Song Is Born, this time starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo.

Plot
A group of professors, all bachelors except for one widower, have lived together for some years in a New York City residence, compiling an encyclopedia of all human knowledge. The youngest, Professor Bertram Potts, is a grammarian who is researching modern American slang. The professors are accustomed to working in relative seclusion at a leisurely pace with a prim housekeeper, Miss Bragg, keeping watch over them. Their impatient financial backer, Miss Totten, suddenly demands that they finish their work soon. When a slang-using garbage man comes in asking the professors' assistance for a quiz, Bertram realizes he is far behind the latest uses of slangs and ventures out to do some independent research and becomes interested in the slang vocabulary of nightclub performer Katherine "Sugarpuss" O'Shea. She is reluctant to assist him until she suddenly needs a place to hide from the police, who want to question her about her boyfriend, mob boss Joe Lilac. Sugarpuss takes refuge in the house where the professors live and work, despite Bertram's objections and their housekeeper's threat to leave because of her. In the meantime, Joe decides to marry her, but only because as his wife she would not be able to testify against him.

The professors soon become fond of her, and she of them. Sugarpuss teaches them to conga and demonstrates to Bertram the meaning of the phrase "yum yum" (kisses). She becomes attracted to Bertram, who reciprocates by proposing marriage to her. She avoids giving him an answer and agrees to Joe's plan to have the professors drive her to New Jersey to marry him. After a series of misadventures, including a car crash, Sugarpuss realizes that she is in love with Bertram, but is forced to go ahead with her marriage to Joe to save the professors from his henchmen. Bertram, meanwhile, unaware of Sugarpuss' love for him, prepares to resume his research, sadder but wiser, until he discovers her true feelings.

The professors eventually outwit Joe and his henchmen and rescue Sugarpuss. She claims she is not good enough for Bertram, but his application of "yum yum" changes her mind. The other seven professors leave the room to give Bertram and Sugarpuss a moment alone.

Music
Martha Tilton provided Barbara Stanwyck's singing voice for the song "Drum Boogie". Drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa performed the song onscreen with his band. In an unusual twist, he also played it on a matchbox with matches for drumsticks. Krupa band member and noted trumpeter Roy Eldridge received a brief on-camera spot during "Drum Boogie". At one point, the professors also perform an a cappella version of the 1869 song "Sweet Genevieve".

Production
The script was written by Charles Brackett, Thomas Monroe, and Billy Wilder from a short story titled "From A to Z", which Wilder had created while he was still in Europe. Partly inspired by the fairy tale "Snow White", the professors were loosely based on the dwarfs from Walt Disney's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Although Ball of Fire was directed by the well-established Howard Hawks, Wilder had already decided that he needed to direct his screenplays to protect them from studio and other directors' interference. Hawks was happy to let Wilder study his directing on the set and Wilder thereafter directed his own films. The film was the second feature of 1941 to pair Cooper and Stanwyck, following Meet John Doe.

The role of Sugarpuss was offered to Ginger Rogers and Carole Lombard, but both turned it down. Lucille Ball was almost cast in the role until Gary Cooper recommended Stanwyck.

Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. At one point, Sugarpuss points to her sore throat and complains "Slight rosiness? It's as red as the Daily Worker [a left-wing newspaper] and just as sore."

Wilder also worked in a reference to Cooper's Oscar-winning performance in the title role of Hawks' 1941 film Sergeant York by having Dan Duryea's character Duke Pastrami say, "I saw me a movie last week" before licking his thumb and rubbing it on the sight of his gun, a technique Cooper's York uses to improve his marksmanship.

Reception
According to RKO records, Ball of Fire took in $1,856,000 in theater rentals from the United States and Canada and an additional $785,000 from foreign rentals, but because of the terms of Sam Goldwyn's deal with RKO, RKO recorded a loss of $147,000 on it.

Ball of Fire holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.2/10. The site's consensus reads: "A splendidly funny twist on the story of Snow White, Ball of Fire boasts a pair of perfect leads in Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck".

Awards and honors
Ball of Fire was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Barbara Stanwyck), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture, Best Sound, Recording (Thomas T. Moulton) and Best Story.

In World War II, a total of 12 servicemen were pen-pals with Stanwyck; two of them asked for a poster of her in the Ball of Fire outfit for their mess hall.

Ball of Fire was ranked 92nd in the 2000 American Film Institute (AFI) list AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs. In a 1999 AFI poll, Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck were both ranked #11 on the male and female lists of the greatest American screen legends.

title: Ball of Fire