ROBERT H. PATRICK, FROM TERMINATOR TO THE X FILES

Today, The Grandma has watched The X Files, and enjoyed Robert Patrick, the American actor well-known for his roles of T-1000 in Terminator and John Doggett in The X Files, who was born on a day like today in 1958.

Robert Hammond Patrick (born November 5, 1958) is an American actor. Known for portraying villains, degenerate gamblers, and authority figures alike, Patrick is a Saturn Award winner with four other nominations.

Patrick dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting, and entered film in 1986. After playing a supporting role in Die Hard 2 (1990), he came to prominence as the T-1000, the antagonist of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)- a role he reprised for cameo appearances in Wayne's World (1992) and Last Action Hero (1993). His other film credits include Fire in the Sky (1993), Striptease (1996), Cop Land (1997), The Faculty (1998), Spy Kids (2001), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Ladder 49 (2004), Walk the Line (2005), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), We Are Marshall (2006), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), and Safe House (2012).

In television, Patrick played FBI Special Agent John Doggett in The X-Files, Colonel Tom Ryan in The Unit, DHS agent Cabe Gallo in Scorpion, and Auggie Smith / White Dragon in Peacemaker. He has played ongoing roles in series such as 1923, The Outer Limits, The Sopranos, Elvis, Burn Notice, Last Resort, Sons of Anarchy, its spin-off Mayans M.C., Jamie Hawkins in The Night Agent, and From Dusk till Dawn: The Series.

AllMovie journalist Tracie Cooper wrote that, by the conclusion of The X-Files in 2002, Patrick had developed a solid reputation within the industry, with critics, fans and co-stars alike praising his work ethic, personality, and consistent performances. Actor and director Jason Bateman described Patrick as one of the great heavies.

More information: Instagram

Patrick was born in Marietta, Georgia, on November 5, 1958, and raised there, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts, Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Bay Village, Ohio. He is the eldest of five children born to Nadine and Robert M. Patrick, and is of Scots-Irish and English descent.

Patrick did not start to pursue an acting career until his mid-twenties. During his childhood, he did not like to act. In third grade, Patrick refused to wear a pair of green tights required for Peter Pan. He graduated from Farmington High School in Farmington, Michigan in 1977.  

Patrick was a track and field and football athlete at Bowling Green State University. He dropped out before graduating when he found an interest in drama and acting. After leaving college, Patrick worked as a house painter and continued as such until a boating accident in 1984 in Lake Erie. He swam for three hours in order to save others still stranded on the accident site, and nearly drowned in doing so. After the accident, he moved to Los Angeles at age 26.

Patrick first appeared in several low-budget science-fiction and action films produced by Roger Corman and shot in the Philippines by Cirio H. Santiago. Looking back, he credited his early appearances in films to his tough-looking exterior. He played leading roles in pictures such as Eye of the Eagle, Equalizer 2000 or Future Hunters.

Patrick later commented that his experience with Santiago had been his film school. The B movies he made in the Philippines helped him get an SAG card.

Patrick's first major Hollywood film was Die Hard 2, in a small part as a henchman for Colonel Stuart, before landing the role of the T-1000, the villain of James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Cameron said he chose Patrick because of his physical appearance, which he felt fit the role.

Patrick was broke at the time, living in a cheap apartment with his girlfriend, Barbara, whom he married during shooting. He has credited the film with starting his career.

After Terminator 2, Patrick landed roles in various feature films such as Last Action Hero, Fire in the Sky (both 1993) and Striptease (1996). Because of his fondness for martial arts, Patrick starred in two martial arts films titled Double Dragon and Hong Kong 97, both released in 1994, and even had a fight scene with taekwondo master Hwang Jang-Lee in Future Hunters (1988). His performance in Fire in the Sky led The X-Files creator Chris Carter to cast him in that series for the role of John Doggett. Patrick's brother, Richard, had previously worked for the series by adding music for the soundtrack album The X-Files: The Album. 

Patrick was cast as Doggett in 2000. The X-Files was canceled two seasons later, after Duchovny left the show following season 7, which resulted in low ratings for the show. Patrick made several appearances on many genre magazines, with TV Guide going so far as to label him one of the Ten Sexiest Men of Sci-Fi.

More information: The Companion

In 2000, Patrick appeared in three episodes of The Sopranos (The Happy Wanderer, Bust Out and Funhouse) as David 'Davey' Scatino, a store owner struggling with gambling debts owed to Richie Aprile and Tony Soprano. Four years later, he made a guest appearance in the pilot episodes for Sci-Fi Channel's original series Stargate Atlantis, Rising, as the military component commander of the Atlantis expedition, Marshall Sumner. He accepted the role, since he had worked with the same crew on The Outer Limits, a series which he appeared in during the early 1990s.

Patrick played Johnny Cash's father, Ray Cash, in the film Walk the Line and Elvis's father, Vernon Presley in the miniseries Elvis.

In 2003, he appeared in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which reunited him with his Striptease co-star, Demi Moore. He had a regular role on The Unit, and played Elvis Presley in Lonely Street (2009).

In October 2006, he starred in the WWE Films production The Marine as Rome.

He also appeared in We Are Marshall as Marshall University head coach Rick Tolley, who lost his life when Southern Airways Flight 932 crashed in 1970. His credits also include a guest starring role in the Lost episode Outlaws, as well as a recurring role as the voice of Master Piandao in season 3 of the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Patrick played a supporting role in Firewall, a 2006 action film starring Harrison Ford. He has also appeared in Meat Loaf's music video Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are with Will Estes.

Director McG, who directed Terminator Salvation, said that he wanted to reintroduce characters from the previous Terminator films: I like the idea and the perspective for the next picture that you meet Robert Patrick the way he looks today, and he's a scientist that's working on, you know, improving cell replication so we can stay healthier and we can cure diabetes and do all these things that sound like good ideas, and to once again live as idealized expressions as ourselves.

Patrick also starred in the psychological thriller The Black Water of Echo's Pond, which was directed by Italian filmmaker Gabriel Bologna.

In recent years, he has appeared in such television series as Burn Notice, NCIS and True Blood, among others.

From 2012 to 2013, he also starred in Last Resort as Chief of the Boat Joseph Prosser. He played a supporting character in Identity Thief (2013). From 2014 to 2016, he starred in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series as Jacob Fuller. He also played Agent Cabe Gallo on the CBS drama series Scorpion from 2014 to 2018.

On March 28, 2017, Patrick was cast in Amazon Video horror anthology series Lore, which is based on the award-winning and critically acclaimed podcast of the same name. Lore recounts true stories of frightening and paranormal occurrences. Lore premiered on October 13, 2017, and ran for two seasons.

In 2021, Patrick starred in Rushed, co-produced by Lars von Trier's Zentropa Entertainment, and written by Siobhan Fallon Hogan. Also starring Jake Weary and Peri Gilpin, Vertical Entertainment has acquired the distribution rights.

In 2022, Robert Patrick played Auggie Smith / White Dragon, the racist supervillain father of Peacemaker in the HBO Max series Peacemaker, and he voiced Wolverine in the Marvel's Wastelanders: Wolverine podcast.

More information: Twitter-Robert Patrick

I enjoyed the crew.
The best part about 'The X-Files' has been the crew.
This crew is an exceptional family
and to go to work with a bunch of people
that you really like is great.
They're all the best of the best
and they really try to do the best job they can.
I'll miss that.

Robert Patrick

VINCE GILLIGAN, THE X FILES & THE LONE GUNMEN'S SOUL

Today, The Grandma has been watching TV Series and she has chosen her favourite one, The X Files, the American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter and produced by Vince Gilligan, one of the most brilliant screenwriters who was born on a day like today in 1967.

 

George Vincent Gilligan Jr. (born February 10, 1967) is an American writer, producer, and director.

He is known for his television work, specifically as creator, head writer, executive producer, and director of AMC's Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and its spin-off Better Call Saul (2015-present). He was a writer and producer for The X-Files (1993-2002; 2016-2018) and was the co-creator of its spin-off, The Lone Gunmen (2001).

Gilligan has won four Primetime Emmy Awards, six Writers Guild of America Awards, two Critics' Choice Television Awards, two Producers Guild of America Awards, a Directors Guild of America Award, and a BAFTA Television Award. Outside of television, he co-wrote the screenplay for the 2008 film Hancock and wrote and directed the Breaking Bad sequel film, El Camino, released on October 11, 2019.

Vince Gilligan was born on February 10, 1967 in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Gail, a grade school teacher, and George Vincent Gilligan Sr., an insurance claims adjuster.

His interest in film began when Wall's mother, Jackie, who also taught alongside Gilligan's mother at J.P. Wynne, would lend her Super 8 film cameras to him. He used the camera to make science fiction films with Patrick.

One of his first films was entitled Space Wreck, starring his brother in the lead role. One year later, he won first prize for his age group in a film competition at the University of Virginia.

More information: FSR

After graduating from Lloyd C. Bird High School in 1985, Gilligan went on to attend NYU's Tisch School of the Arts on a scholarship, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film production.

While at NYU, he wrote the screenplay for Home Fries; Gilligan received the Virginia Governor's Screenwriting Award in 1989 for the screenplay which was later turned into a film. One of the judges of the competition was Mark Johnson, a film producer. He was impressed by Gilligan, saying he was the most imaginative writer I'd ever read.

Gilligan's big break came when he joined the Fox television drama The X-Files. Gilligan was a fan of the show, and submitted a script to Fox which became the second-season episode Soft Light. He went on to write 29 more episodes, in addition to being co-executive producer of 44 episodes, executive producer of 40, co-producer of 24, and supervising producer of 20. He also co-created and became executive producer of The X-Files spin-off series The Lone Gunmen. The series only ran for one season of 13 episodes.

Gilligan created, wrote, directed, and produced the AMC drama series Breaking Bad. He created the series with the premise that the hero would become the villain.

More information: Showbiz Cheat Sheet

If you look closely at 'Breaking Bad'
and any given episode of 'The X Files,'
you will realise the structure is exactly the same.

Vince Gilligan

JERRY HARDIN, UNFORGETTABLE 'DEEP THROAT' IN TXF

Jerry Hardin (born November 20, 1929) is an American actor.

Hardin has appeared in film and television roles, including the character nicknamed Deep Throat in The X-Files.

Hardin was born in Dallas, Texas and studied acting at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before beginning his acting career in New York. He is married with two children, one of whom is actress Melora Hardin.

Jerry Hardin was born in Dallas on November 20, 1929. His father was a rancher, and Jerry spent his youth actively involved with his local church and performing in school plays.

He attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, on a scholarship before going on to study at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, earning a scholarship there through the Fulbright Program. He spent several years there before returning to the United States to begin acting in New York, performing in regional theatre for twelve years.

Hardin began acting on television in the 1950s, mostly in character roles. He amassed over a hundred appearances by the early 1990s, in addition to more than seventy-five theatrical credits by the early 1960s.

His television appearances include roles in the 1976 western series Sara, Family Ties, The Golden Girls, World War III, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Sliders, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Hardin appeared in such films as Thunder Road (1958), Our Time (1974), The Rockford Files (1977), Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), 1941 (1979), Reds (1981), Missing (1982), Tempest (1982), Honkytonk Man (1982), Cujo (1983), Mass Appeal (1984), Warning Sign (1985), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Let's Get Harry (1986), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987), Little Nikita (1988), The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), Blaze (1989), The Hot Spot (1990), The Firm (1993).

More information: IMDB

His role in 1993's The Firm won Hardin the attention of television writer Chris Carter, who cast him in the recurring role of Deep Throat in the series The X-Files.

Hardin believed his initial appearance in the second episode of the first season, airing on September 17, 1993, would be a one-time role, but he soon found himself regularly commuting to the series' Vancouver filming location on short notice.

After filming the character's death in the first season finale, The Erlenmeyer Flask, Hardin was toasted with champagne, and told by Carter that no one ever really dies on X-Files. As such, Hardin made several more appearances as Deep Throat after this, seen in visions in the third season's The Blessing Way and the seventh season's The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, in flashbacks in the fourth season's Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, and as one of the guises assumed by a shapeshifting alien in the third season's finale, Talitha Cumi.

Deep Throat is a fictional character on the American science fiction television series The X-Files.

He serves as an informant, leaking information to FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder to aid Mulder's investigation of paranormal cases, dubbed X-Files.

Introduced in the series' second episode, also named Deep Throat, the character was killed off during the first season finale The Erlenmeyer Flask; however, he later made various appearances in flashbacks and visions. In the season 11 episode This, his real name is revealed to be Ronald Pakula.

The character of Deep Throat was portrayed by Jerry Hardin in all his appearances. After the character was killed, Steven Williams was introduced in the second season episode The Host to portray his successor, X.

The creation of Deep Throat was inspired by the historical Deep Throat, Mark Felt, who leaked information on the Watergate scandal, and by Donald Sutherland's character X in the film JFK.

Series creator Chris Carter has stated that the character of Deep Throat was of course inspired by the historical Deep Throat. The real Deep Throat was an informant leaking information on the FBI's investigation of the Watergate scandal to journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

After the conclusion of The X-Files, this Deep Throat was later revealed to be FBI Associate Director Mark Felt. Also cited as an influence on the fictional Deep Throat was X, the character portrayed by Donald Sutherland in the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK.

In the film, Sutherland's X reveals information about the possibility that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was orchestrated by elements within the American government. Carter felt he needed to create a character who would bridge the gap between FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and the shadowy conspirators who were working against them; he conceived of a character who works in some level of government that we have no idea exists.

 More information: Twitter-The X Files

Carter was drawn to actor Jerry Hardin after seeing him in 1993's The Firm. Hardin believed his initial appearance would be a one-time role, although he soon found himself regularly commuting to the series' Vancouver filming location on short notice.

Producer Howard Gordon has spoken of the elusiveness of the character's allegiances, stating that during production, it was often left ambiguous whether he was ally or foe. After filming the character's death in the first season finale, The Erlenmeyer Flask, Hardin was toasted with champagne, and told by Carter that no one ever really dies on X-Files.

As such, Hardin made several more appearances as Deep Throat after this -seen in visions in the third season's The Blessing Way and the seventh season's The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, in flashbacks in the fourth season's Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, and as one of the guises assumed by a shapeshifting alien in the third season's finale, Talitha Cumi.

During the first season of The X-Files, Deep Throat provided Mulder and Scully with information they would have been otherwise unable to obtain. As a member of the then-unseen Syndicate, he was in a position to know a great deal of information. Deep Throat felt that the truth the Syndicate kept secret from the public needed to be known, and believed Mulder to be the one person capable of exposing this knowledge.

However, in E.B.E. Deep Throat provided Mulder with false information in order to divert him, later explaining that he believed the public was just not ready to know some truths.

During the Vietnam War, Deep Throat worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. When a UFO was shot down over Hanoi by US Marines, the surviving extraterrestrial was brought to Deep Throat, who executed it. He later claimed that his assisting Mulder was his way of atoning for his actions. He also stated that he was a participant in some of the most insidious lies and witness to deeds that no crazed man could imagine.

In the first season finale of The X-Files, The Erlenmeyer Flask, Mulder was taken hostage by a group of Men in Black operatives, following his investigation into an alien-human hybrid program. Fearing for Mulder's life, Deep Throat helped Scully gain access to a high containment facility, where she managed to secretly remove a cryogenically-preserved alien fetus for use as collateral in saving Mulder. In the subsequent meeting between the operatives and Deep Throat, he was gunned down by an assassin, the Crew Cut Man.

Deep Throat was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery. The character later appeared in dreams and visions experienced by Mulder during his recuperation on a Navajo reservation, and again years later while being experimented on by The Smoking Man.

The character of Deep Throat has been well received by critics and fans. Entertainment Weekly described Hardin's performance as world-weary and heavyhearted, and listed his appearance in the character's eponymous début episode as the 37th greatest television moment of the 1990s. However, they felt at times that his presence in episodes such as Ghost in the Machine seemed gratuitous.

 More information: Facebook-The X Files

Reviewing the character's début episode, the San Jose Mercury News called Deep Throat the most interesting new character on television.

Chris Carter has stated that Hardin's performance gave the series an element of believability that it needed; and felt that the episode E.B.E. was a great opportunity to expand the character's role.

Writing for The A.V. Club, Zack Handlen called Deep Throat's death a shocking moment, even when you know it's coming, praising the desperation evident in Hardin's performance, although lamenting the curse of continuity that led to the character being quickly replaced with Steven Williams' X.

Ben Rawson-Jones, writing for Digital Spy, felt that Deep Throat's tenure on The X-Files was arguably the show's peak, and praised Hardin's acting in the role. 

Brian Lowry, in his book The Truth Is Out There, has noted that the character helped establish a tone and undercurrent of gravity on The X-Files that was to provide the spine of the series.

More information: Youtube-The X Files

Mr. Mulder, they’ve been here for a long long time.

Deep Throat/Jerry Hardin

JOHN REGINALD NEVILLE, ENGLISH TALENT IN CANADA

Today, The Grandma has been watching one of her favourite TV series, The X Files. She loves this amazing series and all the interesting characters that appear on it. One of the most wonderful characters is The Well-Manicured Man, a dark man interpreted by John Neville, the English actor who spent his life in Canada and was born on a day like today in 1925.

John Reginald Neville (2 May 1925-19 November 2011) was an English theatre and film actor who moved to Canada in 1972.

He enjoyed a resurgence of international attention in the 1980s as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

Neville was born in Willesden, London, the son of Mabel Lillian and Reginald Daniel Neville, a lorry driver. He was educated at Willesden and Chiswick County Schools for Boys and, after service in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before starting his professional career as a member of the Trent Players.

Neville was a West End star of the 1950s, hailed as one of the most potent classical actors of the Richard Burton–Peter O'Toole generation.

A leading member of London's Old Vic Company, he played many classical leading roles, including Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (a role he repeated on American television for the anthology series Producers' Showcase), and an acclaimed Richard in Richard II, with Virginia McKenna as Queen Anne. He also alternated with Richard Burton in the parts of Othello and Iago in Othello.

He was a frequent performer at the Bristol Old Vic. He received good reviews in the musical adaptation of Lolita, called Lolita, My Love, which closed in Boston.

More information: Studs Terkel Radio Archive

Known for his classical good looks and mellifluous voice, the young Neville was regularly described as the young John Gielgud's natural successor. For a while, he took over the leading role of Nestor Le Fripé from Keith Michell in the original West End production of the musical Irma La Douce, with Elizabeth Seal as Irma. 

He returned to the London stage for a brief period in 1963, playing the title role in Alfie by Bill Naughton, but by then his theatrical commitment lay outside London.

In 1961, his weekly pay declining from £200 to £50, he joined the Nottingham Playhouse, becoming joint artistic director with Frank Dunlop and Peter Ustinov when the current Playhouse opened in 1963.

It became one of Britain's leading regional repertory theatres. Though Dunlop and Ustinov soon left, Neville remained at the theatre until 1967, when he resigned over funding disputes with the local authority and the Arts Council.

Neville starred as the Duke of Marlborough in the BBC2 serial The First Churchills (1969), a major television role which also maintained his international profile when the show was broadcast as the very first Masterpiece Theatre series in the United States in 1971. With his family, he left Britain for Canada in 1972, becoming a citizen there. He devoted his later career to the Canadian theatre. 

He took up the post of artistic director at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta (1973-78), and later took similar positions with the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia (1978-83) and other Canadian theatre companies, including as artistic director of the Stratford Festival of Canada from 1985 to 1989, while continuing his acting career.

On top of his artistic decisions, Neville helped eliminate the Neptune's deficit with canny promotions, such as giving free tickets to the local taxi drivers and their families, correctly anticipating that recipients would enthusiastically discuss the theatre with passengers and tourists.

More information: The New York Times

Director Terry Gilliam cast him as the lead in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). In the film, Neville plays the character at three different stages of his life; in his 30s, his 50s and his 70s.

From 1995 to 1998, Neville had a prominent recurring role in The X-Files television series as The Well-Manicured Man, and in 1998, he reprised the role in the feature film The X-Files. Although he made numerous other television appearances and occasional film roles, the main focus of Neville's career was always on the theatre.

In his later years, Neville had numerous cameo appearances in films, including primate of the Anglican Church in Australia in The Man Who Sued God and an admiral in the Earth Space Navy in The Fifth Element. He had a small role as Terrence in David Cronenberg's Spider (2002). Around the same time, he appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in the film adaptation of Crime and Punishment, also 2002.

In 2003, Neville performed a stage reading of John Milton's Samson Agonistes, with Claire Bloom at Bryn Mawr College at the behest of poet Karl Kirchwey. He appeared in an episode of the soap opera Train 48 (2005) as the grandfather of Zach Eisler, who was played by his grandson Joe Dinicol.

He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2006.

According to publicists at Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Neville died peacefully surrounded by family on 19 November 2011, aged 86.

More information: The Guardian

 Survival is the ultimate ideology.

John Neville/The Well-Manicured Man

BURT REYNOLDS, CHEROKEE & ITALIAN ROOTS TO ACT

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been watching some films, and she has chosen some of Burt Reynolds, the American actor, director, and producer who was born on a day like today in 1936. She remembers one of the best episodes of The X Files, Improbable, where Reynolds was the guest star and played an unforgettable and memorable role.

Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936-September 6, 2018) was an American actor, director, and producer of film and television, considered a sex symbol and icon of American popular culture.

Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in several television series such as Gunsmoke (1962–1965), Hawk (1966), and Dan August (1970–1971).

Although Reynolds had leading roles in such films as Navajo Joe (1966), his breakthrough role was as Lewis Medlock in Deliverance (1972). Reynolds played the leading role, often a lovable rogue, in a number of subsequent box office hits, such as White Lightning (1973) The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), The End (1978), Hooper (1978), Starting Over (1979), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), Sharky's Machine (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Cannonball Run II (1984), several of which he directed himself. He was nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

More information: Gr8er Days

Reynolds was voted the world's number one box office star for five consecutive years, from 1978 to 1982, in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, a record he shares with Bing Crosby. After a number of box office failures, Reynolds returned to television, starring in the sitcom Evening Shade (1990–1994), which won him a Golden Globe Award and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

His performance as high-minded pornographer Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) brought him renewed critical attention, earning him another Golden Globe, for Best Supporting Actor–Motion Picture, with nominations for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was born on February 11, 1936, to Harriet Fernette and Burton Milo Reynolds (1906–2002). His family descended from Dutch, English, Scots-Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Reynolds also claimed Cherokee and Italian roots.

After graduating from Palm Beach High School, he attended Florida State University on a football scholarship and played half-back. While at Florida State, he roomed with future college football coach, broadcaster, and analyst Lee Corso, and also became a brother of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

The Florida State Drama Award included a scholarship to the Hyde Park Playhouse, a summer stock theatre, in Hyde Park, New York.

Reynolds saw the opportunity as an agreeable alternative to more physically demanding summer jobs, but did not yet see acting as a possible career. While working there, Reynolds met Joanne Woodward, who helped him find an agent.

Reynolds began acting on television in the late 1950s, guest starring on shows like Flight, M Squad, Schlitz Playhouse, The Lawless Years and Pony Express. He signed a seven-year contract with Universal. I don't care whether he can act or not, said Wasserman. Anyone who has this effect on women deserves a break.

Reynolds returned to guest starring on television shows. As he put it, I played heavies in every series in town appearing in episodes of Playhouse 90, Johnny Ringo, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Lock Up, The Blue Angels, Michael Shayne, Zane Grey Theater, The Aquanauts and The Brothers Brannagan.

Reynolds continued to guest star on shows such as Naked City, Ripcord, Everglades, Route 66, Perry Mason, and The Twilight Zone. He later said, I learned more about my craft in these guest shots than I did standing around and looking virile on Riverboat.

More information: New York Post

Reynolds was given the title role in a TV series, Hawk (1966–67), playing Native American detective John Hawk. It ran for 17 episodes before being cancelled.

Albert R. Broccoli asked Reynolds to take over the role of James Bond from Sean Connery, but he turned that role down, saying An American can't play James Bond. It just can't be done.

He was then in Fuzz (1972), reuniting him with Welch, and made a cameo in the Woody Allen film, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*(*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972).

He was in The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) co-starring Sarah Miles. The film is best remembered for the scandal during filming of Miles's lover committing suicide; it was a minor hit. He was meant to reunite with Boorman in Zardoz but fell ill and was replaced by Sean Connery.

Cannonball Run II (1984), directed by Needham, brought in some money but only half of the original. City Heat (1984), which teamed Reynolds and Eastwood, was mildly popular but was considered a major critical and box office disappointment.

When Evening Shade ended, Reynolds played the lead in a horror film, The Maddening (1995). However, he gradually moved into being more of a character actor -he had key support roles in Citizen Ruth (1996), an early work from Alexander Payne, and Striptease (1996) with Demi Moore.

Despite his lucrative career, in 1996 he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, due in part to an extravagant lifestyle, a divorce from Loni Anderson and failed investments in some Florida restaurant chains. Reynolds emerged from bankruptcy two years later.

Reynolds appeared as an adult film director in the hit film Boogie Nights (1997), which was considered a comeback role for him; he received 12 acting awards and 3 nominations for the role, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Reynolds' first and only nomination for the award.

Reynolds was top-billed in Snapshots (2002) with Julie Christie, Time of the Wolf (2002), and Hard Ground (2003), and had supporting roles in Johnson County War (2002) with Tom Berenger, and Miss Lettie and Me (2003) with Mary Tyler Moore.

Reynolds died of a heart attack at the Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Florida, on September 6, 2018, at the age of 82.

More information: Vulture

I felt good when I did a stunt,
and if it was really dangerous
-like if I got out on a horse or a bull that was rank,
or jumped out of this building on a bag-
I felt great.

Burt Reynolds

THE HALE TELESCOPE SEES FIRST LIGHT AT PALOMAR

Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. She has been watching TV Series, and she has chosen The X Files, one of her three top ones. 

 

She has been watching some episodes, and she has enjoyed a lot with the first episode of the second season titled Little Green Men where Fox Mulder, one of the main characters of the series, talks about the Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego, a telescope that saw first light on a day like today in 1949. The Grandma has remembered when she visited Palomar Observatory, some years ago, with her closer friend Joseph de Ca'th Lon, who likes Astronomy a lot.

The Hale Telescope is a 5.1 m, f/3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California named after astronomer George Ellery Hale.

With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1928, he orchestrated the planning, design, and construction of the observatory, but with the project ending up taking 20 years he did not live to see its commissioning. 

The Hale was groundbreaking for its time, with double the diameter of the second-largest telescope, and pioneered many new technologies in telescope mount design and in the design and fabrication of its large aluminium coated honeycomb low thermal expansion Pyrex mirror. It was completed in 1949 and is still in active use.

More information: Palomar Observatory

The Hale Telescope represented the technological limit in building large optical telescopes for over 30 years.

It was the largest telescope in the world from its construction in 1949 until the Soviet BTA-6 was built in 1976, and the second largest until the construction of the Keck Observatory Keck 1 in Hawaii in 1993.

Hale supervised the building of the telescopes at the Mount Wilson Observatory with grants from the Carnegie Institution of Washington: the 1.5 m telescope in 1908 and the 2.5 m telescope in 1917. These telescopes were very successful, leading to the rapid advance in understanding of the scale of the Universe through the 1920s, and demonstrating to visionaries like Hale the need for even larger collectors.

The chief optical designer for Hale's previous telescope was George Willis Ritchey, who intended the new telescope to be of Ritchey–Chrétien design. Compared to the usual parabolic primary, this design would have provided sharper images over a larger usable field of view. However, Ritchey and Hale had a falling-out. With the project already late and over budget, Hale refused to adopt the new design, with its complex curvatures, and Ritchey left the project. The Mount Palomar Hale Telescope turned out to be the last world-leading telescope to have a parabolic primary mirror.

In 1928 Hale secured a grant of $6 million from the Rockefeller Foundation for the construction of an observatory, including a reflecting telescope to be administered by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), of which Hale was a founding member.

In the early 1930s, Hale selected a site at 1,700 m on Palomar Mountain in San Diego County, California, as the best site, and less likely to be affected by the growing light pollution problem in urban centres like Los Angeles.

The Corning Glass Works was assigned the task of making a 5.1 m primary mirror. Construction of the observatory facilities and dome started in 1936, but because of interruptions caused by World War II, the telescope was not completed until 1948 when it was dedicated. Due to slight distortions of images, corrections were made to the telescope throughout 1949. It became available for research in 1950.

A functioning one tenth scale model of the telescope was also made at Corning.

The 510 cm telescope saw first light on January 26, 1949, at 10:06 pm PST under the direction of American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, targeting NGC 2261, an object also known as Hubble's Variable Nebula. The photographs made then were published in the astronomical literature and in the May 7, 1949 issue of Collier's Magazine.

The telescope continues to be used every clear night for scientific research by astronomers from Caltech and their operating partners, Cornell University, the University of California, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is equipped with modern optical and infrared array imagers, spectrographs, and an adaptive optics system. It has also used lucky cam imaging, which in combination with adaptive optics pushed the mirror close to its theoretical resolution for certain types of viewing.

One of the Corning Labs' glass test blanks for the Hale was used for the C. Donald Shane telescope's 300 cm primary mirror. The collecting area of the mirror is about 20 square meters.

More information: Space

The first observation of the Hale telescope was of NGC 2261 on January 26, 1949.

Halley's Comet (1P) upcoming 1986 approach to the Sun was first detected by astronomers David C. Jewitt and G. Edward Danielson on 16 October 1982 using the Hale telescope equipped with a CCD camera.

Two moons of the planet Uranus were discovered in September 1997, bringing the planet's total known moons to 17 at that time. One was Caliban (S/1997 U 1), which was discovered on 6 September 1997 by Brett J. Gladman, Philip D. Nicholson, Joseph A. Burns, and John J. Kavelaars using the Hale telescope. The other Uranian moon discovered then is Sycorax (initial designation S/1997 U 2) and was also discovered using the Hale telescope.

In 1999, astronomers used a near-infrared camera and adaptive optics to take some of the best Earth-surface based images of planet Neptune up to that time. The images were sharp enough to identify clouds in the ice giant's atmosphere.

The Cornell Mid-Infrared Asteroid Spectroscopy (MIDAS) survey used the Hale Telescope with a spectrograph to study spectra from 29 asteroids. An example of a result from that study, is that the asteroid 3 Juno was determined to have an average radius of 135.7±11 km using the infrared data.

In 2009, using a coronagraph, the Hale Telescope was used to discover the star Alcor B, which is a companion to Alcor in the famous Big Dipper constellation.

In 2010, a new satellite of planet Jupiter was discovered with the Hale Telescope, called S/2010 J 1 and later named Jupiter LI.

In October 2017 the Hale Telescope was able to record the spectrum of the first recognized interstellar object, 1I/2017 U1 ʻOumuamua; while no specific mineral was identified it showed the visitor had a reddish surface colour.

More information: NASA

Like buried treasures,
the outposts of the universe have beckoned
to the adventurous from immemorial times...

George Ellery Hale

CARRIE HAMILTON, A WONDERFUL VOICE & A TRAGIC LIFE

Today, The Grandma has been watching old TV series froim the 80's. She has chosen one of the favourite one, Fame. 

Fame is an American television series originally produced between January 7, 1982, and May 18, 1987, by MGM Television. The show is based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name.

 

Using a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts -a fictional establishment, but based heavily on the actual Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

Carrie Hamilton was one of the actresses of the cast of Fame. She played the role of Reggie Higgins an unforgettable student with an incredible voice and art attitudes. Hamilton, who was born on a day like today in 1963, died too young, and The Grandma has wanted to remember her and her wonderful interpretations.

Carrie Louise Hamilton (December 5, 1963-January 20, 2002) was an American actress, singer, and playwright. She was the daughter of comedian Carol Burnett and producer Joe Hamilton.

Hamilton worked in a number of productions for stage, film, video, and television. She took the role of Reggie Higgins in the TV version of the musical Fame for the fifth and sixth seasons (1985–1987), and portrayed the role of Maureen Johnson in the first national tour of the stage musical Rent to considerable acclaim. She also studied music and acting at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

One of her films was Tokyo Pop (1988), in which she played an American singer who journeys to Japan. There, she found a relationship with both a singer, played by Diamond Yukai also known as Yutaka Tadokoro, and a band who made it into the Tokyo pop charts top 10. She performed several songs in the film.

In 1992, Hamilton took a minor role in the movie Cool World, which starred Gabriel Byrne, Kim Basinger, and Brad Pitt.

Hamilton married musician Mark Templin in 1994 on the same soundstage where The Carol Burnett Show was filmed. The couple divorced in 1998.

Hamilton occasionally appeared on television with her mother. In 1987, Burnett guest-starred in an episode of Fame entitled Reggie and Rose. The pair co-starred in a 1988 TV movie titled Hostage. They appeared on five episodes of Family Feud in 1995, competing with Hamilton's husband Mark Templin and mother-in-law Dalia Ward against a team led by Betty White.

More information: Los Angeles Times

In 1997, they starred on an episode of Touched by an Angel entitled The Comeback. Hamilton played an aspiring Broadway star whose mother (Burnett) had also made a run for Broadway fame, but failed, due to a dirty trick on the part of her conniving best friend, played by Rita Moreno.

In 1999, Hamilton starred in a popular sixth-season episode of The X-Files, entitled Monday. She played the role of Pam, the girlfriend of a would-be bank robber, who is forced to relive the same day over and over.

Hamilton was the inspiration for the 1983 hit single Carrie's Gone, written by former boyfriend Fergie Frederiksen and recorded by his band, Le Roux, after they broke up. The 12-year age difference, Carrie was 19 and Fergie was 31 at the time, was cited as the main reason for the break-up.

Hamilton worked with her mother to adapt Burnett's memoir, One More Time, for the stage play Hollywood Arms, but did not live long enough to see it produced.

Hamilton died from pneumonia as a complication of lung cancer that spread to her brain in Los Angeles on January 20, 2002, at age 38, and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.

She started smoking cigarettes in her early teens, and also had a three-year period of heavy drug and alcohol abuse that she successfully overcame by the time she was 15. Except for a brief relapse at 17, she remained drug and alcohol-free for the remainder of her life.

In July 2006, the former Balcony Theatre of the Pasadena Playhouse was rededicated as the Carrie Hamilton Theatre in Hamilton's memory (Burnett is a board member). It hosts a series of readings called Hothouse at the Playhouse, as well as the Directors Lab West and the Furious Theatre Company.

On February 19, 2007, architect Frank Gehry was announced to be redesigning the Carrie Hamilton Theatre.

On March 23, 2010, Carol Burnett joined the establishment of the Anaheim University Carrie Hamilton Entertainment Institute.

More information: Survivor Net

Our legacy is really the lives we touch,the inspiration we give,
altering someone's plan -if even for a moment-
and getting them to think, rage, cry, laugh, argue...
walk around the block, dazed...
More than anything, we are remembered for our smiles;
the ones we share with our closest and dearest,
and the ones we bestow on a total stranger,
who needed it RIGHT THEN, and God put you here to deliver.

Carrie Louise Hamilton

LEGO COMPANY PATENTS THE DESIGN OF ITS LEGO BRICKS

Lego

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to practise one of her favourite hobbies: building a Lego construction. Last Christmas, she received a lot of Lego set games and she has started to build them to celebrate that on a day like today in 1958, the Lego company patented the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced nowadays.

Lego is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts.

Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, and the pieces reused to make new things.

The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.

In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's world's most powerful brand.

More information: LEGO

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called Lego, derived from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means play well.

In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. In 1949 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them Automatic Binding Bricks. These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which had been patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and released in 1947.

Lego Figure & Block

Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased. The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate, were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time.

The Lego Group's motto is det bedste er ikke for godt which means the best is not too good. This motto, which is still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.

By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego company's output, even though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende, visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys. Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk.

By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not versatile.

In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; it took five years to find the right material for it, ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer.

The modern Lego brick design was patented on 28 January 1958.

More information: History

The Lego Group's Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of simple blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children.

In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets.

In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program.

In May 2013, the largest model ever created was displayed in New York City and was made of over 5 million bricks; a 1:1 scale model of an X-wing fighter. Other records include a 34 m tower and a 4 km railway.

Lego & The X Files (Fox Mulder & Dana Scully)

Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each piece remains compatible in some way with existing pieces.

Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 × 4 studs can be combined in 915,103,765 ways.

Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres.

Primary concept and development work takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs approximately 120 designers. The company also has smaller design offices in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Japan which are tasked with developing products aimed specifically at these markets.

The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close to holidays, while others interview children.

More information: Smithsonian

The second stage is the design and development of the product based upon the results of the first stage. As of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modelling software to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine. 

These prototypes are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parents and children during the validation process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from the focus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation, for marketing and packaging.

Lego & Star Wars

Lego Digital Designer is an official piece of Lego software for Mac OS X and Windows which allows users to create their own digital Lego designs. The program once allowed customers to order their custom designs with a service to ship physical models from Digital Designer to consumers; the service ended in 2012.

Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, resilient plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). As of September 2008, Lego engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis. Prototype moulds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production.

The ABS plastic is heated to 232 °C until it reaches a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the moulds at pressures between 25 and 150 tonnes, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are permitted a tolerance of up to twenty micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected. Human inspectors check the output of the moulds, to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness.

According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required. Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it. Lego has a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic it currently uses in its bricks.

More information: Mental Floss

Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at several locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund, Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; Monterrey, Mexico and most recently in Jiaxing, China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico and Kladno in the Czech Republic. 

The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks. Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could be considered the world's No. 1 tire manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tires a year. The claim was reiterated in 2012.

Lego Bricks

Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including space, robots, pirates, trains, Vikings, castle, dinosaurs, undersea exploration, and wild west.

Some of the classic themes that continue to the present day include Lego City, a line of sets depicting city life introduced in 1973 and Lego Technic, a line aimed at emulating complex machinery, introduced in 1977.

Over the years, Lego has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises and even some from video games. These include Batman, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Star Wars, The X Files and Minecraft.

Although some of the licensed themes, Lego Star Wars, Lego The X Files and Lego Indiana Jones, had highly successful sales, Lego has expressed a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes, and less upon licensed themes related to movie releases.

For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Lego released a special Team GB Minifigures series exclusively in the United Kingdom to mark the opening of the games. For the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Lego released a kit with the Olympic and Paralympic mascots Vinicius and Tom.

More information: ThoughtCo

One of the largest Lego sets commercially produced was a minifig-scaled edition of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, it was released in 2007 and contained 5,195 pieces. It was surpassed by a 5,922-piece Taj Mahal. A redesigned Millennium Falcon recently retook the top spot in 2017 with 7,541 pieces.

Lego branched out into the video game market in 1997 by founding Lego Media International Limited, and Lego Island was released that year by Mindscape. After this Lego released titles such as Lego Creator and Lego Racers.

After Lego closed down their publishing subsidiary, they moved on to a partnership with Traveller's Tales, and went on to make games like Lego Star Wars, Lego The X Files, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and many more including the very well-received Lego Marvel Super Heroes game, featuring New York City as the overworld and including Marvel characters from the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and more.

More recently, Lego has created a game based on The Lego Movie, due to its popularity.

More information: Penguin

I am an artist who works with Lego.

Nathan Sawaya