SOFIA VILLANI SCICOLONE, NEAPOLITAN CHARACTER

Sophia Loren

Today, The Grandma has been seeing her Neapolitan photos. The Grandma loves Napoli (Naples) and the Campania. She was living some years in this amazing city and she was in love with its people. Neapolitan are loyal, passionate and strong people who have survived terrific events during the 20th century -World Wars, emigration, earthquakes and the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Near Napoli, there is Pozzuoli. This city is well-known by suffering the effects of a terrible earthquake in but also by being the residence of one of the most popular Italian actresses, Sophia Loren, the diva who was born on a day like today in 1934.

Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of Dicaearchia, in Greek: Δικαιαρχία. The Roman colony was established in 194 BC, and took the name Puteoli which it has his roots from puteus, meaning well, also used by sibyls to predict the future, and osco fistulus (cave). An alternative etymology of Puteoli from the Latin puteo (to stink), referring to the sulfuric smell in the area, most notably from Solfatara. This is because Pozzuoli lies in the centre of the Campi Flegrei, a volcanic caldera.

Before talking about Sofia Loren, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (VIII) (Spanish Version)

Sofia Villani Scicolone (born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian film actress and singer. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age 16 in 1950. She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career. Notable film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples.

Her talents as an actress were not recognized until her performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women in 1960; Loren's performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962 and made her the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance.

Sophia Loren

She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964) for which she was nominated for a second Oscar; Sunflower (1970); The Voyage (1974); and A Special Day (1977).

After starting a family in the early 1970s, Loren chose to make only occasional film appearances. Most recently, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men (1995) and Nine (2009). Aside from the Academy Award, she has won a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the Honorary Academy Award in 1991.

In 1995, she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements, one of many such awards.

In 1999, Loren was named by the American Film Institute the 21st greatest female star of Classic Hollywood Cinema, and she is currently the only living actress on the list.

More information: AOL

Sofia Villani Scicolone was born on 20 September 1934 in the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, the daughter of Romilda Villani (1910–1991) and Riccardo Scicolone, a construction engineer of noble descent.

Loren's parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938. Loren has two younger paternal half-brothers, Giuliano and Giuseppe. Romilda, Sofia, and Maria lived with Loren's grandmother in Pozzuoli, near Naples.

During the Second World War, the harbour and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the Allies. During one raid, as Loren ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel and wounded in the chin. After that, the family moved to Naples, where they were taken in by distant relatives. After the war, Loren and her family returned to Pozzuoli. Loren's grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their living room, selling homemade cherry liquor. Romilda Villani played the piano, Maria sang, and Loren waited on tables and washed dishes. The place was popular with the American GIs stationed nearby.

Sophia Loren

At age 15, Loren as Sofia Lazzaro entered the Miss Italia 1950 beauty pageant and was assigned as Candidate #2, being one to the four sharing contestants representing the Lazio region.

At age 17, as Sofia Lazzaro, she enrolled in acting class and was selected as an uncredited extra in Mervyn LeRoy's 1951 film Quo Vadis (1951), filmed when she was 17 years old. That same year, she appeared in Italian film Era lui... sì! sì!, where she played an odalisque, and was credited as Sofia Lazzaro. She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, including the La Favorita (1952).

Carlo Ponti changed her name and public image to appeal to a wider audience as Sophia Loren, being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Märta Torén and suggested by Goffredo Lombardo. Her first starring role was in Aida (1953), for which she received critical acclaim. After playing the lead role in Two Nights with Cleopatra (1953), her breakthrough role was in The Gold of Naples (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica. Too Bad She's Bad, also released in 1954, and (La Bella Mugnaia) (1955) became the first of many films in which Loren co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni.

Over the next three years, she acted in many films, including Scandal in Sorrento, Lucky to Be a Woman, Boy on a Dolphin, Legend of the Lost and The Pride and the Passion.

More information: The Guardian

Loren became an international film star following her five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures in 1958. Among her films at this time were Desire Under the Elms with Anthony Perkins, based upon the Eugene O'Neill play; Houseboat, a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant; and George Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights, in which she appeared as a blonde for the first time.

In 1960, she starred in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a stark, gritty story of a mother who is trying to protect her 12-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy. Loren's performance earned her many awards, including the Cannes Film Festival's best performance prize, and an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first major Academy Award for a non-English-language performance or to an Italian actress.

During the 1960s, Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, and continued to make films in the United States and Europe, starring with prominent leading men. 

Sophia Loren

In 1964, her career reached its pinnacle when she received $1 million to appear in The Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1965, she received a second Academy Award nomination for her performance in Marriage Italian-Style.

Among Loren's best-known films of this period are Samuel Bronston's epic production of El Cid (1961) with Charlton Heston, The Millionairess (1960) with Peter Sellers, It Started in Naples (1960) with Clark Gable, Vittorio De Sica's triptych Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) with Marcello Mastroianni, Peter Ustinov's Lady L (1965) with Paul Newman, the 1966 classic Arabesque with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando.

Loren received four Golden Globe Awards between 1964 and 1977 as World Film Favorite-Female.

Loren worked less after becoming a mother. During the next decade, most of her roles were in Italian features. During the 1970s, she was paired with Richard Burton in the last De Sica-directed film, The Voyage (1974), and a remake of the film Brief Encounter (1974).

Other movies of this decade were Academy award nominee Sunflower (1970), which was a critical success, and Arthur Hiller's Man of La Mancha (1972), which was a critical and commercial failure despite being nominated for several awards, including two Golden Globes. O'Toole and James Coco were nominated for two NBR awards, in addition the NBR listed Man of La Mancha in its best ten pictures of 1972 list.

More information: The Telegraph

In 1982, while in Italy, she made headlines after serving an 18-day prison sentence on tax evasion charges -a fact that failed to hamper her popularity or career.

In 1991, Loren received the Academy Honorary Award for her contributions to world cinema and was declared one of the world cinema's treasures. In 1995, she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.

In Grumpier Old Men (1995), Loren played a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Ann-Margret. The film was a box-office success and became Loren's biggest US hit in years.

Loren is a Roman Catholic. Her primary residence has been in Geneva, Switzerland, since late 2006. She also owns homes in Naples and Rome.

Loren is an ardent fan of the football club S.S.C. Napoli. In May 2007, when the team was third in Serie B, she (then age 72) told the Gazzetta dello Sport that she would do a striptease if the team won.

More information: Toccoland Club

There's no pleasure in working

if you don't do the things you want to do.

Sophia Loren

GRETA GARBO, SWEDISH STYLE CONQUERS HOLLYWOOD

Greta Garbo

Today, The Grandma is at home reading about Greta Garbo and watching her films. The Grandma loves silent cinema and Greta Garbo was a great example of an actress who started playing her roles in silent cinema and changed to sound cinema with success. It was not the case of all the actresses of that age. Some of them had lots of problems because of public did not like their voices, unknown for it in the silent films.

Greta Garbo was born on a day like today in 1905 and The Grandma wants to homage this legend of the cinema and arts that left cinema too early to continue with her life far away Hollywood influence and lifestyle.

Before watching Greta Garbo's films, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (VI) (Spanish Version)

Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905-15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. Garbo was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and received an Academy Honorary Award in 1954 for her luminous and unforgettable screen performances. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

Garbo launched her career with a secondary role in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gösta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. She stirred interest with her first American silent film, Torrent (1926). Garbo’s performance in Flesh and the Devil (1927), her third motion picture, made her an international star.

Garbo's first talking film was Anna Christie (1930). MGM marketers enticed the public with the tagline Garbo talks! That same year, she starred in Romance. For her performances in these films, she received the first of three Academy Award nominations for best actress. Academy rules at the time allowed for a performer to receive a single nomination for his or her work in more than one film. In 1932, her success allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract, and she became increasingly selective about her roles.

Greta Garbo

She continued in films such as Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932), and Queen Christina (1933). Many critics and film historians consider her performance as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1936) to be her finest. The role gained her a second Academy Award nomination.

However, Garbo's career soon declined and she was one of the many stars labeled box office poison in 1938. Her career revived upon her turn to comedy in Ninotchka (1939) which earned her a third Academy Award nomination, but after the failure of Two-Faced Woman (1941), she retired from the screen, at the age of 35, after acting in 28 films.

After retiring, Garbo declined all opportunities to return to the screen. Shunning publicity, she led a private life. Garbo was an art collector and her collection, including works from Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, and Kees van Dongen, was worth millions of dollars when she died.

More information: Sotheby's

Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was born in Södermalm, Stockholm, Sweden. She was the third, and youngest, child of Anna Lovisa (née Johansson, 1872–1944), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920), a laborer. Garbo had an older brother, Sven Alfred (1898–1967), and an older sister, Alva Maria (1903–1926).

Garbo was a shy daydreamer as a child. She disliked school and preferred to play alone. Garbo was a natural leader who became interested in theatre at an early age. She directed her friends in make-believe games and performances, and dreamed of becoming an actress. Later, Garbo would participate in amateur theatre with her friends and frequent the Mosebacke Theatre. At the age of 13, Garbo graduated from school, and, typical of a Swedish working-class girl at that time, she did not attend high school. She later acknowledged a resulting inferiority complex.

The Spanish flu spread throughout Stockholm in the winter of 1919 and Garbo's father, to whom she was very close, became ill and lost his job. Garbo cared for him, taking him to the hospital for weekly treatments. He died in 1920 when she was 14 years old.

Greta Garbo

Garbo first worked as a soap-lather girl in a barber shop before taking a job in the PUB department store where she ran errands and worked in the millinery department. After modeling hats for the store's catalogues, Garbo earned a more lucrative job as a fashion model.

In 1920, a director of film commercials for the store cast Garbo in roles advertising women's clothing. Her first commercial premiered on 12 December 1920. In 1922, Garbo caught the attention of director Erik Arthur Petschler, who gave her a part in his short comedy, Peter the Tramp.

From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's Acting School in Stockholm. She was recruited in 1924 by the Finnish director Mauritz Stiller to play a principal part in his film The Saga of Gösta Berling, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, which also featured the actor Lars Hanson. Stiller became her mentor, training her as a film actress and managing all aspects of her nascent career.

In 1925, Garbo, who was unable to speak English, was brought over from Sweden at the request of Mayer. Both Garbo and Stiller arrived in New York in July 1925, after a 10-day trip on the SS Drottningholm. But they remained in New York for more than six months without any word from MGM.

More information: The Guardian

The impact of Garbo's acting and screen presence quickly established her reputation as one of Hollywood's greatest actresses. Film historian and critic David Denby argues that Garbo introduced a subtlety of expression to the art of silent acting, and that its effect on audiences cannot be exaggerated.

Despite her status as a star of silent films, the studio feared that her Swedish accent might impair her work in sound, and delayed the shift for as long as possible. MGM itself was the last Hollywood studio to convert to sound, and Garbo's last silent film, The Kiss (1929), was also the studio's. Despite the fears, Garbo became one of the biggest box-office draws of the next decade.

Greta Garbo

In late 1929, MGM cast Garbo in Anna Christie (1930), a film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill, her first speaking role.

She was offered many roles both in the 1940s and throughout her retirement years, but rejected all but a few of them. In the few instances when she did accept them, the slightest problem led her to drop out.

In retirement, Garbo generally led a private life of simplicity and leisure. She made no public appearances and assiduously avoided the publicity which she loathed. As she had been during her Hollywood years, Garbo, with her innate need for solitude, was often reclusive.

Contrary to myth, from the beginning she had many friends and acquaintances with whom she socialized and later traveled. Occasionally, she jet-setted with well-known and wealthy personalities, striving to guard her privacy as she had during her career.

On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment at 450 East 52nd Street in Manhattan, New York City, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Greta Garbo died on 15 April 1990, aged 84, in the hospital.

Garbo was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In November 1983, she was made a Commander of the Swedish Order of the Polar Star by order of King Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden. For her contributions to cinema, in 1960, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard.

More information: Slate

Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them,

means being looked at from every possible direction.

You are never left at peace, you're just fair game.

If only those who dream about Hollywood

knew how difficult it all is.

Greta Garbo

BATMAN DAY, A TRIBUTE TO THE BEST SUPERHERO EVER

Batman & The Grandma contemplate the signal

Today is a special day for The Grandma because today is Batman Day, an annual observance begun by DC Comics on September 17, 2013. The Grandma is a gran fan of DC Comics and she loves Batman crazily.

To celebrate Batman Day, some cities around the world are going to project the Batman signal. Barcelona is one of them and The Grandma is very excited because she has received an invitation of her friend Bruce Wayne to contemplate this signal in her city. Together, they are going to talk about Batman, his psychology, his enemies, his adventures and his motivations.

Before accepting Bruce's invitation, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (V) (Spanish Version)

Batman is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Originally named the Bat-Man, the character is also referred to by such epithets as the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, and the World's Greatest Detective.

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and owner of Wayne Enterprises. His origin depicts Bruce Wayne as a child, after witnessing the murder of his parents Dr. Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne, he swore vengeance against criminals, an oath tempered by a sense of justice. Bruce Wayne trains himself physically and intellectually and crafts a bat-inspired persona to fight crime.

Batman operates in the fictional Gotham City with assistance from various supporting characters, including his butler Alfred, police commissioner Jim Gordon, and vigilante allies such as Robin. Unlike most superheroes, Batman does not possess any inhuman superpowers. He does, however, possess a genius-level intellect, is a peerless martial artist, and his vast wealth affords him an extraordinary arsenal of weaponry and equipment. A large assortment of villains make up Batman's rogues gallery, including his archenemy, the Joker.

Batman Logo

The character became popular soon after his introduction in 1939 and gained his own comic book title, Batman, the following year. As the decades went on, different interpretations of the character emerged.

The late 1960s Batman television series used a camp aesthetic, which continued to be associated with the character for years after the show ended. Various creators worked to return the character to his dark roots, culminating in 1986 with The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. The success of Warner Bros. Pictures' live-action Batman feature films have helped maintain the character's prominence in mainstream culture.

Batman has been licensed and featured in various adaptations, from radio to television and film, and appears in merchandise sold around the world, such as apparel, toys, and video games. Kevin Conroy, Rino Romano, Anthony Ruivivar, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, Jason O'Mara, and Will Arnett, among others, have provided the character's voice for animated adaptations.

Batman has been depicted in both film and television by Lewis Wilson, Robert Lowery, Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Bruce Thomas, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, David Mazouz, Iain Glen, and Robert Pattinson.

More information: DC Comics

In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at National Comics Publications, the future DC Comics, to request more superheroes for its titles. In response, Bob Kane created the Bat-Man. 

Collaborator Bill Finger recalled that Kane had an idea for a character called 'Batman,' and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of... reddish tights, I believe, with boots... no gloves, no gauntlets... with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign... BATMAN. 

The bat-wing-like cape was suggested by Bob Kane, inspired as a child by Leonardo Da Vinci's sketch of an ornithopter flying device.

Batman Day

Finger suggested giving the character a cowl instead of a simple domino mask, a cape instead of wings, and gloves; he also recommended removing the red sections from the original costume.

Finger said he devised the name Bruce Wayne for the character's secret identity: Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock... then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne." He later said his suggestions were influenced by Lee Falk's popular The Phantom, a syndicated newspaper comic-strip character with which Kane was also familiar.

Kane and Finger drew upon contemporary 1930s popular culture for inspiration regarding much of the Bat-Man's look, personality, methods, and weaponry. Details find predecessors in pulp fiction, comic strips, newspaper headlines, and autobiographical details referring to Kane himself.

More information: CBR

As an aristocratic hero with a double identity, Batman had predecessors in the Scarlet Pimpernel -created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 1903- and Zorro -created by Johnston McCulley, 1919. Like them, Batman performed his heroic deeds in secret, averted suspicion by playing aloof in public, and marked his work with a signature symbol.

Kane noted the influence of the films The Mark of Zorro (1920) and The Bat Whispers (1930) in the creation of the character's iconography. Finger, drawing inspiration from pulp heroes like Doc Savage, The Shadow, Dick Tracy, and Sherlock Holmes, made the character a master sleuth.

The first Batman story, The Case of the Chemical Syndicate, was published in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Finger said, Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps, and this influence was evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals. Batman proved a hit character, and he received his own solo title in 1940 while continuing to star in Detective Comics.

The Dark Knight in Barcelona

Batman was one of the few superhero characters to be continuously published as interest in the genre waned during the 1950s. In the story The Mightiest Team in the World in Superman #76 (June 1952), Batman teams up with Superman for the first time and the pair discover each other's secret identity.

Following the success of this story, World's Finest Comics was revamped so it featured stories starring both heroes together, instead of the separate Batman and Superman features that had been running before. The team-up of the characters was a financial success in an era when those were few and far between; this series of stories ran until the book's cancellation in 1986.

Frank Miller's limited series The Dark Knight Returns (February–June 1986) returned the character to his darker roots, both in atmosphere and tone. The comic book, which tells the story of a 55-year-old Batman coming out of retirement in a possible future, reinvigorated interest in the character. 

The Dark Knight Returns was a financial success and has since become one of the medium's most noted touchstones. The series also sparked a major resurgence in the character's popularity.

More information: Super Hero Stuff

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American industrialist. As a child, Bruce witnessed the murder of his parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne, which ultimately led him to craft the Batman persona and seek justice against criminals.

He resides on the outskirts of Gotham City in his personal residence, Wayne Manor. Wayne averts suspicion by acting the part of a superficial playboy idly living off his family's fortune and the profits of Wayne Enterprises, his inherited conglomerate.

He supports philanthropic causes through his nonprofit Wayne Foundation, but is more widely known as a celebrity socialite. In public, he frequently appears in the company of high-status women, which encourages tabloid gossip. Although Bruce Wayne leads an active romantic life, his vigilante activities as Batman account for most of his time.

Batman

Batman's primary character traits can be summarized as wealth; physical prowess; deductive abilities and obsession. The details and tone of Batman comic books have varied over the years due to different creative teams.

Batman faces a variety of foes ranging from common criminals to outlandish supervillains. Many of them mirror aspects of the Batman's character and development, often having tragic origin stories that lead them to a life of crime. These foes are commonly referred to as Batman's rogues gallery.

Batman's most implacable foe is the Joker, a homicidal maniac with a clown-like appearance. The Joker is considered by critics to be his perfect adversary, since he is the antithesis of Batman in personality and appearance; the Joker has a maniacal demeanor with a colorful appearance, while Batman has a serious and resolute demeanor with a dark appearance.

More information: Ultimate Batman Comics

Other long time recurring foes that are part of Batman's rogues gallery include Catwoman (a cat burglar antiheroine who is an occasional ally and romantic interest), the Penguin, Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bane, Clayface, and Killer Croc among others. Many of Batman's adversaries are often psychiatric patients at Arkham Asylum.

Batman has no inherent superhuman powers; he relies on his own scientific knowledge, detective skills, and athletic prowess. Batman's inexhaustible wealth gives him access to advanced technologies, and as a proficient scientist, he is able to use and modify these technologies to his advantage.

In the stories, Batman is regarded as one of the world's greatest detectives, if not the world's greatest crime solver. Batman has been repeatedly described as having a genius-level intellect, being one of the greatest martial artists in the DC Universe, and having peak human physical conditioning.

Download Batman Vol. 1 (1-350) & Vol. 1 (351-713)

In the late '60s, there were the the three B's:

The Beatles, Batman, and Bond.

Adam West

LAUREN BACALL, DISTINCTIVE VOICE AND SULTRY LOOKS

Lauren Bacall

Today, The Grandma has stayed at home watching some classic films. She has enjoyed a lot especially with Murder on the Orient Express, the film based on the book of Agatha Christie that includes incredible performances in its 1974 version.

One of the actresses of this masterpiece is Lauren Bacall. The Grandma loves her films and she has wanted to watch some of them to homage this wonderful actress who was born on a day like today in 1924.

Lauren Bacall is a legend of arts and cinema, a great actress with an interesting career and amazing live.

Before watching Lauren Bacall's films, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (IV) (Spanish Version)

Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924-August 12, 2014) was an American actress known for her distinctive voice and sultry looks. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009 in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures.

Bacall began her career as a model before making her film debut as a leading lady in To Have and Have Not (1944). She continued in the film noir genre with appearances with Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), and she starred in the romantic comedies How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. She co-starred with John Wayne in his final film The Shootist (1976) by Wayne's personal request. She also worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in The Bronx, New York City, the only child of Natalie (née Weinstein; 1901–1977), a secretary who later legally changed her surname to Bacal, and William Perske (1889–1982), who worked in sales. Both her parents were Jewish. According to Bacall, her mother emigrated from Iași, the Kingdom of Romania, through Ellis Island, and her father was born in New Jersey to parents who were born in Valozhyn, a significant center of Jewish life, in present-day Belarus, then in the Russian Empire.

In 1941, Bacall took lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where she was classmates with Kirk Douglas, while working as a theatre usher at the St. James Theatre and fashion model.

She made her acting debut on Broadway in 1942, at age 17, as a walk-on in Johnny 2 X 4. By then, she lived with her mother at 75 Bank Street, and in 1942, she was crowned Miss Greenwich Village.

As a teenage fashion model, she appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, as well as in magazines such as Vogue. She was noted for her cat-like grace, tawny blonde hair, and blue-green eyes.

The Harper's Bazaar cover caught the attention of Hollywood producer and director Howard Hawks' wife Slim, who urged Hawks to have Bacall take a screen test for To Have and Have Not.

After meeting Bacall in Hollywood, Hawks immediately signed her to a seven-year contract, with a weekly salary of $100, and personally began to manage her career. He changed her first name to Lauren, and she chose Bacall (a variant of her mother's maiden name) as her screen surname.

More information: Biography

After To Have and Have Not, Bacall was seen opposite Charles Boyer in Confidential Agent (1945), which was poorly received by critics. By her own estimation, it could have caused considerable damage to her career, but her next performance as the mysterious, acid-tongued Vivian Rutledge in Hawks's film noir The Big Sleep (1946), co-starring Bogart, provided a quick career resurgence.

Bacall was cast with Bogart in two more films. In Dark Passage (1947), another film noir, she played an enigmatic San Francisco artist.  And, in 1948, she was in John Huston's melodramatic suspense film Key Largo with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lionel Barrymore.

Lauren Bacall

Bacall turned down scripts she did not find interesting, and thereby earned a reputation for being difficult. Despite this, she further solidified her star status in the 1950s by appearing as the leading lady in a string of films that won favorable reviews.

Bacall was cast opposite Gary Cooper in Bright Leaf (1950). In the same year, she played a two-faced femme fatale in Young Man with a Horn (1950), a jazz musical co-starring Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, and Hoagy Carmichael.

From 1951 to 1952, Bacall co-starred with Bogart in the syndicated action-adventure radio series Bold Venture.

In 1953, she starred in the CinemaScope comedy How to Marry a Millionaire, a runaway hit among critics and at the box office. Directed by Jean Negulesco and co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, Bacall got positive notices for her turn as the witty gold-digger, Schatze Page.

In 1955, a television version of Bogart's breakthrough film, The Petrified Forest, was performed as a live installment of Producers' Showcase, a weekly dramatic anthology, featuring Bogart as Duke Mantee, Henry Fonda as Alan, and Bacall as Gabrielle, the part originally played in the 1936 movie by Bette Davis. Bacall starred in two feature films, The Cobweb and Blood Alley.

More information: ET Online

Many film scholars consider Written on the Wind, directed by Douglas Sirk in 1956, to be a landmark work in the melodrama genre. Appearing with Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack, Bacall played a career woman whose life is unexpectedly turned around by a family of oil magnates. Bacall wrote in her autobiography that she did not think much of the role, but reviews were favorable.

While struggling at home with Bogart's battle with esophageal cancer, Bacall starred with Gregory Peck in Designing Woman to solid reviews.

Bacall was seen in only a handful of films in the 1960s. She starred on Broadway in Goodbye, Charlie in 1959, and went on to have a successful on-stage career in Cactus Flower (1965), Applause (1970), and Woman of the Year (1981). The few films Bacall made during this period were all-star vehicles such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964) with Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood; Harper (1966) with Paul Newman, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris, Robert Wagner, and Janet Leigh; and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), with Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Balsam, and Sean Connery.

Lauren Bacall in Murder on the Orient Express

In 1981, Bacall appeared in star vehicle The Fan. The film received mixed reviews, but her performance got a favorable reception.

Bacall was featured in Robert Altman's Health (1980) and Michael Winner's Appointment with Death (1988). In 1990, she had a small role in Misery which starred Kathy Bates and James Caan.

In 1997, she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), her first nomination after a career span of more than 50 years. She had already won a Golden Globe and was widely expected to win the Oscar, but she lost to Juliette Binoche for The English Patient.

Bacall received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, and she was voted one of the 25 most significant female movie stars in history in 1999 by the American Film Institute.

More information: Independent

In July 2013, Bacall expressed interest in the film Trouble Is My Business. In November, she joined the English dub voice cast for StudioCanal's animated film Ernest & Celestine. Her final role was in 2014, a guest vocal appearance in the Family Guy episode Mom's the Word.

On May 21, 1945, Bacall married Humphrey Bogart. Their wedding and honeymoon took place at Malabar Farm, Lucas, Ohio, the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, a close friend of Bogart. Their marriage ended with Bogart's death in 1957.

Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall

During the filming of The African Queen (1951), Bacall and Bogart became friends with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. She began to mix in non-acting circles, becoming friends with the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and the journalist Alistair Cooke.

In 1952, she gave campaign speeches for Democratic presidential contender Adlai Stevenson. Along with other Hollywood figures, Bacall was a staunch opponent of McCarthyism.

Bacall then met and began a relationship with Jason Robards. Their marriage was originally scheduled to take place in Vienna, Austria, on June 16, 1961; however, the plans were shelved after Austrian authorities refused to grant the pair a marriage license. They were refused a marriage also in Las Vegas, Nevada. On July 4, 1961, the couple drove to Ensenada, Mexico, where they wed. The couple divorced in 1969. According to Bacall's autobiography, she divorced Robards mainly because of his alcoholism.

Bacall was a staunch liberal Democrat, and proclaimed her political views on numerous occasions. Bacall and Bogart were among about 80 Hollywood personalities to send a telegram protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations of Americans suspected of Communism. The telegram said that investigating individuals' political beliefs violated the basic principles of American democracy.

In October 1947, Bacall and Bogart traveled to Washington, D.C., along with a number of other Hollywood stars in a group that called itself the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA), which also included Danny Kaye, John Garfield, Gene Kelly, John Huston, Ira Gershwin and Jane Wyatt.

Bacall died on August 12, 2014, one month before her 90th birthday, at her longtime apartment in The Dakota, the Upper West Side building near Central Park in Manhattan.

More information: The Guardian I, II & III

That was my original dream, anyway, to be on stage.

I think the stage is an actor's place because actors,

it belongs to you.

Lauren Bacall

ZOND 5, WHEN RUSSIAN TORTOISES FLEW TO THE MOON

Joseph de Ca'th Lon & The Grandma in Albanyà

Today, The Grandma has received the visit of a closer friend, Joseph de Ca'th Lon. They have travelled together to L'Alt Empordà, Girona to visit Albanyà Astronomical Observatory.

Joseph loves Astronomy and The Grandma loves tortoises and because of this this visit has been very interesting for them. They have been talking about the Zond 5, the Soviet spacecraft that was is launched on a day like today in 1968, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. This spacecraft had a special crew, two Russian tortoises.

During the trip from Barcelona to Albanyà, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

19. Sharing Documents (III) (Spanish Version)

Zond 5, in Russian Зонд 5, was one of the spacecraft of the Soviet Zond program. It became, in September 1968, the second spaceship to travel to and circle the Moon, and was the first to return safely to Earth after doing so. It carried the first terrestrial organisms to the vicinity of the Moon, including two tortoises, fruit fly eggs, and plants. The tortoises underwent biological changes during the flight, but it was concluded that the changes were primarily due to starvation and that they were little affected by space travel.

The Zond spacecraft was a version of the Soyuz 7K-L1 crewed lunar-flyby spacecraft. It was launched by a Proton-K carrier rocket with a Block D upper-stage to conduct scientific studies during its lunar flyby.

More information: Russian Space Web

Out of the first four circumlunar missions launched by the Soviet Union there was one partial success, Zond 4, and three failures. After Zond 4's mission in March 1968, a follow-up, Zond 1968A, was launched on 23 April. The launch failed when an erroneous abort command shut down the Proton rocket's second stage. The escape rocket fired and pulled the descent module to safety.

In July, Zond 1968B was being prepared for launch when the Block D second-stage rocket exploded on the launchpad, killing three people, but leaving the Proton first-stage booster rocket and the spacecraft itself with only minor damage.

Soviet Union launched Zond 5

The Zond 5 mission was originally planned to fly cosmonauts around the Moon, but the failures of Zond 1968A and Zond 1968B led the Soviets to send an uncrewed mission instead, from fear of the negative propaganda of an unsuccessful crewed flight.

Two Russian tortoises or Agrionemys horsfieldii were included in the biological payload, weighing 0.34–0.4 kilograms each pre-flight. Soviet scientists chose tortoises since they were easy to tightly secure. There were also two tortoises used as control specimens and four more in a vivarium. Twelve days before launch, the two space-bound tortoises were secured in the vehicle and deprived of food and water; the control tortoises were similarly deprived. The food deprivation was a part of pathomorphological and histochemical experiments.

The biological payload also included fruit fly eggs, cells of wheat, barley, pea, pine, carrots and tomatoes, specimens of the wildflower species Tradescantia paludosa, three strains of the single-celled green algae Chlorella, and one strain of lysogenic bacteria. The purpose of sending a variety of terrestrial lifeforms was to test the effect of cosmic radiation on them. The Russian Academy of Sciences stated that a mannequin equipped with radiation sensors occupied the pilot's seat.

More information: NASA

Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant had developed the AFA-BA/40 imager, which was installed on the spacecraft, giving it the ability to image the Earth. Zond 5 also contained proton detectors. Zond 5 could transmit some of its data back to ground stations, although data stored onboard and collected after return to Earth has less noise. 

Zond 5 launched on 14 September 1968 at 9:42.10 UTC, from Site 81 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The thrust of the third-stage rocket was terminated at 160 kilometres, which was the start of a 251-second coast. Block D, the upper-stage rocket, ignited and burned for 108 seconds, placing the spacecraft into a parking orbit of 191 by 219 kilometres. Fifty-six minutes into the parking orbit the Block D fired a final time for the trans-lunar injection. After this maneuver, the launch was announced to the world.

Mission Control discovered issues with Zond 5's attitude and traced the issue to a contaminated star tracker. Heat caused some of the interior coating to outgas, which delayed an attitude correction on the way to the Moon. The maneuver was performed 325,000 kilometres from Earth using the Sun and the Earth as reference points.

More information: Space Centre

On 18 September, the spacecraft flew around the Moon, although it did not orbit it. The closest distance was 1,950 kilometres. On the way back from the Moon, another star tracker failed. The spacecraft also erroneously switched off the guided reentry system. The Soviet government had deployed eight ships to the Indian Ocean prior to the launch, as a precaution in case the spacecraft could not reach Soviet territory; only three of them had rescue helicopters on board.

On 21 September, the reentry capsule entered the Earth's atmosphere. The primary landing zone was in Kazakhstan, but instead Zond 5 splashed down in the Indian Ocean and was recovered by the Soviet vessels Borovichy and Vasiliy Golovin.  

The crew of Zond 5, No. 37 & No. 22

It landed at −32°38' latitude and 65°33' longitude, 105 kilometres from the nearest Soviet naval ship. The landing occurred at night, which impaired recovery efforts.

Zond 5 became the first spacecraft to circle the Moon and return to Earth. The entire journey took 6 days, 18 hours and 24 minutes. Although the ballistic reentry would probably have been lethal for human occupants, it did not appear to affect the biological specimens, which were alive when the descent module was opened four days after landing. USS McMorris shadowed the Soviet recovery ships, collecting intelligence, but left shortly after the spacecraft was brought on board the Soviet ship.

High-quality photographs of the Earth, the first photos of their kind, were taken at a distance of 90,000 kilometres. British astronomer Bernard Lovell, considered Britain's top space expert, said that the Zond 5 mission showed that the Soviets were ahead in the Space Race. The British Interplanetary Society believed that the USSR would be able to send cosmonauts around the Moon within a matter of months.

More information: Discover Magazine

In October 1968, sources in the U.S. claimed the mission was not as successful as the Soviets advertised. The mission had been intended to fly closer to the Moon, and its actual distance did not allow for useful lunar photography. They also said that the angle at which the spacecraft reentered the atmosphere was too steep for a cosmonaut to have survived. The sources indicated that the spacecraft landed in the Indian Ocean when the planned location was in Soviet territory, which was a factor in the recovery taking ten hours.

The official Soviet news agency, TASS, announced in November 1968 that the flight had carried living animals. The tortoises were dissected on 11 October after fasting for 39 days. The flying tortoises, identified as No. 22 and No. 37, had lost 10% of their body weight during the trip, but showed no loss of appetite. The control tortoises lost 5% of their weight.

Comparison of analyses of blood from the space-travelling tortoises and the control specimens revealed no differences. Another analysis showed the flying tortoises had elevated iron and glycogen levels in their liver and that the flight also affected the internal structures of their spleens. The authors concluded that the changes in the flight tortoises were primarily due to starvation, with the space travel having little effect. In November 1968, it was announced that the spacecraft was planned as a precursor to a crewed lunar spacecraft. The Soviets made this announcement a month before the planned Apollo 8 flight, in an attempt to show they were close to being able to carry out a crewed trip to the Moon.

The Zond 5 return capsule is on display at the RKK Energiya museum, located in Moscow Oblast, Russia.

More information: The Vintage News

May this house stand until an ant drinks

the ocean and a tortoise circles the world.

Jonathan Carroll