Today, The Grandma is at home preparing new material for future courses. She has been thinking about the Intellectual Property, and she has decided to read about the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property,that was signed on a day like today in 1883.
The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, France, on 20 March 1883, was one of the first intellectual property treaties.
It established a Union for the protection of industrial property.
The Convention is currently still in force. The substantive provisions of the Convention fall into three main categories: national treatment, priority right and common rules.
According to Articles 2 and 3 of this treaty, juristic and natural persons who are either national of or domiciled in a state party to the Convention shall, as regards the protection of industrial property, enjoy in all the other countries of the Union, the advantages that their respective laws grant to nationals.
In other words, when an applicant files an application for a patent or a trademark in a foreign country member of the Union, the application receives the same treatment as if it came from a national of this foreign country. Furthermore, if the intellectual property right is granted, the owner benefits from the same protections and the same legal remedy against any infringement as if the owner was a national owner of this right.
The Convention priority right, also called Paris Convention priority right or Union priority right, was also established by Article 4 of the Paris Convention,and is regarded as one of the cornerstones of the Paris Convention.
It provides that an applicant from one contracting State shall be able to use its first filing date (in one of the contracting States) as the effective filing date in another contracting State, provided that the applicant, or his successor in title, files a subsequent application within 6 months (for industrial designs and trademarks) or 12 months (for patents and utility models) from the first filing.
After a diplomatic conference in Paris in 1880, the Convention was signed on 20 March 1883 by 11 countries: Belgium, Brazil, France, Guatemala, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, El Salvador, Serbia, Spain and Switzerland. Guatemala, El Salvador and Serbia denounced and reapplied the convention via accession.
The Treaty was revised at Brussels, Belgium, on 14 December 1900, at Washington, United States, on 2 June 1911, at The Hague, Netherlands, on 6 November 1925, at London, on 2 June 1934, at Lisbon, Portugal, on 31 October 1958, and at Stockholm, Sweden, on 14 July 1967. It was amended on 28 September 1979.
As of January 2019, the Convention has 177 contracting member countries,which makes it one of the most widely adopted treaties worldwide.
The Paris Convention is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The most important thing about intellectual property vs. creative expression is that copyright law was created not to stifle creativity but to encourage creativity.
Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of Tina Picotes, one of her closest friends. They love cinema, and they have been talking about GlennClose,the American actress and producer considered one of the great actresses of our time, who was born on a day like today in 1947.
Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and producer. Long considered one of the great actresses of our time, according to Vanity Fair, she is the recipient of numerous awards, including three Primetime Emmy Awards, three Tony Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.
She has also been nominated eight times for an Academy Award, holding the record for the most acting nominations without a win, tied with Peter O'Toole. With her eighth nomination in 2021, she became one of the five most nominated actresses in academy history.
In 2016, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Born to affluent and progressive parents, Close majored in theatre and anthropology at the College of William & Mary.
She began her professional career on stage in 1974 with Love for Love and was mostly a New York stage actress until the early 1980s. Her work included Broadway productions of Barnum in 1980 and The Real Thing in 1983, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Her film debut came in TheWorld According to Garp (1982), which was followed by supporting roles in the films The Big Chill (1983) and The Natural (1984); all three earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Close went on to establish herself as a Hollywood leading lady with roles in Fatal Attraction (1987) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988), both of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Close won two more Tony Awards for Death and the Maiden in 1992 and Sunset Boulevard in 1995. She won her first Primetime Emmy Award for the 1995 television drama film Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,and she continued a successful film career with starring roles in Reversal of Fortune (1990), 101 Dalmatians (1996), and Air Force One (1997), among others.
Further television work came for Close in the 2000s, with her portrayal of Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 2003 television film The Lion in Winter earning her a Golden Globe Award.
From 2007 to 2012, Close starred as
Patty Hewes in the drama series Damages, which won her a Golden Globe
Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards. She returned to the Broadway stage
in a 2014 revival of A Delicate Balance. During this period, she received two
additional Best Actress Academy Award nominations for Albert Nobbs
(2011) and The Wife (2017), winning a third Golden Globe for the latter.
In 2020, she starred in Hillbilly Elegy and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Close has been married three times, and she has a daughter from her relationship with producer John Starke. She is the president of Trillium Productions and has co-founded the website FetchDog. She has made political donations in support of Democratic politicians, and is vocal on issues such as gay marriage, women's rights, and mental health.
Glenn Close was born on March 19, 1947, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to socialite Elizabeth Mary Hester Bettine (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close, a doctor who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as a personal physician to its dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
Close started her professional stage career in 1974 at age 27.
In 1980, director George Roy Hill discovered Close on Broadway and asked her to audition with Robin Williams for a role in The World According to Garp, which would become her first film role.
The 1980s proved to be Close's most
successful decade in Hollywood. She made her debut film performance in
The World According to Garp which earned Close her first Oscar
nomination. She played Robin Williams's mother, despite being just four
years older. The following year she played Sarah Cooper in The Big
Chill, a character that director Lawrence Kasdan said he specifically
wrote for her.
In 1984 Close was given a part in Robert Redford's baseball drama The Natural, and although it was a small supporting role she earned a third consecutive Oscar nomination.
In 1987, Close played the disturbed book editor Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction.
In 1990, Close went on to play the role of Sunny von Bülow opposite Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune to critical acclaim.
Close
played Gertrude in Franco Zeffirelli's film adaption of Hamlet. It was
the first Shakespeare role that Close had ever attempted on screen, she
appeared in 1975 in a stage production of King Lear in Milwaukee.
Close
would later go on to join the cast of The House of the Spirits,
reuniting her with Jeremy Irons. She also had a cameo appearance in
Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) as a pirate.
In 1992, Close starred in Meeting Venus for which she received critical acclaim and won Best Actress (Golden Ciak) at the Venice Film Festival. In the same year, Close became a trustee emeritus of The Sundance Institute.
Close appeared in the newsroom comedy-drama The Paper (1994), directed by her good friend Ron Howard and in 1996 she acted alongside the cast of Tim Burton's alien invasion satire Mars Attacks! (1996). In the same year she portrayed the sinister Cruella de Vil in the Disney hit 101 Dalmatians.
Close began to appear in television films rather than doing theatrical films in the early 2000s. She returned as Cruella de Vil in 102 Dalmatians (2000).
In 2004, she played Claire Wellington, an uptight socialite in the comedy The Stepford Wives opposite Nicole Kidman and Christopher Walken. She provided the voice of the Blue Fairy in the English version of Pinocchio (2002) and Granny in the animated film Hoodwinked (2005). Close continued to do smaller films like Le Divorce (2003) and The Chumscrubber (2005).
In 2005, she reunited with director Rodrigo Garcia to do Nine Lives; he would later direct Close in the film Albert Nobbs (2011). In the same year, she starred in the film Heights (2005), an independent drama centred on the lives of five New Yorkers. Close's performance was lauded by critics.
In 2007, she acted alongside her friend and previous co-star Meryl Streep in the ensemble drama Evening.
In 2017, Close appeared alongside Noomi Rapace and Willem Dafoe in What Happened to Monday, a science fiction thriller produced by Netflix. Also that year, she was reunited with actors John Malkovich and Patrick Stewart in the romantic comedy The Wilde Wedding, and co-starred in Crooked House, a film adaptation of the novel by Agatha Christie.
Close garnered widespread critical acclaim for her performance in the 2018 released drama The Wife which had first premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2020, Close starred in Netflix's film adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy, alongside Amy Adams. Also in 2020, Close co-starred with Mila Kunis in the drama Four Good Days, directed by Rodrigo García and presented at the Sundance Film Festival. It was announced that she would appear opposite Mahershala Ali in the Apple TV+ drama film Swan Song.
Today, The Grandma has received the visit of JordiSantanyí, one of her closest friends. They love Literature, and they have been talking about CharlotteElliott, the English poet, mainly famous by her hymns, who was born on a day like today in 1789.
Charlotte Elliott (18 March 1789-22 September 1871) was an English poet, hymnwriter, andeditor. She is best known by two hymns, Just As I Am and Thy will be done.
Elliott edited Christian Remembrancer Pocket Book (1834–59) and The Invalid's Hymn book, 6th edition, 1854. To this latter collection, she contributed 112hymns including Just As I Am, without one plea, a hymn dated 1836, which was translated into almost every living language of the day.
In spite of being raised in a Christian home, she reflected on her conflicts and doubts and was unsure of her relationship with Christ. So she penned her words of assurance about Jesus loving her just as she was. William B. Bradbury composed music for her lyrics and published the song in 1849. The hymn was translated into many languages, with tens of thousands of people committing their lives to Christ during the playing of it.
She also wrote My God and Father while I stray, 1834, in the same collection. Elliott was the author of Hymns for a week, 1837, 40th thousand, 1871; Hours of Sorrow, 1836 and many later editions, Poems by C. E., 1863. An invalid for many years, her life was filled with deeds of beneficence. She shrank from everything ostentatious, nearly all her books having been issued anonymously.
Elliott was born on 18 March 1789 at Westfield Lodge, Brighton. Her maternal grandfather, Rev. Henry Venn of the Clapham Sect, of Huddersfield and Yelling, England, was a divine. He wrote The Complete Duty of Man (1763), and was one of that band of ministers, whose labours and writings brought about and promoted The Great Awakening of the 18th century, among the churches of Great Britain.
Elliott's childhood was passed in a circle of great refinement and piety. She was continuously told by different pastors at the many churches that she visited to pray more, study the Bible more and to perform more noble deeds.
Elliott spent the first 32 years of her life in Clapham. As a young woman, she was gifted as a portrait artist and a writer of humorous verse.
Elliott's health was improved by a visit to Normandy. But in 1829 she once more became an almost helpless sufferer, with only occasional intervals of relief.
In 1833, her father died. She undertook in 1834 the editorial supervision of The Christian Remembrancer Pocket Book, an Annual, and in 1836 of the Invalid's Hymn Book -works previously conducted by a friend, Miss Harriet Kiernan, who was then in the last stages of consumption. The annual she edited for 25 years and many of her poems appeared in it. To the edition of the Invalid's Hymn Book that she enlarged and edited anonymously in 1836 she contributed 115 hymns, among them the noted Just as I am, without one plea.
She contributed several hymns also in 1835 to a selection of Psalms and Hymns by her brother, Rev. Henry V. Elliott. She also published, in 1836, Hours of SorrowCheered and Comforted. Her Morning and Evening Hymns for a Week, was printed privately in 1837, and published in 1842.
Elliott was a member of the Church of England. In later years, when she was not able to attend public worship, she wrote, My Bible is my church. It is always open, and there is my High Priest ever waiting to receive me. There I have my confessional, my thanksgiving, my psalm of praise, and a congregation of whom the world is not worthy -prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and confessors; in short, all I can want I find there.
A volume of Poems appeared in 1863, and her brother Henry died in that year. Once only, in 1867, did she venture again from home, spending a few weeks in a neighbouring village. In 1869, she fell seriously ill but managed to recover.
She died at 10 Norfolk Terrace, Brighton, on 22 September 1871, and was buried alongside her brothers in the churchyard of St Andrew's, Hove.
Is life's evening long and dreary? Gone the treasures once possessed? Is thy spirit faint and weary? Does thou long to be at rest? On this sweet promise fix thy sight: 'At evening time it shall be light.'
Today, The Grandma has been reading about one of the most important events of the last century, the referendum on ending Apartheid in South Africa thatwas celebrated on a day like today in 1992.
A referendum on ending apartheid was held in South Africa on 17 March 1992.
The referendum was limited to white South African voters, who were asked whether they supported the negotiated reforms begun by State President F. W. de Klerk two years earlier, in which he proposed to end the apartheid system that had been implemented since 1948.
The result of the election was a large victory for the "yes" side, which ultimately resulted in apartheid being lifted. Universal suffrage was introduced two years later.
On 2 February 1990, in his opening address to parliament, State President F. W. de Klerk announced that the ban on certain political parties such as the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party would be lifted and that Nelson Mandela would be released after 27 years in prison.
De Klerk announced that capital punishment would be suspended and that the state of emergency would be lifted. The State President said in his speech to parliament that the time to negotiate has arrived.
Nelson Mandela was released on 11 February 1990 from Victor Verster Prison in Paarl near Cape Town.
On 21 March 1990, South West Africa became independent under the name of Namibia. In May the government began talks with the ANC. In June the state of emergency was lifted and the ANC had agreed to a ceasefire.
In 1991, the Acts which restricted land ownership, specified separate living areas and classified people by race were abolished.
Prior to the referendum, the governing National Party had lost three by-elections since announcing negotiations to end apartheid two years earlier, and its position was opposed by the Conservative Party which opposed the negotiations and boycotted the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA).
On 24 January 1992, President de Klerk opened parliament and suggested that a referendum would be held, in which the vote of each race group would be counted separately. When the National Party was defeated in the Potchefstroom by-election on 19 February, after calling it a test vote, its credibility was placed in doubt.
In the meantime, negotiations between the government and the AfricanNational Congress were making slow progress. Violence was increasing in the South African townships, different right wing groups were becoming more prominent, and there was growing dissatisfaction within the white community. Conditions and the mood in the black townships was worsening as well. The government was thus under domestic and international pressure to make progress in the negotiations.
While the Conservative Party claimed that the government did not have the mandate to negotiate with the ANC after its defeat in Potchefstroom, StatePresident F. W. de Klerk announced 20 February, that a national referendum for the white electorate would be held to test the government's -and his own- support: if the referendum's outcome had been negative, de Klerk would have resigned and general elections held.
When de Klerk initially announced the referendum, many were critical of the fact that only whites had the right to vote in the referendum.
The day after the referendum President de Klerk said Today we have closed the book on apartheid as he celebrated his 56th birthday. Nelson Mandela said that he was very happy indeed. The Cape Times news bill was dominated by the large text YES, IT'S YES!.
The alliance between the Conservative Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging may have harmed the CP and in some cases even scared away voters to the "Yes" side. Some conservative and militant defenders of apartheid boycotted the referendum, although turnout was at record levels, reaching above 96% in some areas.
De Klerk and his government could now claim that the whites were in favour of universal suffrage and that they had a clear mandate to negotiate with the African National Congress.
The ANC had initially disapproved the referendum, mainly because whites were the only ones allowed to vote. But since a "No" vote would not only risk the negotiations but also increase the political chaos in the country, and had no real reason to advocate that the whites oppose the negotiations, the ANC advocated a "Yes" vote.
Right-wing groups criticized the referendum and accused the government of electoral fraud. They had lost where they had previously been the strongest, in the Afrikaner heartland and in the big cities.
However, no evidence has ever been put forward regarding electoral irregularities. Treurnicht claimed that media propaganda, foreign intervention, threats by businesspeople against employees, and electoral fraud had resulted in a "Yes" vote.
On 27 April 1994, South Africa held its first non-racial elections, whichresulted in a huge victory for the African National Congress and made Nelson Mandela the first black President of South Africa.
I was born in South Africa during apartheid, a system of laws that made it illegal for people to mix in South Africa. And this was obviously awkward because I grew up in a mixed family. My mother's a black woman, South African Xhosa woman... and my father's Swiss, from Switzerland.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about a community that fascinates her, the Cathars, who lived in Occitania until they were massacred by the Catholic Church and the French forces.
On a day like today in 1244, over 200 Cathars who refused to recant, burnt to death after the Fall of Montsegur.
The Siege of Montsegur was a nine-month siege of the Cathar-held Château de Montsegur by French royal forces starting in May 1243.
After the castle surrendered, about 210 perfecti and unrepentant credentes were burned in a bonfire on 16 March 1244.
Although the Albigensian Crusade had been concluded with the Treaty of Paris-Meaux in 1229, local resistance continued. The Cathar Church was still able to operate and oppose the Inquisition that pervaded the Languedoc.
In 1233, the Cathar Bishop Guilhabert de Castres asked Raymond de Pereille for permission to make Montsegurthe seat and head (domicilium et caput) of the Cathar Church.
As a haven for Cathars, Montsegur gained symbolic and strategic importance in the resistance fight against the Catholic Church and the French forces in subsequent years.
In 1241, Raymond VII made a token attempt to capture Montsegur, primarily to impress the King and the Catholic Church of his allegiance. At that time Montsegur housed about 500 people.
In the context of Occitan resistance and possibly linked to Raymond's efforts to free himself from the chains of the Paris Treaty, two representatives of the Inquisition, William Arnald and Stephen de Saint-Thibéry, as well as their companions and retinue were murdered by about fifty men from Montsegur and dispossessed faidits at Avignonet on 28 May 1242. This event led to the decision to send a royal military expedition to eliminate the stronghold.
In May 1243, the seneschal Hugues des Arcis led the military command of about 10,000 royal troops against the castle that was held by about 100 fighters and was home to perfecti, who as pacifists did not participate in combat, and civilian refugees.
Many of these refugees were Catharcredentes who lived in huts and caves outside the castle on the mountain. The initial strategy was to besiege the castle in expectation that water and supplies would run out, a strategy that had worked well for the crusaders before.
However, the defenders were well supplied and able to keep their support lines open, being supported by many of the local population; some reinforcements even arrived. Thus eventually it was decided to attack the place directly, a difficult task due to its well protected location high on a massive limestone rock.
After many failures, Basque mercenaries were able to secure a location on the eastern side of the summit across a depression which allowed the construction of a catapult. This forced refugees that were living outside the walls of the castle to move inside, making living conditions difficult. Apparently by treachery, a passage was found to get access to the barbican which was conquered in March 1244.
The catapult was now moved closer and the living situation inside deteriorated under the day-and-night bombardment. When an attempt by the garrison failed to dislodge the invaders from the barbican, the defenders gave the signal that they had decided to negotiate for surrender.
Surrender conditions were quickly decided on: All the people in the castle were allowed to leave except those who would not renounce their Cathar faith, primarily the perfecti. A two-week truce was declared. The last two weeks were spent praying and fasting. A number of defenders decided to join the about 190 perfecti and received their consolamentum bringing the total number of Cathar believers destined to burn to between 210 and 215.
On 16 March, led by Bishop Bertrand Marty, the group left the castle and went down to the place where the wood for the pyre had been erected. No stakes were needed: they mounted the pyre and perished voluntarily in the flames.
The remainder of the defenders, including those who had participated in the murder of the inquisitors, were allowed to leave, among them Raymond de Pereille who was later, like others, subjected to the Inquisition.
It has been claimed that three or four perfecti survived; they left the castle by a secret route to recover a treasure of the Cathars that had been buried in a nearby forest in the weeks prior to the surrender. The treasure not only contained material valuables but also documents and possibly relics. Nothing about its whereabouts is known.
Catharism continued in the Languedoc for many decades, but it had lost its organization, and, under the pressure of the Inquisition, adherents if not captured moved to other places, such as Catalonia and Italy, where conditions were less oppressive.
Montsegur Castle was destroyed; today’s ruins are a remnant of the French border fortress of a later time.
At the base of the mountain, in the Prat dels Cremats, Occitan for Field of the Burnt, a modern stone commemorates the death of the victims; it is inscribed Als catars, als martirs del pur amor crestian. 16 de març 1244, in Occitan for To the Cathars, to the martyrs of pure christian love. 16 March 1244.
Today, The Grandma has been watching Forever,one of her favourite TV series.Judd Hirsch is one of the main characters, and he plays the role of Abraham Morgan.
Hirsch was born on a day like today in 1935, and The Grandma wants to pay homage to him talking about him and his career.
Judd Seymore Hirsch (born March 15, 1935) is anAmerican actor known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), John Lacey on the NBC series Dear John (1988–1992), Alan Eppes on the CBS series Numb3rs (2005–2010) and Abraham Morgan on the ABC series Forever (2014-2015).
He is also well known for his career in theatre and for his roles in films such as Ordinary People (1980), Running on Empty (1988), Independence Day (1996), A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).
He has twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor-Television Series Musical or Comedy and has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Hirsch was born in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the son of Sally and Joseph Sidney Hirsch, an electrician. Hirsch's father was born in New York, to a German-Jewish father, Benjamin Hirsch, and an English-born mother, Rosa Hirsch Benjamin, whose family were Dutch Jews. Hirsch's mother was born in Russia, also to a Jewish family. Hirsch has a brother named Roland.
He
grew up in both Brooklyn and The Bronx and graduated from DeWitt Clinton
High School in The Bronx in 1952. He earned a degree in physics from
City College of New York.
After
graduating from college, Hirsch served a tour in the United States
Army. Hirsch then worked as an engineer for Westinghouse before he found
work in the theatre. He studied acting at HB Studio in New York City.
Over the last several decades, Hirsch has distinguished himself in film, television, and theatre. The Los Angeles Times noted that Hirsch is one of the very few actors who slips effortlessly from TV series to Broadway to feature films and back again, racking up awards and favourable reviews wherever he performs.
After appearing frequently on television in the 1970s, Hirsch gained stardom for his lead role of Alex Rieger in the popular sitcom Taxi, which ran from 1978 to 1983. For his performance in the series, in 1981 and again in 1983, Judd Hirsch won the Emmy Award for Lead Actor In a Comedy Series.
In 1999, he reprised his role from
Taxi for a brief moment in Man on the Moon, the biopic of his co-star
from Taxi, Andy Kaufman (portrayed by Jim Carrey).
Hirsch went on from Taxi to play the
title character on the modestly successful sitcom Dear John and in 1989
won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series in a
Comedy or Musical for this role. He later teamed with Bob Newhart in the
short-lived comedy George and Leo. He had also previously starred for
one season (1976–1977) in the series Delvecchio.
In film, Hirsch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Ordinary People (1980), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. His other film performances from the decade include leading roles in the 1983 drama Without a Trace, the 1984 dramedies, Teachers and The Goodbye People, and the 1988 drama Running onEmpty, directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starring River Phoenix.
In 1996, Hirsch portrayed the father of Jeff Goldblum's character in the blockbuster Independence Day, a role that he later reprised in its 2016 sequel.
In 2001, he played a Princeton University professor in the Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind. Hirsch has more recently had supporting roles in acclaimed films such as The Meyerowitz Stories (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019).
Hirsch co-starred on the CBS Television drama, NUMB3RS (2005–2010), as Alan Eppes, father of FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), and Professor Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz). When Krumholtz was 13, he played son to Hirsch's father role in Conversations with My Father, a Herb Gardner play for which Hirsch won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.
Krumholtz credits Hirsch with jump-starting his career after Hirsch chose him during the audition process for Conversations. Other noteworthy stage performances include The Hot l Baltimore, Talley's Folly, and his starring role in I'm Not Rappaport, for which Hirsch also won a Tony Award in 1986.
More recently, Hirsch guest-starred on episodes of Warehouse 13, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, God Friended Me, and The Whole Truth, which saw him reunite with Numb3rs co-star Rob Morrow, among others, and lent his voice to the animated programs Tom Goes to the Mayor and American Dad!
Judd has also appeared several times on the television show Maron as comedian Marc Maron's father and has had a recurring role on The Goldbergs, playing the father of Jeff Garlin's character.
From 2014 to 2015, he appeared as a series regular on the ABC television series Forever.
In 2016, Hirsch appeared on the CBS comedy series The Big Bang Theoryportraying the father of Johnny Galecki's character, Leonard.
From 2017 to 2018, Hirsch starred in the CBS comedy Superior Donuts, which lasted two seasons.
In early 2020, Hirsch appeared in one scene, as the historic Simon Wiesenthal, in season 1, episode 8 of the Amazon Prime Video show, Hunters, starring Al Pacino.
If you're playing the character, you could say to yourself in 16 different ways, What if that didn't bother me? What if I knew exactly what he was talking about? What if I didn't get excited?
Today, The Grandma has been reading about one of the most important naturalists of all time, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente.
Félix Samuel Rodríguez de la Fuente (March 14, 1928-March 14, 1980) was a Spanish naturalist and broadcaster.
He is best known for the highly successful and influential TV series, El Hombre y la Tierra (1974–1980). A graduate in medicine and self-taught in biology, he was a multifaceted charismatic figure whose influence has endured despite the passing years.
His knowledge covered areas such as falconry and ethology, emphasizing the study of wolves.
Rodríguez de la Fuente also served as expedition guide and photographer on safaris in Africa, lecturer and writer, and contributed greatly to environmental awareness in Spain at a time when Conservationism was unheard of in the country. He has thus been credited as the father of environmentalism in Spain. His impact was not only national but also international and it is estimated that his television programmes, which were broadcast in many countries, have been seen by millions.
He died in Alaska the day he turned 52, while shooting a documentary about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, when the Cessna 185 aircraft carrying him along with two Spanish cameramen and the American pilot crashed, killing all on board.
Félix Samuel Rodríguez de la Fuente was born in Poza de la Sal, Burgos on March 14, 1928. He was the son of Samuel Rodríguez and Marcelina de la Fuente Ibáñez. He had a younger sister, Mercedes. His father was the town notary, and avid reader and a lover of the Spanish language. His household was somewhat intellectual for a small Castillian village. He was schooled at home due to the Civil War (1936-1939) and his father's opposition to early schooling.
Félix's adventures in the surrounding natural world were continuous until he was ten. He would describe his birthplace as a human community living in harmony with the landscape that shaped his zoomorphic universe. This environment had a deep impact on his future sensitivity, and his anthropological and philosophical approach to his career as a naturalist.
He spent the summers in Santander, Cantabria where his father was appointed as a notary. He deepened his knowledge of zoology. During a family outing he observed a falcon capturing a duck. This experience prompted his interest in falconry. He began his formal education in 1938 as a boarder at the religious school Sagrados Corazonistas de Vitoria. There, he longed for the summer and his lost freedom.
In 1946, on the advice of his father, he began studying medicine at the University of Valladolid. The first year, excited after seven years at boarding school and the leisure offered by city, he only registered for the three easiest courses and performed poorly as a student. In later years, he used to locked himself up a month before the exams in order to focus on his studies. His oratory abilities allowed him to stand out in the oral exams. He was also a university athlete, once winning the 400 meter college championship.
During this year the biologist José Antonio Valverde becomes very influential.
Valverde gained international attention after fighting the plans of the
Ministry of Agriculture to dry out the Guadalquivir marshes, which
eventually led to the creation of Doñana National Park. In addition, Valverde shared his passion for falconry, which had not been practiced in Spain for over 150 years.
Félix was determined to recover it. He researched treatises from the Middle Ages such as El libro de la caza de las aves by Lopez de Ayala and El libro de la caza by Don Juan Manuel. In 1954, he was one of the signatories of the founding charter of the Spanish Ornithological Society.
In 1957, he graduated in dentistry in Madrid, receiving the Landete Arago Bernardino award, named after the pioneer of the specialism in Spain. For two years, he worked as a dentist in the clinic of Dr. Baldomero Sol in Madrid, but always part-time so that he could pursue his passion for falconry. However, after his father's death in 1960, he abandoned dentistry to pursue falconry and science journalism.
In 1961 he was a consultant for the film The Cid, shot in Spain. In 1964, thanks to his growing international contacts with scientists, Rodríguez de la Fuente presented a study on the then state of peregrine falcons in Spain at the International Congress for the Protection of Birds of Prey held in Caen, France. That year, he also published his first book, The Art of Falconry.
Between 1970 and 1974, his first documentary series, Planeta Azul, would gain him public acclaim, especially in Spanish-speaking countries. In December 1973, he began his Radio Nacional de España radio series, La Aventura de la Vida, which was broadcast every Thursday for seven years amounting to over 350 episodes.
He frequently contributed to the programmes Planeta agua and Objetivo: salvar la naturaleza. During these years, he took up a number of conservationist causes. He initiated a campaign for the rescue of animals under the threat of extinction, most notably the wolf, which probably owes its survival in the Iberian peninsula to him.
Wolves are now extinct in most countries in Western Europe; the remaining populations in central Spain struggled for survival. His work inspired appreciation and respect for the wolf, but at the cost of confrontation with shepherds and hunters. He also campaigned for the protection of the brown bear, the lynx, the golden eagle and the imperial eagle and sought to preserve various Spanish habitats such as the dunes of El Saler, the Doñana National Park, the Tablas de Daimiel National Park, the Monte del Pardo, and the Gallocanta lake.
Throughout the 1970s he undertook various publishing projects such as the Wildlife Salvat Encyclopedia (1970-1973) compiled by a team of young biologists including Miguel Delibes de Castro, Javier Castroviejo, Cosme Carlos Morillo, and Vallecillo, among others. Completing weekly 24-page booklets of the encyclopedia was a challenge which lasted three years.
Rodríguez de la Fuente also published the Salvat Encyclopedia of the Iberian and European Fauna coordinated by Joaquín Araujo, and the books El Hombre y la Tierra, Los cuadernos de campo, as well as the encyclopedia, La Aventura de la Vida, published posthumously.
Between 1973 and 1980 he created his most famous documentary series, El Hombre y la Tierra which was divided into three parts: the Iberian, South American, and North American series. The Iberian series consisted of three parts and an unfinished fourth part. The South American series was filmed in 1973 in Venezuela in the Llanos, Orinoco, and Amazon basins. Originally conceived as an eight-episode production, enough material was filmed for eighteen episodes. Unfortunately, only the episodes of Canada and Alaska of the American series were filmed due to his premature death.
The complete series included 124 episodes, most of them shot in Spain. They used 35 mm film, which posed significant logistic and technical challenges at the time. The series gained international recognition. Its memorable soundtrack composed by Antón García Abril soon became recognizable to all. Notable accomplishments of the series included the filming of species for the first time, such as the Pyrenean desman.
Using imprinted animals that had become accustomed to human presence, but retained their natural behavioral patterns, his team filmed stunning images. Among them, wolf hunting sequences and the golden eagle capturing a mouflon are notorious. The sequences shot with wolves required him to become a member of the pack during the imprinting process. The series was broadcast in many countries gaining large audiences.
In Spain, it was awarded and internationally. It is noteworthy that the episodes did not include a pre-filming script: Félix improvised the development of each chapter. In April 1980, the city of Burgos awarded him the Gold Medal of the City posthumously.
On March 4, 1980 Félix presented in the Centro Cultural de la Villa (Madrid) a document entitled Global Strategy for the Protection of Biodiversity and Sustainable Growth issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
He flew to Alaska on the 10th along with the film crew of El hombre y la tierra
to cover the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The team hired pilot Tony
Oney and his partner Warren Dobson. Most of the team travelled in Oney's
small Cessna. Oney's plane sustained a small oil leak. Félix, who was afraid of flying, decided only at the last minute to fly in Dobson's aircraft. Shortly before take off he commented what a beautiful place to die.
After taking off from Unalakleet, the two planes initiated a route toward the Pacific coast. After a short while, one of the ski boots of Dobson's plane came loose causing the plane to become unbalanced and to crash. Because of insufficient altitude, the experienced pilot was unable to steady the plane.
All passengers, including Televisión Española cameraman Teodoro Roa and the assistant Alberto Mariano Huéscar, died in the accident. Oney landed nearby and was the first to reach the site of the crash. The exact location of the tragedy was Shaktoolik, an Inuit settlement about 25 kilometers from the coast of the Bering Sea, not far from Klondike. This area had long lived in Félix's imagination since his readings of Jack London as a teenager.
Alaska police recovered the bodies, which were then deposited in the morgue at Nome to be repatriated to Spain shortly after. Rodríguez de la Fuente had been slightly ill earlier that week as a result of a painful toothache, but twelve hours before his death he was in good health and making plans for two new films: one on the albatross of Cordova, Alaska, and another on the Aleutian Islands.
While in North America, Rodríguez de la Fuente and his team had become popular in the Canadian Yukon: in Dawson City, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife; and in Alaska: in Nome, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. The headline of one of the local newspaper read: Farewell to the Spanish Jack London.
According to the American register of aviation accidents, the crash took place at 12:30, March 14, 1980, Alaska local time. That day was his 52nd birthday. News of the accident was released in Spain a few hours later, early in the morning of March 15. His death shocked the country.
Félix was buried in the cemetery of his hometown of Poza de la Sal, Burgos with thousands in attendance.
In June 1981, at the request of his widow, Marcelle Parmentier, his remains were exhumed and transferred to Burgos cemetery. The pantheon was designed by architect Miguel Fisac and sculptor Pablo Serrano. The controversial transfer was made at night to prevent confronting the inhabitants and authorities of Poza de la Sal who wished his remains to stay at his birthplace.
As of June 2018, Rodríguez de la Fuente is one of the faces of Scandinavian airline Norwegian, where his face is remembered in the tail of two planes of the company. According to the airline, Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was the ultimate environmental promoter in the Spain of his time, and his role was key in creating a clear ecological conscience in the country, at a time when words such as ecology or conservationism were almost unknown.
The wolf is the antithesis of cruelty or gratuitous evil. The wolf represents the highest expression among living beings of community cooperatism, monolithic fidelity, tenderness, protection of cubs and defense of the weak.
