Jackson Beck was a radio announcer best known as the narrator of The Adventures of Superman and the one who intoned the “strange visitor from another planet” opening.
Seaborn Beck Weathers is an American pathologist from Texas. He survived the 1996 Mount Everest disaster by walking, on frozen feet, to a lower camp, where he was the subject of one of the highest altitude medical evacuations ever performed by helicopter. Following his helicopter evacuation to a hospital, his right arm was amputated halfway between the elbow and wrist. All four fingers and his thumb on his left hand were amputated, as well as parts of both feet. His nose was amputated and reconstructed with tissue from his ear and forehead.
Beck Weathers gives a talk at DeAnza College (approx 2001/2002) - Album on Imgur << a pic of Beck Weathers, my wife, and me; from about 2001/2002.
What happened was, he gave a speech at a local community college. We attended (he’s a good speaker and it was enjoyable). After the event we left the theater and walked to our car. We passed an outside glass double door that looked like it would head backstage.
On a hunch I walked over and tried it. Sure enough, not locked. It didn’t take long to find him, he was walking the hallways, pacing a bit. All sweaty, it looked like he was trying to wind down.
We approached cautiously, politely. Didn’t want to interrupt any kind of ‘routine’ he needed to go through.
He was gracious and polite. We stayed only a few minutes. I was tempted to ask a few questions, but basically we said thank you for your story and we’re glad you made it off of that mountain.
I’ve read Into Thin Air 7-8 times. I almost know the story by heart. It’s been a few years, it’s time to read it again.
(ETA, I was going to say not a play, just a comment. But this can be my play, right?)
In my pic you can see Beck’s hands in the midst of repairs. One looked like a mitten.
I didn’t want to shake his hand, for obvious reasons.
Yeah, I might offer an elbow-bump, under the circumstances.
In play:
The American actor Michael Beck is perhaps best known for his roles in The Warriors, a crime drama set in New York City, and Xanadu, a movie musical set in Los Angeles.
On March 1st, 1978, actor Charlie Chaplin’s coffin was dug up and stolen from its grave in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland by two unemployed immigrants, Roman Wardas, from Poland, and Gantcho Ganev, from Bulgaria. The body was held for ransom in an attempt to extort money from his widow, Oona Chaplin. The pair were caught in a large police operation in May, and Chaplin’s coffin was found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville. It was re-interred in the Corsier cemetery surrounded by reinforced concrete.
Oona Chaplin was born in 1925, the daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill and English-born writer Agnes Boulton. She moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting and shortly thereafter met Charlie Chaplin. They fell in love and married in 1943, a month after her 18th birthday. They had eight children together and remained married until Chaplin’s death in 1977. Oona passed away in 1991 at the age of 66.
Agnes Moorehead was an American actress whose 41-year career included work in radio, stage, film, and television. She is best known for her role as Endora on the television series Bewitched, but she also had notable roles in films, including Citizen Kane , The Magnificent Ambersons , Dark Passage , Show Boat , and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte . She rarely played leading roles, but her skill at character development and range earned her one Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards and six Emmy Awards.
Agnes of Aquitaine married a former monk, Ramiro II, so that the royal line of Aragon would not die out. Ramiro’s older brother, Alfonso the Warrior, King of Aragon, had died without children. Ramiro resigned his bishopric and left the monastery to marry Agnes. After she gave birth to a daughter, Petronila, who was then married to the count of Barcelona.
Agnes and Ramiro ceased living together and retired to an monastery and a nunnery, since their marriage was considered scandalous.
Eragon is a young-adult fantasy novel, written by American author Christopher Paoilini. Paoilini began writing the book at age 15, after graduating from high school (he was home-schooled), and the novel was published by his parents’ publishing company in 2002, when he was 19.
The stepson of author Carl Hiaasen loved the book, and Hiaasen brought it to his publisher’s attention. This led to Paolini receiving a contract from Knopf, which re-published Eragon in 2003 – the novel then spent over two years on the New York Times’ list of best-selling children’s books, and was adapted into a film in 2006.
The first best seller list in America was published in 1895, in The Bookman, a literary journal established the same year. The New York Times’ best-seller list did not appear until October 12, 1931. That list featured five fiction and four non-fiction books. The top-selling fiction book of that first list was The Ten Commandments by the English novelist Warwick Deeping.
The Warwick is a historic hotel in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally constructed in 1925 in an English Renaissance style, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places on February 8, 1995. The building has been divided into condominiums and an independent hotel, the Warwick Hotel-Rittenhouse Square.
In 2017, Philadelphia fell to to number six on the list of US cities ranked by population. Phoenix jumped to number five, behind New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston.
Philadelphia has a size of 135 square miles, while Phoenix is 517 square miles.
“Philadelphia Freedom” is a 1975 song by Elton John, which became a #1 hit in the U.S. John asked his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, to help him write a song as a tribute to his friend, tennis star Billie Jean King, who was the player-coach of the Philadelphia Freedoms, a team in the World Team Tennis professional league.
However, as Taupin is said to have maintained, “I can’t write a song about tennis,” the lyrics of the song are more abstract; the song is also seen as a tribute to the “Philadelphia sound” style of soul music.
New Philadelphia, a very nice small town, is the county seat of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, south of Akron. It is often considered a twin of the adjacent town of Dover, Ohio.
The commune of Filadefia in Cabrera, Italy was designed to match the design of Philadelphia in the US and was probably named for it. It is one of the few (if not the only) places in Europe named after an American city. They wrote Benjamin Franklin for advice on the design.
Philadelphia, Mississippi is the county seat of Neshoba county. In the summer of 1964, three young civil rights workers–James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner–were arrested for speeding and taken to the county jail. I say their names because they deserve to be remembered.
They were abducted by the Ku Klux Klan and murdered, with the complicity of local law enforcement. The case sparked nation outrage and helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
John Goodman is a veteran American actor who has appeared in numerous television shows and movies. Born in Missouri in 1952, he moved to New York City in 1975, seeking a career in acting. One of his early jobs was a commercial for Mennen Skin Bracer, in which he slapped himself and uttered the iconic tag line “Thanks…I needed that!”
The Mennen Company was founded in 1878 by Gerhard Heinrich Mennen, an immigrant to America from Germany. His first product was talcum-based powder, an innovation at the time. Gerhard’s grandson, G. Mennen Williams, served as Governor of Michigan from 1949–1961 and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961–1966.
President Andrew Jackson was sickly throughout his presidency, prompting concerns that he might die prematurely. Despite suffering from chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a severe hacking cough, caused by a musket ball lodged in his lung from a duel (his coughs would often brought up blood and sometimes even made his whole body shake), he served two full terms.