The End of the World News
What Peter Sellers, Stanley Kubrick, Vera Lynn, Anthony Burgess, Timothy Leary, Malcom McDowell and Kevin Bacon have in common!
Anthony Burgess, nee John Burgess Wilson (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) wrote a novel titled "The End of the World News". "Sigmund Freud discovers the psyche in Vienna, Leon Trotsky discovers the worker's paradise in New York City and America waits for a comet to snuff out all life. Three very different tales spin around and through each other in another masterpiece by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century." (excerpted review from Amazon.com). The author confessess that the title comes from the last line of the daily BBC news reports he listened to while living in Malta, preceded by "and this is', always intoned in a deep male English accented voice in those days.
"Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's masterful study of the foolishness of war and the incompetence of the men who start them, is blacker than pitch and funny in ways that most films can't dream of approaching. Faultless direction, writing, and performing cemented the picture as a modern classic, making it hard to believe today that it was something of a wild card in its initial release during the chilliest days of the Cold War. The incomparable Peter Sellers devours three roles, and is equalled by the sublime turns of Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott, never more brilliant or funnier than they are here (playing gum-smacking, belly-slapping, gung-ho dim bulb Buck Turgidson and paranoid, crazy as a woodpecker, "precious bodily fluids" loose cannon Jack D. Ripper, respectively). Keenan Wynn and Slim Pickens are also top-flight." (excerpted review from IMDb.com).
Dr. Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was a highly influential American psychologist and writer, known in later life for advocating advanced research into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic drugs. A hugely controversial figure during the 1960s and 1970s, he defended the use of the drug LSD for its therapeutic, emotional and spiritual benefits, and even believed it showed incredible potential in the field of psychiatry. Leary also popularized the phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out". Both proved to be hugely influential on the 1960s counterculture. Largely due to his influence in this field, he was attacked by conservative figures in the United States, and described as "the most dangerous man in America" by President Richard Nixon.
Malcolm McDowell nee Malcolm John Taylor (born 13 June 1943) made his screen debut as school rebel Mick Travis in If.... (1968). His performance in If.... caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who cast McDowell as the lead in A Clockwork Orange, adapted from the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess.
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE (8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980), known as Peter Sellers, a British comedian and actor rose to fame on the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show. In 1962, Stanley Kubrick asked Sellers to play the role of Clare Quilty in Lolita opposite James Mason and Shelly Winters. Kubrick had seen Sellers in his earlier films and was intrigued by his range, also demonstrated during The Goon Show period when Sellers had done impressions of famous people, such as Winston Churchill, the Queen, and Lew Grade. In Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb he asked Sellers to be in the leading role. Sellers played three extremely different characters: U.S. President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove, a heavily German-accented nuclear scientist, and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the RAF. Sellers was initially hesitant about taking on the task, but Kubrick convinced him that there was no better actor that could play these parts. Muffley and Dr. Strangelove appeared in the same room throughout the film, with the help of Kubrick's special effects. Sellers was originally cast to play a fourth role, as Major T. J. "King" Kong, but could not achieve the strong Texas accent required. He also fell and broke his leg, forcing Kubrick to replace the part with Slim Pickens.
Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career. Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism, and his reclusiveness about his films and personal life. He maintained almost complete artistic control, making movies according to his own whims and time constraints, but with the rare advantage of big-studio financial support for all his endeavors. Kubrick's films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail—his later films often have elements of surrealism and expressionism that eschews structured linear narrative. His films are repeatedly described as slow and methodical, and are often perceived as a reflection of his obsessive and perfectionist nature. A recurring theme in his films is man's inhumanity to man. While often viewed as expressing an ironic pessimism, a few critics feel his films contain a cautious optimism when viewed more carefully.
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born Vera Margaret Welch on 20 March 1917) is an English singer and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops. She was called "The Forces' Sweetheart"; the songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again" and "The White Cliffs of Dover". She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the United States and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and "My Son, My Son". In 2009 she became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 on the British album chart, at the age of 92. She has devoted much time and energy to charity work connected with ex-servicemen, disabled children and breast cancer. She is still held in great affection by veterans of the Second World War and in 2000 was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century.
Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958) is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors and Frost/Nixon. Bacon has won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards, was nominated for an Emmy Award, and was named by The Guardian as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. In 2003, Bacon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bacon is also the subject of the trivia game titled Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, based on the idea that, due to his prolific screen career, any Hollywood actor can be linked to another in a handful of steps based on their associations with Bacon. The name of the game derives from the idea of six degrees of separation. Though he was initially dismayed by the game, the meme stuck, and Bacon eventually embraced it, forming the charitable initiative SixDegrees.org, a social networking site intended to link people and charities to each other. The measure of proximity to Bacon has been mathematically formalized as the Bacon Index and can be referenced at websites including Oracle Of Bacon which is in turn based upon Internet Movie Database data.
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