Remembering Hollywood Legend Elizabeth Taylor

Source: www.voanews.com

Photo: AP

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in 1969 in Monaco

DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson.

This week, we answer a question about sports terms and play music by blues great Pinetop Perkins, who died Monday.

And we remember another star who died this week: the extraordinary actress and beauty Elizabeth Taylor.

(MUSIC)

Elizabeth Taylor

DOUG JOHNSON: America lost one of its biggest movie stars this week. Elizabeth Taylor died Wednesday in Los Angeles, California. She had been in poor health for many years.

There was no one like Elizabeth Taylor at the height of her fame. She was an extremely beautiful woman. She won two Academy Awards. She also had an interesting and complex private life. Her many loves, her battles with substance abuse and her humanitarian causes kept her name in the news even after she stopped making films.

Katherine Cole takes a look at Elizabeth Taylor’s professional and personal life.

KATHERINE COLE: It started in nineteen forty-four with the movie “National Velvet.” Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor starred as Velvet Brown, a girl in an English country village. She saves a horse and trains him for an important race. Then she rides him to victory.

AP

Elizabeth Taylor in 1944 while filming "National Velvet"

But the real victory was for the young Elizabeth Taylor. Throughout the nineteen forties she played in many movies about families. The nineteen fifty comedy “Father of the Bride” was a major hit. Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Taylor played the bride.

This was also the year of her first marriage, to Nicky Hilton, of the Hilton Hotels business. But they separated after just nine months.

Elizabeth Taylor married seven more times to six other men. She married actor Richard Burton twice. She had four children by three of her husbands. Her relationships caused her some public image problems, especially her marriage to singer Eddie Fisher. He had been married to Taylor’s best friend and popular actress Debbie Reynolds. Fisher left Reynolds for Taylor in nineteen fifty-nine. The American public was shocked and many were angered by this behavior.

In nineteen fifty-eight she played Maggie in the film version of Tennessee Williams’ play, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Some critics consider it her best movie.

AP

Elizabeth Taylor as "Cleopatra"

She won her first Academy Award for her work in the nineteen sixty film, “Butterfield 8.” She played a sex worker who is involved with a married man. She won another Oscar in nineteen sixty-six for the movie, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Taylor became the highest paid film actress in history. She earned more than one million dollars for her role as “Cleopatra,” in the extraordinary production of the same name, released in nineteen sixty-three.

Elizabeth Taylor made more than sixty movies in all. In the nineteen eighties, she battled drug and alcohol abuse. She entered a medical center for treatment and was very open with the public about it. She also became a leader in the fight against AIDS and HIV. She helped found amFAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. She did this in nineteen eighty-five when many people believed those infected with the disease were immoral.

AP

Elizabeth Taylor at a 1996 AIDS event in front of the US Capitol

The British singer-songwriter Elton John was a good friend of Elizabeth Taylor. He said the world had lost not just a Hollywood giant, but also “an incredible human being.” Elton John said she earned love and respect for speaking out against AIDS when others wanted to bury their heads in the sand.

(MUSIC)

Sports Terms

DOUG JOHNSON: Our question this week comes from the Dominican Republic. Junior Olivares wants us to explain some of the terms used in baseball and basketball.

Baseball is known as America’s “national pastime.” The pitcher throws the ball and the batter tries to hit it on the playing field to get a “base hit.” Then the batter runs to one of the bases, depending on how far he hits the ball. The batter gets a single if he reaches first base safely. A double gets him to second base and a triple gets him to third base. A very good batter may hit the ball out of the playing field and run to all four bases for a “home run.”

A batter can get to first base even if he doesn’t hit the ball. He can “walk” to first base if the pitcher throws four balls that are either too high, too low or too far from the batter. But the batter may also “strike out” if he is unable to hit the ball after three pitches. A base runner may try to “steal” a base by running to the next base while the pitcher is throwing the ball to another player.

A pitcher who is very good may throw a “no hitter” if none of the opposing batters gets a hit. Or the pitcher may even throw a “perfect game” if none of the players from the other team reaches a base.

The game of basketball has different language to describe the action. It all begins with the “tip-off.” It is the first “jump ball” that starts the game. An official throws the ball in the air as a player from each opposing team jumps to gain possession of the ball.

Next the “man-to-man defense” begins. Each defensive player is responsible for guarding one of the opposing team members. A “full court press” happens when the defenders begin guarding the offense in the back court.

Sometimes the pressure is so great that two teammates may join together to guard a single opponent. This is called “double teaming.” It is an illegal defense and may result in a “technical foul.” The opponent may be awarded a “free throw,” a chance to throw the ball into the basket.

If he misses the shot and one his teammates is able to regain control of the ball, it is called an “offensive rebound.” But, the winning team may choose to play a “keepaway game” if the game is close to ending. Players may pass the ball back and forth among themselves until there is no time left and the game ends.

One of the most exciting moves in basketball is the “slam dunk.” Players jump up high and force the ball into the net. The famous former basketball player Michael Jordan is considered to be one of the best “slam dunkers” of all time.

(MUSIC: “Pinetop’s Mambo”/Pinetop Perkins)

Pinetop Perkins

DOUG JOHNSON: Blues pianist Pinetop Perkins died Monday at his home in Austin, Texas. The ninety-seven year old musician was still making great music in his last days. In fact, just last month he won a Grammy Award. Mario Ritter remembers Pinetop Perkins and plays some of his music.

(MUSIC)

MARIO RITTER: The piano player was born Joe Willie Perkins in Mississippi in nineteen thirteen. He lived with his mother and grandmother as a boy. His grandmother was abusive. She finally beat the boy so badly that he left home.

Pinetop Perkins said he started playing guitar when he was ten years old. He taught himself to play by listening to others. Two years later, he started a job repairing pianos and decided to teach himself to play that instrument as well.

(MUSIC: “I Almost Lost My Mind”/Pinetop Perkins)

Perkins began playing music in small clubs and at parties when he was a young man. At one club in Arkansas a woman cut his arm badly with a knife. There was so much damage that Perkins could no longer play guitar. So the piano became his instrument.

Perkins took the name “Pinetop” in honor of an earlier pianist, Clarence “Pinetop” Smith. One of Smith’s songs, “Pinetop Boogie Woogie” is now linked more closely with Pinetop Perkins.

(MUSIC)

In the nineteen forties Pinetop Perkins worked as a band member for two radio programs. One was the famous King Biscuit Time broadcast from Helena, Arkansas.

In the late nineteen sixties, blues great Muddy Waters asked Pinetop Perkins to join his band. The pianist played with Muddy Waters for more than ten years.

In nineteen eighty, Pinetop Perkins and the other Muddy Waters’ band members formed their own group, the Legendary Blues Band. They played Chicago- style blues music.

(MUSIC: “Pinetop’s Blues”/Pinetop Perkins)

The Recording Academy presented Pinetop Perkins with a Lifetime Achievement Award in two thousand five. The Academy honored him with his first Grammy two years later for best traditional blues album. Last month, he won in the same category again. Pinetop Perkins became the oldest performer to receive a Grammy.

Pinetop Perkins told a reporter that performing in his nineties was not the joy it had been when he was younger. But he said he could not stop --- it was all he knew how to do. “I’m just trying to make people happy and make a dollar or two,” he said.

(MUSIC: “Take Your Eyes Off My Woman”/Pinetop Perkins)

I’m Doug Johnson. Our program was written by June Simms and Caty Weaver who was also the producer.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English 
.

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Marilyn Monroe

Source: www.manythings.org/voa/people

I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program,PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

Today we tell about movie star Marilyn Monroe. She died many years ago, yet still is one of the best known American women.

Her name at birth was Norma Jean Baker. Her life as a child was like a bad dream. She lived with a number of different people, and often was mistreated.

At age 16 Norma Jean married a sailor. But she soon ended that marriage. She changed her hair color from brown to shining gold. And she changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

She wanted to be an actress. And she succeeded. She appeared in a number of Hollywood movies. Millions of people went to see them. By the time Norma Jean had reached the age of 26, her beautiful face and body earned her a place as one of America's leading movie stars.

But success and fame were not enough to make her happy. The troubles of her childhood days stayed with her. She drank too much alcohol. She took too many drugs.

At the age of thirty-six, she took her own life.

She has been dead since 1962. Still, her fame continues to grow.

People born long after she died are watching her movies on television. Objects that belonged to her bring huge prices at public sales. The Warner Brothers museum in Hollywood has the white dress she wore in one of her movies, "The Prince and the Showgirl. "

People continue to talk about what they feel is her strange death. Some people believe she was murdered. Two investigations showed that she died as the result of too many drugs.

Why is the public still so interested in a woman who died so many years ago? A number of reasons. Her exciting but tragic life. Her connections with well-known people. And her image as an especially desirable woman.

In the 1950s, many Americans believed sex was a very private subject. People often severely judged those who were sexually appealing.

Into this atmosphere burst Marilyn Monroe. As one critic said, her body was round in all the right places. She wore her clothes like skin. When she walked, she moved her lower body in a way that few other actresses had done. Her voice was soft and breathy. She soon became America's golden girl.

(MUSIC)

The story of Marilyn Monroe begins on June first, 1936. Norma Jean was born that day in the West Coast city of Los Angeles, California. Her birthplace was not far from the Hollywood movie studios where she would someday be a star.

Her mother, Gladys Baker, suffered from mental problems. Often the mother had to be treated in a hospital for long periods of time. Her daughter was sent to live with a number of different people.

The actress later would describe her stays with these foster families as sometimes very unhappy. During the worst experiences, she would go to a movie theater. There the young Norma Jean escaped into the make-believe world of movies.

She would act all the movie parts after she went to a movie. She told this to a long time friend, actor Ted Jordan, who later wrote a book about her.

By the time she was 17, Marilyn was trying very hard to be a movie actress. She finally was able to get an actors' agent to help her. He got Twentieth Century Fox Company to give Marilyn parts in some movies it produced.

Marilyn continued to change the way she had looked as Norma Jean. She had an operation to improve the appearance of her nose. Her eyes were made to appear larger. She began using a great deal of bright red lipstick on her mouth.

Marilyn may have worked more to improve her appearance than to improve her performance in acting classes. Some people at Twentieth Century Fox said she did not like to work at all. She appeared in only one movie. And she had only one line to speak in that. The Fox movie company dismissed her.

Soon, however, her agent got her a job at Columbia Pictures. She appeared in a movie called "Ladies of the Chorus. " She sang two songs. Several critics praised her performance. But Columbia dismissed her.

Marilyn did not stop struggling. She next won a small part in a movie called "Love Happy." It was a comedy starring the famous Marx Brothers. Critics said it was not one of their better efforts. Marilyn, though, earned praise for simply taking a short walk in the movie.

The movie called for her to say, "Some men are following me. " Groucho Marx answered that he did not understand why. As he said that, he watched Marilyn walk her famous walk. His eyes opened very wide.

That short scene in the movie made many people in Hollywood talk about Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn got her first major chance when director John Huston invited her to act in a movie called "The Asphalt Jungle. "

Huston said her performance as a criminal's girlfriend was good. It gained Marilyn her dream of a long-term agreement with Twentieth Century Fox, the company that had dismissed her earlier. Now its officials gave her a part in "All About Eve." The movie, released in 1950, was about a movie star. She played a golden-haired woman who did not have much intelligence -- "a dumb blonde."

In 1952, Marilyn again appeared as a dumb blonde in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." This performance at last won her widespread fame.

Marilyn Monroe was now a lead actress, a star.

Huge successes now followed. Between 1953 and 1959 she appeared in lead parts in many popular movies: "How To Marry a Millionaire." "The Seven Year Itch." "Bus Stop." "Some Like it Hot."

Her part in "Some Like it Hot" showed that she was very good at making people laugh.

Marilyn's picture appeared on the front cover of many magazines and the front pages of many newspapers. She began to earn more money.

Life should have been good. But Marilyn was not happy. She was being asked to repeat her part as a dumb blonde in movie after movie.

She wanted to be accepted as a good actress. She went to the Actors' Studio school in New York City with many serious actors. She thought she could change the way people thought of her.

But she did not succeed. People thought of Marilyn Monroe as "that blonde bombshell." Few people thought of her as a serious actress.

She also failed in her attempts at marriage. She admitted that she got married the first time only to escape from being forced to live in a group home for children without parents. In 1954 she married again. Her husband was the famous New York Yankee baseball player, Joe Di Maggio. They were together for only a few months.

Later, she tried again. She married Arthur Miller, a famous writer of plays. That marriage ended unhappily in 1961, after five years.

(MUSIC)

Marilyn returned to Hollywood. But things were different now. Friends said she was drinking too much alcohol. They said she was taking too many drugs.

She seemed to always be in trouble with the movie company. She had gained too much weight. Or, she had not learned what she was to say in the movie. Or she had arrived late for the filming.

By 1962, Marilyn's problems were threatening her work in the movies. She was to appear in the Twentieth Century Fox movie called "Something's Got to Give."

She lost weight for her part. She tried to arrive on time for the filming. She reportedly knew her part. However, she became sick several times and missed work. Fox company officials dismissed her.

On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died alone in her home. She was thirty-six years old. Reports said taking too many drugs killed her. But people who knew her said failed marriages, and the failure of her latest movie also led to her death.

Many people said Marilyn Monroe never escaped her past. She continued to suffer from the early, sad life of a little girl named Norma Jean.

(MUSIC)

This Special English program was written by Jeri Watson and directed by Marilyn Christiano. I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America. 

Sleep Factor, part I

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Advanced

Speaker: Just Ratcliffe

Standard: British

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

It is well known that If  you want to stay healthy and live long, then you should eat well, take regular exercise, reduce your consumption of alcohol, and eliminate smoking altogether. What is less well known is that you should also get plenty of sleep. Science is beginning to take sleep seriously. For example, the University of Warwick in England now runs a special interdisciplinary research group on Sleep. Health and Society it is headed by Francesco Cappucio, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Epidemiology. He says that, when it comes to sleep, we are in trouble.

Francesco Cappuccio

(Italian accent)

Our society is going through a process of a steady decline in the number of hours that people sleep. Now, I don’t have to tell you, your grandfather used to sleep probably nine hours per night: you hardly sleep six hours per night, or seven hours per night. If you look at the statistics, in large populations, from the early 1900s to now, in the States, the average duration that people sleep has gone down by nearly three hours.

Professor Cappuccio says that factors include our “24/7” society and the “Edison Disease,” which refers to the elects on our sleeping habits caused by the advent of electricity and artificial lighting. A number of scientific papers have been prepared on the dangerous medical consequences of sleep reduction:

Francesco Cappuccio

This paper is one of a series of papers where we have looked in a similar way also at the link between duration of sleep and other conditions like cardiovascular disease –so deaths from strokes and heart attacks – but also, for instance, the incidence, to the occurrence of new cases of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, and we found very consistently, that short sleepers have an increased risk of all these conditions.

DISASTROUS…

And it’s not only a question of health Shift work, i.e. working at night, and the resulting sleep deprivation has caused a number of disastrous accidents:

Francesco Cappuccio:

Some of the most famous national and international disasters have had implications of somebody make (sic) an error whilst they were on shift. For instance, do you remember the space shuttle disaster, when it blew up? Well, that was due to some error made by somebody, a mechanical error shift they were on that shift. The Bhopal chemical disaster, Chermobyl, the Exxon Valdez incident, when the oil spillage of the tanker hit –the guy fell asleep whilst he was maneuvering. 

From Medieval to Art Deco

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Avanced

Speaker: Mark Worden

Standard: British accent

FROM MEDIEVAL TO ART DECO...

Eltham Palace is a little known, but fascinating, London tourist attraction. Originally it was a medieval royal palace, but it later fell into decline. In the 1930s it was acquired by a wealthy couple who transformed it into a temple of Art Deco. And, so, if you visit Eltham Palace today, you can see two very different styles side by side. SpeakUp went to Eltham Smith, who works for English Heritage as Curator for Collections for South London. She talked about Eltham Palace’s unusual history.

Annie Kemkaran-Smith

Standard English accent.

The whole site as a manor house dates from around the 11^th century. Bishop Odo, who was a half-brother of William the Conqueror, was given it by his brother, and, from that point, really up until the sort of 14^th century, it stayed as a manor house. It was given to Edward I in the 1300s and, from that point on, it became a royal property and various monarchs did building schemes to improve it. Some of the monarchs that spent a lot of time here. Edward IV, he built the Great Hall, as you see it now, Henry VII spent a lot of time here and  and Henry VII was actually raised in the royal nursery when it was at Eltham.

AHEAD OF THEIR TIME…

Eltham Palace changed dramatically when it was bought by Sir Stephen Courtauld and his Italian-Hungarian wife, Virginia Peirano the Cortaud family had made their fortune in textiles and Stephen’s older brother Samuel founded London’s Coutard Institute of Art. The cople revolutionised Eltham Palace.

Annie Kemkaran-Smith

In domestic architecture, I think it was streets ahead of its time. I think there are public places like hotels and other public buildings that probably had the same general style, but I think in this house at Eltham the fantastic things that you see, like the centralized vacuum cleaner system, so there’s a motor the actual hardware in the basement, so all the maids had to do was plug in hoover up and it would all get collected in the basement. That kind of thing is so advanced for the 1930s period that they were far ahead of the rest of the world.

CRYSTAL PALACE DINOSAURS (no audio)

In Park in South London there is a strange and unexpected sight Groups of huge animals gather at the edge of a lake, looking of prey of relaxing in the sun. These are the Chrystal Palace dinosaurs, the world’s first dinosaur sculptures.

Victorian London was fascinated with dinosaurs and when Crystal Palace Park opened in 1852, the sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build life-size models. To celebrate their competition, on New Year’s Eve1853 Hawkins held a dinner party in the stomach of an Iguanodon!

In all 15 different species of dinosaur and other extinct animal appeared in the park. They were a sensation in London at the time. But the term dinosaur, meaning ‘terrible lizard, had only been invented ten years earlier and the science was new. The models were not very realistic and soon became ridiculed, overgrown and forgotten. Today they have been fully restored and stand proudly again in their own corner of London.

CRYSTAL PALACE PARK (NO AUDIO)

The Crystal Palace was an enormous building of iron and glass. It was built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, a celebration of British Industry and culture which was visited by a third of the UK’s population!

Following the exhibition, the Crystal Palace was created. It stood here from 1854 to 1936, when it was destroyed by fire. The park occupies one of the highest points in London, with great views over the city.

In addition to the dinosaurs, the park is home to a museum, the National Sports Centre and London’s largest maze!

VISITING INFO

Address: Thicket Road, Penge SE20 8DT

Entry: free, open daily from dawn to dusk.

Travel: overground train from Victoria to Crystal Palace or from London Bridge to Penge West

Online: www.bbc.co.uk/london/in_pictures/360_degree/crystal_palace/index.shtml

NEW YORK DINOSAUR LEGEND

Following the initial success of his Crystal Palace models. Hawkins travelled to the US to build dinosaurs for New York’s Central Park. However, the project fell victim to local politics. His giant sculptures were destroyed, and legend has it they were buried in the south of the park, near Umpires Rock where they still lie today.

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