Home About us Products Services Contact us Bookmark
:: wikimiki.org ::
Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an Oscar winning American actress. Born Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward in Thomasville, Georgia, she was influenced to become an actress by her mother's love of movies. Her mother wanted to name her after Joan Crawford, but then her parents felt that the name "Joanne" was more Southern. Attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, |nine-year-old Joanne rushed out into the parade of stars and sat on the lap of Laurence Olivier, star Vivien Leigh's husband. She eventually worked with Olivier in 1979, in a television production of Come Back, Little Sheba. Come Back, Little Sheba Woodward won many beauty contests as a teenager. She allegedly snubbed late actress Susan Oliver in 1957 though they had once been friends. She majored in drama at Louisiana State University, then headed to New York City to perform on the stage. Woodward's first film was Count Three and Pray, in 1955. She continued to move between Hollywood and Broadway, eventually understudying in the New York production of Picnic with another young actor, Paul Newman. The two were married in 1958. By that time, Woodward had starred in The Three Faces of Eve, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She and Newman first starred together that year in The Long Hot Summer, one of many collaborations. The last movie they appeared in together (to great acclaim) was Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, which earned Woodward her last Oscar nomination. Woodward has continued to act on stage, films and television. In 1990, she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College alongside her daughter, Clea. She and Newman live in Connecticut, and are involved in liberal politics, but are extremely private about their personal lives. Woodward is currently artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse.

Academy Awards Nominations


- 1991 - Nominated Best Actress in a Leading Role - Mr. and Mrs. Bridge
- 1974 - Nominated Best Actress in a Leading Role - Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams
- 1969 - Nominated Best Actress in a Leading Role - Rachel, Rachel
- 1958 - Won Best Actress in a Leading Role - The Three Faces of Eve

Other awards

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. She is the first performer to have a star on the Walk of Fame. It was laid on February 9, 1960.

External links


-
- [http://www.thegoldenyears.org/woodward.html Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Joanne Woodward] Woodward, Joanne Woodward, Joanne Woodward, Joanne Woodward, Joanne Woddward, Joanne Woodward, Joanne

1930

1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday.

Events

January-February


- January 6 - The first diesel-engine automobile trip is completed (Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City).
- February 18 - While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
- February 18 - Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in an airplane and also the first cow to be milked in an airplane.

March


- March 2 - Mohandas Gandhi informs British viceroy of India that civil disobedience would begin nine days later
- March 5 - Danish painter Einar Wegener goes through a sexual reassignment surgery and takes the name Lili Elbe
- March 6 - first frozen foods of Clarence Birdseye go on sale in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA
- March 12 - Mohandas Gandhi sets off to a 200-mile protest march towards the sea with 78 followers to protest the British monopoly on salt - more will join them during the Salt March that ends in April 5
- March 28 - Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara
- March 29 - Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler
- March 31 - The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next forty years

April-May


- April 5 - In an act of civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi breaks British law after marching to the sea and making salt.
- April 6 - Hostess Twinkies are invented.
- April 21 - Fire in Ohio State Penitentiary near Columbus kills 320
- April 22 - The United Kingdom, Japan and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty regulating submarine warfare and limiting shipbuilding.
- April 28 - The first night game in organized baseball history takes place in Independence, Kansas.
- May 4/May 5 - Mohandas Gandhi is arrested again
- May 15 - Aboard a Boeing tri-motor, Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess (the flight was from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois).
- May 17 - French Prime Minister André Tardieu decides to withdraw the remaining French troops from the Rheinland. They depart by June 30
- May 20 - Sergei Eisenstein arrives in New York City
- May 24 - Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).
- May 30 - Sergei Eisenstein arrives in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures - they part ways by October

June-August


- June 9 - Chicago Tribune journalist Alfred Lingle is shot in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Newspapers promise $55,000 reward for information. Liddle is later found to have had contacts to organized crime
- June 17 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
- June 17 - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans mass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
- June 21 - One-year conscription comes into force in France
- July 7 - Lapua Movement marches in Helsinki, Finland
- July 7 - Building of the Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam) is started.
- July 13 - The first soccer World Cup starts: Lucien Laurent scores the first goal, for France against Mexico
- July 26 - Charles Creighton and James Hargis of Missouri begin their return journey to Los Angeles - driving 11 555 km using only a reverse gear. The trip lasts the next 42 days
- July 30 - Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 in the first soccer World Cup Final
- July 31 - The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.
- August 7 - Richard Bedford Bennett becomes Canada's eleventh prime minister.
- August 9 - Betty Boop premiers in the animated film Dizzy Dishes.
- August 12 - Turkish troops move into Persia to fight Kurdish insurgents
- August 27 - Military junta takes over in Peru

September-December


- September 6 - Josef Felix Urileu makes a successful military coup in Argentina
- September 8 - 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.
- September 12 - Wilfred Rhodes end his 1110-game first-class career by taking 5 for 95 for H.D.G. Leveson Gower's XI against the Australians.
- September 14 - National socialists win 107 seats in German parliament - 18.3% of all the votes makes them second largest party
- September 16 - overthrow of Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina.
- October 5 - British Airship R101 crashed in France en-route to India on its maiden voyage.
- October 24 - Brazil - Revolution of 1930 by Getúlio Dornelles Vargas
- November 1 - William Joseph Dess is born in New Castle, PA to Joseph and Mary Dess.
- November 2 - Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
- November 25 - An earthquake in the Izu Peninsula of Japan kills 223 people and destroys 650 buildings
- December 2 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy.
- December 19 - Merap volcano erupts - 1300 dead
- December 24 - In London, Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his devide to project pictures to the clouds
- December 28 - Mohandas Gandhi leaves for Britain for negotiations

Unknown dates


- British White Paper demands restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine
- Rafael Leónidas Trujillo takes over in the Dominican Republic
- The Federal Bureau of Narcotics replaces the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit.
- Walther Bothe and H. Becker discover the neutron.
- Abkhazia and Georgia, autonomous republics of the Soviet Union, are merged.
- The University of Queensland starts the pitch drop experiment.
- Jake paralysis outbreak occurs in United States.

Births

January-February


- January 2 - Julius LaRosa, American singer
- January 20 - Buzz Aldrin, American pilot and astronaut
- January 23 - Derek Walcott, West Indian writer, Nobel Prize laureate
- January 26 - John Straffen, British serial killer
- January 29 - Bobby Bland, American singer
- January 30 - Gene Hackman, American actor
- February 27 - Peter Stone, American writer (d. 2003)
- February 28 - Leon Neil Cooper, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

March


- March 3 - Heiner Geißler, German politician
- March 6 - Allison Hayes, American actress (d. 1977)
- March 6 - Lorin Maazel, French-born conductor
- March 7 - Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon
- March 10 - Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist and composer
- March 15 - Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- March 17 - James Irwin, astronaut (d. 1991)
- March 19 - Ornette Coleman, American musician
- March 22 - Pat Robertson, American televangelist
- March 22 - Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist
- March 24 - David Dacko, first President of the Central African Republic (d. 2003)
- March 24 - Steve McQueen, American actor, film director, and producer (d. 1980)
- March 25 - John Keel, American author
- March 26 - Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- March 27 - David Janssen, American actor (d. 1980)
- March 28 - Jerome Isaac Friedman, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- March 30 - John Astin, American actor
- March 30 - Rolf Harris, Australian-born entertainer
- March 30 - Peter Marshall, American game show host

April


- April 3 - Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany
- April 8 - Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma, French-born fascist
- April 10 - Pertti "Spede" Olavi Pasanen, Finnish television personality (d. 2001)
- April 11 - Anton LaVey, American religious leader (d. 1997)
- April 15 - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland
- April 16 - Herbie Mann, American jazz flutist (d. 2003)
- April 21 - Silvana Mangano, Italian actress (d. 1989)
- April 25 - Paul Mazursky, American director and writer
- April 29 - Jean Rochefort, French actor

May-August


- May 4 - Roberta Peters, American soprano
- May 8 - Heather Harper, Irish soprano
- May 9 - Joan Sims, English actress (d. 2001)
- May 10 - Pat Summerall, American football player and broadcaster
- May 15 - Jasper Johns, American painter
- May 19 - Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright (d. 1965)
- May 21 - Malcolm Fraser, twenty-second Prime Minister of Australia
- May 22 - John Barth, American writer
- May 22 - Harvey Milk, American politician and civil rights activist (d. 1978)
- May 31 - Clint Eastwood, American actor, director, and producer
- June 2 - Charles Conrad, astronaut (d. 1999)
- June 8 - Robert Aumann, German-born mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics
- June 9 - Monique Serf, French musician (d. 1997)
- June 12 - Jim Nabors, American actor, musician, and comedian
- June 17 - Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)
- June 22 - Yuri Artyukhin, cosmonaut (d. 1998)
- June 27 - Ross Perot, American billionaire and politician
- July 2 - Carlos Menem, President of Argentina
- July 3 - Carlos Kleiber, Austrian conductor (d. 2004)
- July 4 - George Steinbrenner, baseball team owner
- July 11 - Harold Bloom, American literary critic
- July 15 - Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French literary critic (d. 2004)
- July 25 - Maureen Forrester, Canadian contralto
- July 25 - Murray Chapple, New Zealand cricket captains (d. 1985)
- August 1 - Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist
- August 5 - Neil Armstrong, astronaut
- August 12 - George Soros, Hungarian-born businessman
- August 17 - Ted Hughes, English poet (d. 1998)
- August 21 - Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (d. 2002)
- August 25 - Sir Sean Connery, Scottish actor
- August 30 - Warren Buffett, American investor

September-December


- September 3 - Cherry Wilder, New Zealand author (d. 2002)
- September 7 - King Baudouin I of Belgium (d. 1993)
- September 25 - Shel Silverstein, American author, poet, and humorist (d. 1999)
- September 26 - Fritz Wunderlich, German tenor (d. 1966)
- September 30 - Ray Charles, American singer and musician (d. 2004)
- October 1 - Sir Richard Harris, Irish actor (d. 2002)
- October 5 - Anne Haddy, Australian actress (d. 1999)
- October 5 - Pavel Popovich, cosmonaut
- October 5 - Reinhard Selten, German economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 6 - Hafez al-Assad, President of Syria (d. 2000)
- October 8 - Tōru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (d. 1996)
- October 10 - Yves Chauvin, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 10 - Harold Pinter, English playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
- October 11 - Sam Johnson, American politician
- October 17 - Robert Atkins, American nutritionist (d. 2003)
- October 28 - Bernie Ecclestone, English auto racing tycoon
- October 30 - Timothy Findley, Canadian author (d. 2002)
- November 14 - Edward White, astronaut (d. 1967)
- November 16 - Chinua Achebe, Nigerian writer
- November 24 - Bob Friend, baseball player
- December 1 - Joachim Hoffmann, German historian (d. 2002)
- December 2 - Gary Becker, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- December 6 - Daniel Lisulo, Prime Minister of Zambia

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977) was an Academy Award winning American actress. Trained as a dancer, she was signed to a contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in the mid 1920s and groomed to play flappers. As her popularity grew she was cast in numerous movies in which she played hardworking young women who eventually found romance and success. These "rags to riches" stories were well-received by Depression era audiences; women, particularly, seemed to identify with her struggle. By the end of the decade she had become one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars, and one of the highest paid women in the U.S. Moving to Warner Bros. in the early 1940s, Crawford won an Academy Award for her performance in Mildred Pierce and achieved some of the best reviews of her career over the following years. In 1955, she became involved with PepsiCo, the company run by her last husband. After his death in 1959, she was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors and was forcibly retired in 1973. She continued acting regularly until the 1960s when her performances became fewer, and by the mid 1970s she became a recluse.

Early life

She was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, the third child of Thomas E. LeSueur (1868-1938) and Anna Bell Johnson (1884-1958), who was of Irish and Scandinavian descent. Her older siblings were Daisy LeSueur, who died as a very young child, and Hal LeSueur. Her father, who was born in Tennessee, was of distant French Huguenot extraction. His ancestors immigrated from London, England, in the early 1700s to Virginia, where they lived for several generations. LeSueur was said to have abandoned the family in Texas; Crawford later said she had been only a few months old when her father left. Her mother later married Henry J. Cassin (born 1867). The family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma, where Cassin ran a movie theater. The 1910 Comanche County, Oklahoma, Federal Census, enumerated on April 20, shows Henry and Anna living at 910 "D" Street in Lawton. Lucille was then 5 years of age. For most of her life, Crawford maintained that she was born in 1908. It has been generally accepted, however, that she was born earlier. Some believe she was born in 1904, but her brother, Hal, was born in September 1903, making a birth for Crawford only 6 months later impossible. As birth records for San Antonio are not available for years earlier than 1908, and in the absence of a birth certificate, her year of birth has been estimated to be 1905 based on the April 1910 census when she was 5. [http://www.genealogymagazine.com/joancrawford.html] Lucille preferred the nickname "Billie," and she loved watching live acts of vaudeville perform on the stage of her stepfather's theater. Her ambition was to be a dancer. Unfortunately, she cut her foot deeply on a broken milk bottle when she leapt from the front porch of her home in an attempt to escape piano lessons and run and play with friends. A neighbor, Don Blanding, who became a poet, carried her into the house and phoned the doctor. She was unable to attend elementary school for a year and a half and eventually had three operations on her foot. Demonstrating the steely determination that would serve her for the rest of her life, she eventually overcame the injury and returned not only to walking normally, but to dancing as well. In about 1916, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Henry Cassin was first listed in the City Directory in 1917, living at 403 East Ninth Street. While still in elementary school, she was placed in St. Agnes Academy, a Catholic school in Kansas City. Later, after her mother and stepfather broke up, she stayed on at St. Agnes as a work student. She then went to Rockingham Academy as a work student. And in 1922 she registered at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and gave her year of birth as 1906. She attended Stephens for less than a year, however, as she recognized that she was not academically prepared for college at that time.

Career

1906 She began her career as a dancer in a chorus line under the name Lucille LeSueur, eventually making her way to New York. In 1924, she signed a contract with MGM, and arrived in Culver City, California, in January 1925. Starting out in silent movies, she worked hard to ensure that her contract with the studio would be renewed. Studio chief Louis B. Mayer was unhappy with her name, reportedly saying that "LeSueur" sounded too close to "sewer." A contest in the fan magazine Movie Weekly was the source of her well-known stage name. The female contestant who entered the name "Joan Crawford" was awarded $500. Though Crawford reportedly detested the name at first, saying it sounded like "crawfish," and called herself JoAnne for some time, she eventually became used to it. She was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, along with Mary Astor, Mary Brian, Dolores Costello, Dolores Del Rio, Janet Gaynor, and Fay Wray. Crawford studied diction and elocution to rid herself of her Southwestern accent. Her first talkie was Untamed (1929). During the 1930s, she was "Queen of the MGM Lot," and was best-known for her steamy pairings opposite Clark Gable in eight movies. Eventually, her movies began to lose money and she was one of the unfortunate stars to be labeled "box-office poison," along with Katharine Hepburn and Fred Astaire, among others. After appearing in numerous productions at MGM, Crawford's contract was terminated by mutual consent on June 29, 1943. In lieu of one more movie owed under her contract, she paid the studio $100,000. That same day, she drove herself to the studio and personally cleaned out her dressing room. She signed with Warner Bros. for $500,000 for three movies and was placed on the payroll July 1. July 1 She received the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Mildred Pierce (1945). Mildred Pierce was a huge hit for Warners and greatly expanded her status as a star. In the movie, Crawford played opposite a stellar cast, including Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Butterfly McQueen. Director Michael Curtiz and producer Jerry Wald developed the property specifically for Crawford from the popular James M. Cain novel, which was adapted for the screen by Ranald MacDougall. In what may have been a publicity stunt, Crawford was "ill" the night of the Oscar ceremony and the award was delivered to her home, where she rallied for the cameras. A photograph of her in bed wearing a negligee, holding her award, was widely published in newspapers. She was later nominated for Oscars for Possessed (1947), opposite Van Heflin and Raymond Massey; and for Sudden Fear (1952), the movie that introduced co-star Jack Palance. Joan Crawford acted in 81 motion pictures over the course of her career. She also worked in radio and television.

Marriages

In 1929, at the time she wed her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford bought a mansion at 426 North Bristol Avenue in Brentwood, midway between Beverly Hills and the Pacific Ocean, which was her primary dwelling for the next 26 years. Over the years, she had her home decorated and redecorated by William Haines, her former silent movie co-star and lifelong friend, who was much in demand as an interior designer after receiving Crawford's recommendation. She had four husbands: actors Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (married June 3, 1929 in New York, divorced 1933), Franchot Tone (married October 11, 1935 in New Jersey, divorced 1939), and Phillip Terry (married July 21, 1942 at Hidden Valley Ranch in Ventura County, California, divorced 1946); and Pepsi-Cola president Alfred N. Steele (married May 10, 1955 in Las Vegas, Nevada). Crawford moved to a lavish apartment, number 22-G in the Imperial House, in New York with her last husband, Alfred Steele. He died there on April 19, 1959. She then sold her Brentwood mansion and stayed on in New York, although she kept a small apartment in Los Angeles for her frequent trips there.

Adopted children

She adopted six children, according to L.A. Times articles from the time, though she kept only four. The first was Christina (born June 11, 1939). Crawford was a single, divorced woman when she adopted her in 1940. The second was a boy she named Christopher Crawford (born April 1941). She adopted him in June of that year. In 1942, his biological mother found out where he was and managed to get him back. The third was an eight year old boy she named Phillip Terry, Jr. (born 1935). She and Terry adopted him in April 1943, but did not keep him either. The fourth was Christopher (born October 15, 1943). She and Terry adopted him that same year, and he remained her son after she and Terry divorced. (According to Christina, Joan changed this second Christopher's birth date to October 15 because she was afraid he would also be taken away.) The fifth and sixth were twin girls Cynthia "Cindy" Crawford and Cathy Crawford (both born January 13, 1947). Crawford adopted them in June of that year, while she was a single woman. (According to Christina, Joan called them twins but they were not. Cindy and Cathy both dispute that claim. According to them, they are twins born in Dyersburg, Tennessee, to an unwed mother who died seven days after their birth. They said that Crawford was afraid their biological parents might try and get them back and would therefore say they were not twins. Their version is consistent with newspapers reports at the time of their adoption.) There was a movie based on Crawford's relationship with her daughter, Christina; Mommy Dearest, a movie that portrayed her as an abusive, greedy, skl;fd

Religion

Crawford was raised Catholic; her stepfather, Henry Cassin, was said to be Catholic, although he and Anna were ultimately divorced, and Crawford insisted on marrying her first husband in the Catholic Church. She later became a Christian Scientist.

Work at Pepsi

Besides her work as an actress, from 1955 to 1973, Crawford traveled extensively on behalf of husband Al Steele's company, PepsiCo. Two days after Steele's death in 1959, she was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors. She was forcibly retired from the company in 1973 at the behest of company executive Don Kendall, whom Crawford had referred to for years as "Fang." She was the recipient of the Sixth Annual "Pally Award," which was in the shape of a bronze Pepsi bottle. It was awarded to the employee making the most significant contribution to company sales.

Final Years

board of directors In the late 1950s Crawford's career slowed down: movie after movie saw her relegated to menial roles. She made a surprising comeback in the highly successful What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), directed by Robert Aldrich, which cast her as a physically disabled woman in conflict with her demented sister, played by old rival Bette Davis, whom she detested. Similar roles in the handful of low-budget horror movies that followed rounded out a film career that spanned more than forty years and included performances in more than eighty films. Her final appearance on the silver screen was a 1970 flop horror film called Trog (film). Crawford's appearance as the blind, but ruthless, Claudia Menlo on an impressive 1969 TV episode of Night Gallery titled Eyes marked one of Steven Spielberg's earliest directing jobs. In 1970, she was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award on the Golden Globes, which was telecast from the Coconut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by John Wayne. She also spoke at her "alma mater", Stephens College in Missouri, from which she had never graduated. Her book, My Way of Life, was published in 1971 by Simon and Schuster. In September 1973, she moved from apartment 22-G to the smaller apartment 22-H in the Imperial House. Her last public appearance was September 23, 1974, at a party honoring her good friend and fellow former movie star, Rosalind Russell, at New York's Rainbow Room. On May 8