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Bessie (film)
''Bessie'' is a 2015 HBO TV film about the American blues singer Bessie Smith, and focuses on her transformation as a struggling young singer into "The Empress of the Blues". The film is directed by Dee Rees, with a screenplay by Rees, Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois. Queen Latifah stars as Bessie Smith, and supporting roles are played by Michael K. Williams, Michael Kenneth Williams as Smith's first husband Jack Gee, and Mo'Nique as Ma Rainey. The film premiered on May 16, 2015. By the following year ''Bessie'' was the most watched HBO original film in the network's history. The film was well received critically and received four Primetime Emmy Awards, winning for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie, Outstanding Television Movie. Synopsis Bessie Smith (Queen Latifah) is a young singer from Chattanooga, Tennessee. She and her siblings are orphaned when their parents, William and Laura, die, leaving their oldest sister, Viola (Khandi Alexander), to raise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dee Rees
Diandrea Rees (born February 7, 1977) is an American screenwriter and director. She is known for her feature films ''Pariah (2011 film), Pariah'' (2011), ''Bessie (film), Bessie'' (2015), ''Mudbound (film), Mudbound'' (2017), and ''The Last Thing He Wanted (film), The Last Thing He Wanted'' (2020). Rees has also written and directed episodes for television series including ''Empire (2015 TV series), Empire'', ''When We Rise'', and ''Electric Dreams (2017 TV series), Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams''. Rees is the first African-American woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for ''Mudbound''. She has also received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, Outstanding Writing and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, and won the Directors Guild of America ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Zanuck Company
The Zanuck Company (formerly The Zanuck/Brown Company) is an American motion picture production company. It is responsible for such blockbusters as '' Jaws'', ''The Sting'', '' Cocoon'', ''Driving Miss Daisy'', ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' and ''Alice in Wonderland''. History The Zanuck/Brown Company In 1972, after a successful partnership at both 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, left to form their own production company, The Zanuck/Brown Company. Later that year, Zanuck/Brown signed a five-year production deal with Universal Pictures. In 1974, Zanuck/Brown produced ''The Sting'', starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Robert Shaw. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In 1975, Zanuck/Brown produced '' Jaws'', directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. The film, which won three Academy Awards, became the first summer blockbuster. It was number 1 at the box of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hammond (producer)
John Henry Hammond Jr. (December 15, 1910 – July 10, 1987) was an American record producer, civil rights activist, and music critic active from the 1930s to the early 1980s. In his service as a talent scout, Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th-century popular music. He is the father of blues musician John P. Hammond. Hammond was instrumental in sparking or furthering numerous musical careers, including those of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Big Joe Turner, Fletcher Henderson, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Freddie Green, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Russell, Jim Copp, Asha Puthli, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mike Bloomfield and Sonny Burke. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues artist Robert Johnson's music. Early years and family Hammond was born in New York, christened John Henry Hammond Jr., although both his f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucille Bogan
Lucille Bogan (née Anderson; April 1, 1897August 10, 1948) was an American classic female blues singer and songwriter, among the first to be recorded. She also recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. Music critic Ernest Borneman noted that Bogan was one of "the big three of the blues", along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Many of Bogan's songs have been recorded by later blues and jazz musicians. Many of her songs were sexually explicit, and she is generally considered to have been a " dirty blues" musician. In 2022, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Life and career She was born Lucile Anderson, the daughter of Gussie and Wylie Anderson. According to some sources, she was born in Amory, Mississippi, but according to her entry in the 1900 census her birthplace was Birmingham, Alabama. In 1914, she married Nazareth Lee Bogan, a railwayman, and gave birth to a son, Nazareth Jr., in either 1915 or 1916. She later divorced Bogan and married James Spencer. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States, the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. Among the countries with the most unemployed were the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Weimar Republic, Germany. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the "Roaring Twenties". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation, such as on the stock market, contributing to growing Wealth inequality in the United States, wealth inequality. Banks were subject to laissez-faire, minimal regulation, resulting in loose lending and wides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rum-running
Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. The term ''rum-running'' is more commonly applied to smuggling over water; ''bootlegging'' is applied to smuggling over land. Smuggling circumvents alcohol taxes and outright prohibition of alcohol sales. Alcohol smuggling today In the United States, the smuggling of alcohol did not end with the repeal of prohibition. In the Appalachian United States, for example, the demand for moonshine was at an all-time high in the 1920s, but an era of rampant bootlegging in dry areas continued into the 1970s. Although the well-known bootleggers of the day may no longer be in business, bootlegging still exists, even if on a smaller scale. The state of Virginia has reported that it loses up to $20 million a year from illegal whiskey smuggling. The Government of the United Kingdom fails to collect an estimated £900 million in taxes due to alcohol smuggling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, Reconstruction in the devastated South. Various historians have characterized the Klan as America's first Terrorism, terrorist group.Fergus Bordewich. (2023). ''Klan War: Ulysses S Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction''. Penguin Random House The group contains several organizations structured as a secret society, which have frequently resorted to terrorism, violence and acts of intimidation to impose their criteria and oppress their victims, most notably African Americans, Jews, and Catholics. A leader of one of these organizations is called a Grand Wizard, grand wizard, and there have been three distinct iterations with various other targets relative to time and place. The first Klan was established in the Reconstruction era for me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Music Group, an American division of multinational conglomerate Sony. Founded in 1889, Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, along with Epic Records, RCA Records and Arista Records. History Beginnings (1888–1929) The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded on January 15, 1889, by stenographer, lawyer, and New Jersey native Edward D. Easton (1856–1915) and a group of investors. It derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a local monopoly on sales and service of Edison ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Swan Records
Black Swan Records was an American jazz and blues record label founded in 1921 in Harlem, New York. It was the first widely distributed label to be owned, operated, and marketed to African Americans. Founded by Harry Pace with W.C. Handy, Black Swan Records was established to give African Americans more creative liberties. Black Swan was revived in the 1990s for CD reissues of its historic jazz and blues recordings. History Black Swan's parent company, Pace Phonograph Corporation, was founded in March 1921 by Harry Pace and was based in Harlem. The new production company was formed after Pace's music publishing partnership with W. C. Handy, Pace & Handy, had dissolved. Black Swan, which sought to specialize in classical recordings, served as an investment opportunity for the Talented Tenth. As recognized by Thomas Brothers, "luminaries like Jack Nail and James Weldon Johnson served on the Black Swan board of directors", and ''The Crisis'', the journal then edited by W.E.B. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee's List of municipalities in Tennessee, fourth-most populous city and one of the two principal cities of East Tennessee, along with Knoxville, Tennessee, Knoxville. It anchors the Chattanooga metropolitan area, Tennessee's fourth-largest metropolitan statistical area, as well as a larger three-state area that includes southeastern Tennessee, northwestern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. Chattanooga was a crucial city during the American Civil War due to the multiple railroads that converge there. After the war, the railroads allowed for the city to grow into one of the Southeastern United States' largest heavy industrial hubs. Today, major industry that drives the economy includes automotive, advanced manufacturing, food and beverage pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primetime Emmy Award For Outstanding Television Movie
This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, which has been awarded since 1992. The category was originally called Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special. In 1991, Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special category was merged with Outstanding Miniseries category to form Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special and Miniseries and the number of nominations increased from five to six. For this year, two miniseries had competed with four "made for television movies". The following year, 1992, the new category was split to re-form the Outstanding Miniseries and Outstanding Made for Television Movie categories. In 2011, the category was merged with the Outstanding Limited Series category to create the Outstanding Miniseries or Movie category. However, in 2014, the decision was reversed, and the separate Miniseries and Television Movie categories were reinstated. Rules were also changed in 2019 requiring at least a 75-minute runtime for movie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primetime Emmy Awards
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Owned and operated by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime Emmys are presented in recognition of excellence in American prime time, primetime Television in the United States, television programming. The award categories are divided into three classes: the regular Primetime Emmy Awards, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards to honor technical and other similar behind-the-scenes achievements, and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards for recognizing significant contributions to the engineering and technological aspects of television. First presented in 1st Primetime Emmy Awards, 1949, the award was originally referred to as simply the "Emmy Award" until the International Emmy Award and the Daytime Emmy Award were created in the early 1970s to expand the Emmy to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
